Business question for all.

[RawAlex]

Bill, you have to remember that the adult online industry has a few choke points, and one of them is billing. Most companies are dependant on only a few different billing options, CCBill, Epoch, Netbilling, etc. These companies in one form or another process much of the adult industry.

So if one of them isn't processing as well as usual, your sales drop like a rock. The more dependent you are on one or the other, the more likely you are to feel the pain when the slow down.

Why do they slow down? Well, there are many theories. First and foremost, if their overall chargeback rate goes up, or fraudulent sales get too high, they are forced to scrub harder. While I haven't had it confirmed, some processors block out entire countries or regions at times to manage risk. They can also become extremely fussy about material on the submit page matching the cardholder information, leading to issues. It has also been suggested (but never proven) that some processors have limits to the transactions (dollars or number) that they can process in a period, and that the scrub is adjusted to keep them within these boundries.

Further, on the other side, many card issuers are hesitant to allow for online purchases at all, and often decline perfectly good cards with all valid information to "protect their clients". As banks become more concerned with credit limits and tighten things down, they are also looking to limit their risks. Online purchases (especially via known porn processors) is a risk.

You also have to remember that many people are pushing their card limits these days. Rebills are a little harder to get done.

There are plenty of reasons, but if you are depending much on one processor, don't be shocked if sometimes it goes very cold indeed.