EPOCH/Paycom - Responds to inquiries regarding iBi

rand · 09-22-2004

We are being inundated with phone calls, ICQs and emails asking for our comments on today's events in the New York Courts concerning iBill. iBill's lawyers have confirmed that iBill's emergency motion was denied. According to First Data , iBill's account at First Data is closed, and the papers iBill filed with the court state that "iBill is now left without any credit card processor, and it is unable to continue servicing its customers."

Clay Andrews, Joel Hall and I do not take any joy in today's developments. When the news became official, we stopped being a competitor and started thinking about what advice we should give our clients and the Webmaster community.

First, we want to reaffirm our position that every program should have a back-up processing agreement. We have advocated this for years, and we have recommended Jettis or CCBill as a backup to EPOCH/Paycom. Look around at the largest, most successful and historically serious players in our industry. You won't find any of them without an account at EPOCH/Paycom and CCBill. Today's events are proof that being prepared is appropriate in all things - especially this business. When we were informed of First Data's plans to exit this space nine or ten months ago, EPOCH/Paycom moved to another bank and processor months before our First Data agreement ended.

Next, there are rumors about offshore solutions being made available to adult webmasters. It is our strong opinion that Visa will terminate any Sponsored Merchant that has a URL registered with an Internet Payment Service Provider ("IPSP") in the U.S. and also processes offshore. If that happens, those URLs may not be able to process anywhere in the Visa network. Therefore, if any Sponsored Merchant that does business with Paycom (or any of their URLs) is found to be processing through a merchant account or IPSP that authorizes and/or settles transactions outside of a Visa U.S.A. registered high risk merchant bank, we will terminate processing and suspend payments. This must be done to protect our merchant account and our clients. This has been our policy all along.

We have also seen posts about so-called "stand-in processing." Please be careful. "Stand-in" is fine for collecting card data if you are warehousing information, but unless you have a Merchant Account you cannot get a valid authorization, you cannot settle a transaction and you cannot get paid. We urge you to be extremely careful where you send your traffic. It is not smart to send your traffic to a join form that cannot complete your sales in real-time, and possibly not at all.

Everyone here at EPOCH/Paycom is available to answer questions or to help in any way we can. Our switchboard is open 24 hours a day as is our Tech Support group. Please feel free to call on us at any time. We remain dedicated, 100%, to the Adult Webmaster community.

09-22-2004	#1
rand Members Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Marina del Rey Posts: 91	We are being inundated with phone calls, ICQs and emails asking for our comments on today's events in the New York Courts concerning iBill. iBill's lawyers have confirmed that iBill's emergency motion was denied. According to First Data , iBill's account at First Data is closed, and the papers iBill filed with the court state that "iBill is now left without any credit card processor, and it is unable to continue servicing its customers." Clay Andrews, Joel Hall and I do not take any joy in today's developments. When the news became official, we stopped being a competitor and started thinking about what advice we should give our clients and the Webmaster community. First, we want to reaffirm our position that every program should have a back-up processing agreement. We have advocated this for years, and we have recommended Jettis or CCBill as a backup to EPOCH/Paycom. Look around at the largest, most successful and historically serious players in our industry. You won't find any of them without an account at EPOCH/Paycom and CCBill. Today's events are proof that being prepared is appropriate in all things - especially this business. When we were informed of First Data's plans to exit this space nine or ten months ago, EPOCH/Paycom moved to another bank and processor months before our First Data agreement ended. Next, there are rumors about offshore solutions being made available to adult webmasters. It is our strong opinion that Visa will terminate any Sponsored Merchant that has a URL registered with an Internet Payment Service Provider ("IPSP") in the U.S. and also processes offshore. If that happens, those URLs may not be able to process anywhere in the Visa network. Therefore, if any Sponsored Merchant that does business with Paycom (or any of their URLs) is found to be processing through a merchant account or IPSP that authorizes and/or settles transactions outside of a Visa U.S.A. registered high risk merchant bank, we will terminate processing and suspend payments. This must be done to protect our merchant account and our clients. This has been our policy all along. We have also seen posts about so-called "stand-in processing." Please be careful. "Stand-in" is fine for collecting card data if you are warehousing information, but unless you have a Merchant Account you cannot get a valid authorization, you cannot settle a transaction and you cannot get paid. We urge you to be extremely careful where you send your traffic. It is not smart to send your traffic to a join form that cannot complete your sales in real-time, and possibly not at all. Everyone here at EPOCH/Paycom is available to answer questions or to help in any way we can. Our switchboard is open 24 hours a day as is our Tech Support group. Please feel free to call on us at any time. We remain dedicated, 100%, to the Adult Webmaster community. __________________ --Rand Epoch Paycom Paycom EU