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A lot of companies use the calendar year for their fiscal year. If someone were being hit in a week from now, and knew they were going to keep getting hit ... or someone wasn't hit, but they can see it coming hard the next month and there after ... what a perfect time to close shop all nice and neatly but on December 31st, instead of opening up the books for '04 for just a few weeks or a couple months. (Not to mention why go to Vegas a few days later.)
I think that's the basis of the January Theory. At least that's the basis of it as I see it. B) |
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I had always liked CCBill's 'vscrub' or whatever it was where you can use their scrub for your own merchant account ... they hang onto the card numbers but the merchant account still gets the protection. Could somebody please fast forward to 2005? I'm so bored with processing :angry: |
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Hellpuppy...
Somebody just said prepaid again...hehehe.. Now Aint that some shit? |
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we scrubbed against our own database, if they were ok we sent them on to any of various processors.... lol...and if they bombed at a processor we sent them to another one and another and another and ........... and if all else fails..... There is always Guatemala......... :yowsa: |
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All of the ones I've seen after that have fleas... |
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kk, what was/is the name of the company who maintains that shared negative database?
i think ibill used it. |
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The world's largest database of misspelled addresses. :bjump: |
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The world's largest database of misspelled addresses. :bjump:[/b][/quote] Actually I thought they were using a service. SGS is one of the FDR processing arms, people are still using them today. |
Maybe trial joins have outstayed their welcome?
Is this technically possible? What about having paysites serve up different join pages to different IP #'s... so that people with a history of cancelling after the trial period are served with a join page that only has full membership option available and everybody else gets the trial option? This would only work with static IP's and has some inherent flaws but if its easy to do..... why not do it? Paysites who work closely together could share the IP information from each of their db's. Anyhow, the billing model needs an overhaul sometime in the near future. |
The trial system may very well get an overhaul Monk, and it does need one imo.
If you think about the cost of a trial to everyone in the chain of the process, some parts of the chain are losing money. Now when things are good and people are paying the cc bills and the interest I guess its not that big of a deal... but when times get tight and the bottom line starts to shrink, that's when the banks are going to realize where they are flat out losing money. Visa can't say don't take transactions for under X amount of dollars to my knowledge but they sure can create some regs that will make it way more costly to do so by the acquirers and in the end the merchants. |
KK, pure theoretical question...
what would happen with the industry if somebody buys the company all 3rd party processors go thru, like Ibill, PayPal were aquired, and new owner decides to get rid of adult? |
thats blasphemy serge!
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If and when it happens, I'll point you in the right direction, Meat is not the only one who is working on the solution BEFORE the shit hits the fan ;-))) |
no, he is not..... :awinky:
( not that I know what meat is working towards ) |
would it shock you if i told you that we alraedy solved chargeback problems with our nonadult merchant account?
it's not brain surgery. |
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..and no, my plan doesn't involve money in envelopes. :yowsa: |
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Actually there are only a couple of US banks left that will touch adult and the EU options are very quickly disappearing with the departure of Deutschebank and some similar. The banks don't like high risk, not just adult, mainly because a very few make good money at it and everyone else still shares in the risk and the cost. To get into processing adult now, a bank has to have 100 million in Tier 1 capital for starters, and there arent that many who find adult to be a business they like with the money to play... One can only hope that Visa gets what its after so the noose will stop tightening. I guess we will see. |
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Wouldnt that be a logical way to go, and might even reduce costs on both ends. |
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Wouldnt that be a logical way to go, and might even reduce costs on both ends.[/b][/quote] My accountant made that suggestion 5+ years ago when I explain the business to him. Don't forget, I hear checks are still available for billing customers...... B) |
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Wouldnt that be a logical way to go, and might even reduce costs on both ends.[/b][/quote] It wouldn't honestly matter Slav if someone did own a bank. The associations are made up of all the banks and they have a very 'majority rules' attitude. You want the acceptance of Visa and Mastercard, right now you have to take Visa and Mastercard. Amex won't touch us, Discover/DC/CB etc aren't widely used enough to keep the market share, and there's not much going to change in the next year or so at minimum. |
The only thing guaranteed in business is change.
Predictions are predictions, nothing more, nothing less. No one can say for sure what the future holds except its most always filled with something new and different. Stay light, flexible and prepared to change and adapt on a moments notice and you'll be able to dance. |
A few points if You allow me :D
1. There are no adult acquiring banks other than FDMS in USA now at all. There used to be Humbolt, RedWood and FDMS. Humbolt recently closed all adult merchant accounts. I heard that Redwood did the same. Not sure if it's true. You can always get an adult merchant account for Your site in a small bank in USA somewhere where You leave where You got friends and there are plently of examples, however I think they just dont code it as adult and thus violate the rules of VISA/MC. It will work only as long as Your turnover is small. 2. DeutscheBank has not quit on adult. PAGO has quit on adult. PAGO is a huge processor, daughter of DeutscheBank. However PAGO is not the only way to get to DeutscheBank. Morover there are at least 3 more acquiring banks in Germany and most do take adult. The difference is as usual, for PAGO You could have applied with just an EU company which includes simply offshore for non residents jurisdictions such as UK, for Deutschebank and other acquirers You got to be really German to apply. By the way it's a very common story in Europe. Although VISA rules require the acquiring bank to deal with companies only in it's VISA region (which is EU) most european acquiring banks will deal only with companies located not only in the same region but in the same country as well where the acquirer sits. So if You want to become a client of Euroline.Se for example which seem not to have any problems with adult You'd have to become swedish. Which is NOT easy. 3. One of the problems behind the fact that only a few acquiring banks are OK with adult at the moment is a very simple fact - the existance of third party billers. Like Ibill, CCBill and Epoch. Acquirers SMELL trouble. On contrary to what is being said all the time these companies along with a few non-adult third party billers like 2checkout.com are non compliant with current VISA/MC regulations. According to VISA and MC there is simply no such thing as third party billing. What does exist though is a difficulty without too much exposure to close down giants like Ibill, CCbill and Epoch or PayPal. The problem lies within a simple fact that though these companies violate the credit card companies bylaws they are not violating real life laws. In this case with a proper amount of money it may become very difficult to close such a company down. That is the reason behind IPSP regulations in USA and the fact that at this time only the biggest third party billers survived. And that is not for long as well. The problem is NOT that these companies operate against rules of VISA or MC. For the correct amount of money its no problem to change the rules You know. Always been so. The problem is that third party billing is against common sense. Let me explain. The number 1 thing of importance in financials is liability. So to say "who gets blamed when something goes wrong?" Because in the world of financials something may always go wrong. Suppose Mustafa in Saudi Arabia purchases 3 day trial membership for www.fuckingelephants.com through www.fuckingbill.com which is against for example the holy book of Koran since fucking elephants in an unholy act according to the book. The secret service of Saudi Arabia according to the civil law there finds Mustafa and cuts off his penis and kills all of his relatives. Who is to blame? Obviously the site owner FuckingElephants.com whos responcibility is to be sure that whatever he sells is ok where he sells it. However site's owner Ivan Ivanov obviously doesnt give a fuck for poor Mustafa and has a nice vacation spending Mustafas money. And nobody is able to find Ivan as long FuckingBill.com says they got no fucking idea who Ivan really is and where he is and the funds went to Ivan's offshore bank account in the bank of Alaska. The next thing which happens with FuckingBill.com is that they close down the office, run and have excellent time somewhere on Seychelles. Therefore the question goes who the fuck allowed FuckingBill.com to work without any serious background info check on Ivan? The question of course goes to the acquiring bank. However the acquiring banks UNLESS it's forbidden by VISA rules tells everybody to go fuck themselves with all questions and suggest to ask VISA why it is allowed to use their system in such a way and to accept third party billing companies. So who's to Blame? In the end they blame VISA. So that is what I call against common sense. Because in real life in finances there's always liability. If You process moneys of a third party You are supposed to be licensed to do it and therefore You are allowed by law to do it because the law insures that if You have license than You keep appropriate records of whom You deal with. And that is the difference. 4. Even if Epoch, CCBill and Ibill combine their efforts they will not have enough funds to build a bank in USA or Europe. They are not even close to be big enough for it in established countries. To form one or to buy one. Banks in solid regions like EU or USA are the most solid business one can find. Therefore it's the MOST expencive. There is a rumour that a VERY VERY small bank in Switzerland is for sale now. Price is half a billion USD. Epoch, CCBill and Ibill make only around 3% or so of profit from the turnover. If the turnover is around 2 billions for all of them the overal profit is about: 60 millions per year. I suspect much less by the way. Further, VISA and MC will not grant a new bank processing license in EU or USA. In third world countries the VISA/MC rules are different and chargeback regulations apply to the processor itself as well, if the processor goes over 0.35% it is looking at trouble. And in third world its impossible to fight it - You just loose VISA/MC processing license the next day and that's it. 5. If I were You I would start thinking how to profit on adult without rebills. Because that's the next thing which is going to happen. Visa introduced a new protocol 3D Secure, You saw already a light version of it called Verified by Visa. All banks in the world slowly migrate to this protocol at this moment. The protocol cuts at least half of the chargebacks but its very difficult to run rebills with it. 6. As soon as Ibill , CCBill and Epoch will go down than the situation will become better. Prior to this moment no acquirer would try doing anything to simplify the procedure of opening direct merchant accounts for merchants because all OK porn sites (non extreme, based in USA or in EU) worked with Ibill, CCBill and Epoch. Out of 10 adult merchant accounts applications which go to acquiring banks who allow processing of adult 9 are probably from people who do not qualify for Ibill, CCBill and Epoch. Which basicly means trouble more or less. Well...it was so a year or two ago. And three years ago prior to IPSP regulations You may imagine what kind of people looked for their own merchant accounts. :-) The banks had NOTHING good left for them. At this moment the situation is changing. People realise where the processing is coming to, time will pass and banks will move along. |
P.S.
All major billing companies have fucked so many acquirers already that it doesnt help at all. :D Problem is acquirers KNOW EACH OTHER. It's a very small business. They exchange experience and stuff like that. The only country in world where there are a lot of acquirers is USA. There is no other country like it. Why? Because in USA Visa made a tactical mistake - they didnt limit the amount of processors. In the business where the service between competitors is the same (You cant have a good or a bad processor, the credit card either gets processed or not) the only thing left for competition is prices. Therefore the cheapest processing one can find is USA. After that stuff VISA started to limit the amount of acquirers in other countries so that the profit stays higher cause the prices or processing are higher. For example as opposed to USA where there are 60 I think or so acquirers: In Netherlands there are only 3 acquirers. Only 1 is e-commerce capable. In Germany - 4 or 5. In Norway - 1 In Denmark - 1 In Russia - only 3 are capable of e-commerce transactions out of 8. In UK (headquarters of EU e-commerce) - 7 or so. Now lets see ON RUMOURS. I will NOT say that this information is correct and I pass it as it was passed to me. I will not name big or average size billing companies who still operate because I have no wish to interfere with their business, just some notes for Your info. In Netherlands - at least 2 or 3 billing companies has numerously fucked the only acquirer present there (Globosale for example processed lolita transactions there, Dutchbilling didnt even check for CVV2). In Germany - PAGO was fucked by all big billing companies who promised heaven on earth and brought hell. In Norway - VisionBill was even listed on www.visa.no till poor vikings realised VisionBill does not sell exactly BOOKS. :rolleyes: In Denmark , in a SACRED COUNTRY FOR ADULT TRANSACTIONS because other than Holland it's the only place left in EU where adult is 200% legal, the only acquirer (PBS) was fucked by one of the big 3 companies You know as long as several years ago for tens of millions of USD. In Russia - all 3 e-commerce capable processors , solid as rock, beleive it or not, were fucked by SunBill/BillCards , SiteKey and a few more lolita billing companies. In the end a hell of chargebacks came along with authorities (no wonder heh? :D ). In UK - nobody it seems was fucked. British are smart dudes! The problem with these companies , third party billers, is that they make huge bucks on processing and they will do ANYTHING to keep it this way. Every trick in the book. |
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welcome redeye ... I hope you will stick around in the oprano gumbo - in 2 posts you brought more flavor than the entire gfy influx! thank you for the lesson - very interesting reading ;-) I had a meeting this morning with an sms billing provider & my mind was spinning from numbers after that conversation ... one thing is for sure, NOBODY can predict what will happen a year from now & its going to be a rough ride finding out!! |
You see, the situation is very interesting.
Look at facts: Out of 8 or 9 billing companies which were closed in August more than 6 have been operating with a merchant account which didnt even belong to them. Speak about rules! None of those companies stayed even close to chargeback regulations or comply with even FUCKING SIMPLE VISA AIS (EU) /CISP (USA) security recommendations (which require 2 firewalls and 2 separate servers for accepting cards). By the way , You got to realise one very interesting thing, according to the technology or processing it is impossible to calculate chargebacks for credit card associations in relation to the sales period. Therefore chargebacks are applied to the exact month when they actually came. For example if You have made 100 000$ in December out of which You got 2% of chargebacks originating from these sales, however chargebacks mostly come in 3 monthes. So You get them in February. If in February Your volume is 200 000$ You are looking only at 1% of chargebacks. That's probably the reason of PSW conflict with ECB-Leumi. I am very sorry if I am wrong, it's just pure guessing, but I will NOT be suprised if I am correct, ECB guys realised that the real chargeback ratio of PSW is over 2% or more however they kept growing volume so the actual chargeback ratio on paper indeed stayed below allowed by the contract regulations. What were they supposed to do then? So look what happens: VISA and MC are not able to close down completely third party billers because that is very difficult to do with all the publicity which obviously is going to be a living hell and....VISA technically is not able to DISCRIMINATE in business. Which means that if VISA closes down Ibill it is supposed to close down 2Checkout.com as well. Try closing THEM down, they dont do adult You know. If VISA does not close down Ibill, CCBill and Epoch than technically others including new companies are supposed to be able to run billing companies as well. So what VISA does is the only thing possible - slowly making the rules worse and worse in order to force clients out of them without being prosecuted immediately for monopoly or whatever else. Because as soon as normal clients will go looking for merchant accounts banks themselves will evolve cause these clients are good enough to work with. And that is exactly what is going on now. Hope I was helpfull and sorry for my english. :-) |
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:-) Just trying my best. |
interesting reading RedEYe
thank you and welcome to Oprano, hope you stick around ! |
Absolutely excellent points....and likely not far off the mark at all.
These are the types of things that I think we all know deep down, but dont like to think about too much. The entire business model is going to need to change ultimately. Long over due in my opinion. And another thing that needs to change is remove anonymity. Most of the scams on the internet occur because the person perpetrating whatever the scam is has the ability to remain anonymous and still profit. You eliminate a fair amount of fraud by getting rid of things like automatic instant signup for affiliates. Some basic verification should be performed....mail the signup code to a physical address if need be. |
well... In Russia we solved the affiliates problem relatively easy.
Its difficult to control who the resellers are...So dont do it too much. :-) Let it be done by somebody else. Somebody who has to do it to survive - i.e. control where You send the moneys. Because any fraud doesnt make sense if You cant cash what You stole. What we do - we dont send money to cashing unfriendly online banking systems. You see, it's easy to even have an anonymous real bank account because it is always possible to fake personal documents and get a bank account registered on a fake personality. However it is relatively difficult for a 15 year old crazy hacker fucker. And serious guys from the fraud niche who have all the anonymous banking they need, they wont fuck with several signups on a partnership program. However there are systems out there which allow young dumb fucks to cash their funds anonymously. Examples: Webmoney in Russia. E-Gold in USA. So the answer is very easy - dont send money there. There are solutions like that which are friendly to the adult webmaster community who will probably always help You if You have a frauder in Your system, block his account, get his private info. Stop him from frauding others. Examples: E-Passporte (in USA) Fethard.biz (in Russia) |
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he has a vested interest in his investment ;-)))) |
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he has a vested interest in his investment ;-))))[/b][/quote] and that IS so true....I just cant object! :D |
Redeye,
Welcome to Oprano. Some good reading there :) |
I absolutely agree with you Redeye, the issue is not for the most part adult content but rather the factoring without any sort of accountability that is going on. I know it totally horrifies Visa.
I don't see the total shutdown of the industry soon, but I do think negative option rebilling will have to go. If any other business did this it would be a scandal, and in fact negative option billing is actually illegal in Canada and some other countries. Are all the processors (except Verotel) using Bank of Leumi in the EU right now? :bjump: |
whats negative option billing ?
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You if You have a frauder in Your system, block his account, get his private info. Stop him from frauding others.
************************************************ for some reason, when I read this written by Russian, it has MUCH MORE subtle meaning than if it was written by American ;-))) get his private info. Stop him from frauding others. the Russian way :-) http://cotac.com/clow.jpG |
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The Leumi is used at this moment only by Ibill and CCBill as far as I know. Have no idea about Epoch. |
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