Questions for Bob from Solar Billing...

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Originally posted by Solar Billing@Feb 19 2004, 08:32 AM
2. How will you allow clients to transfer money to Paypal or Epassporte accounts since there is no transfer between Paypal and Epassporte for fraud control and you dont issue a card like they both do?

ANSWER: We have our own internal fraud control that is designed to eliminate the money laundering possibilities, etc. Once the funds have passed our controls, then we are OK to release them to other systems such as PayPal, a user's bank account, etc. If a person funds their account using a credit card, funds can only go back into that card, so a person can't steal a card, fund an account, and then withdraw it into another card, bank account, etc. That really affects the users more than webmasters, however. Webmasters can withdraw funds to whatever system they choose, or by whatever method they choose. We do plan on issuing a card hopefully within 6-9 months whereby you can withdraw funds from an ATM machine and not even have to worry about those other systems. If I did not understand that question properly, please ask further on it.

3. Exactly how are you going to use Verfied by Visa to do rebills when the surfer is the only person to hold the passkey? Will you notify the consumer each time hes going to be rebilled so he can pass you the number?

ANSWER: As long as the surfer has funds in his account, we don't need the passkey to do a rebill. It will automatically come from his Solar Billing account. If there are insuffucient funds, the system is set up to automatically make an ACH transfer to fund the account.

5. No one is still clear on how your going to port rebills over from CCBill and Ibill accounts. You said that the webmaster would transfer control of those accounts over to you and you would work some kind of port? What about my buddies at Jettis? Are you working with them too?

ANSWER: To be quite frank, the recent IBill developments have shifted our methods a bit, since it appears that they will no longer do adult at all. When exactly that is going to occur, however, I do not know. Apparently soon, though. We DO have a method, however, to take care of that problem, without everyone just getting shut off one day, but I don't really want to discuss it here in detail, for business reasons. Basically, I don't want someone else stealing our idea.

As for CCBill, it is simply a matter of reassignment, where we would take care of the fees that webmasters don't want to pay. In return, the accounts would be consolidated and funneled through Solar Billing, so nobody would lose any current CCBill accounts. We have not done anything with Jettis at this point. I can get into more detail on this as well, if someone wants to speak privately with me, for the same reasons I am reluctant to post our whole market strategy concerning IBill up here.


We tried to bring some real world practicality into the system, rather than just look at it as some adult webmasters trying to run a billing system, since we are much more than that. Those systems, as you know, have all failed because of that. If the system only appeals to one side and not the other, it's no good for anyone. You can't sell anything if there are no customers, and you can't buy anything if there are no merchants. We tried to find a middle ground where both sides would be satisfied, while not blatantly favoring one side over the other. To do otherwise would just lead us down the same road to failure as the other systems, and end up screwing people over once again, and we would ALL be back where we started!

Not to get involved here but a few things are particularly glaring and I would like some further explanation of the answers, please.

Right now, you have no card product, correct?
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Next, on to the Paypal/ePassporte scenarios you are describing. First I dont think you have a grasp of how funding for either of the two works. Paypal is funded from a bank account, or in some merchant cases, the use of someone's credit card in order to make a purchase. ePassporte is funded either via wire for the commercial accounts, or through a credit card for personal accounts. Your system will work with neither, without even bringing up the fraud control issues that are very real, one of the reasons why neither ePassporte nor Paypal accepts cross transactions from the other, nor ever will most likely, under the current banking rules and card association regulations. The fact that they are competitors is irrelevant in this matter, I will point out.
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Next, can you please explain this again?
"ANSWER: As long as the surfer has funds in his account, we don't need the passkey to do a rebill. It will automatically come from his Solar Billing account. If there are insuffucient funds, the system is set up to automatically make an ACH transfer to fund the account. "

What you appear to be saying is surely not what you are saying -- which I read to mean that if a surfers card gets a soft decline, you will initiate an ACH from his bank account to reload his Solar Billing account. Perhaps American Express can get away with something like this, but then again they are Amex and not Solar Billing and they control their own cardholder base exclusively. I am referring to their ExpressPay product for anyone who just got lost in that reference.
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And of course, last but not least, your continued reference to importing databases from IBill and CCBill. Perhaps with all your previous billing experience you have come to realize that IBill and CCBill are the owners of record of those consumer databases, and that site owners do not simply instruct them to move the rebills over to someone else. A few of the larger companies out there have agreements with their processors saying that IF their processor cannot run their transactions for some reason, they will be given access to their database to move it to another legitimate IPSP,
provided the merchant banks who handle the IPSP business agree -- that is the only instance of which I am aware that someone using an IPSP model is allowed to move their database under the current Visa/MC regulations. I would also like to see the statement that IBill made that gives you cause to say they will not be in adult processing any more please. Perhaps you are confusing Intercept and IBill, but surely not, since you must know who's on first and what's going on in the outfield and the locker room?

I'm sure I will have a few more questions based on your replies and after reading your post again, but I just want to be very sure I understand your claims to the adult community, since in my job as a consultant I advise my clients on billing solutions on a nearly daily basis.

Thanks