Big Bad Visa Monster

[Dianna Vesta]

Nov 15th is right around the corner and IPSP’s scramble to meet deadlines. Pay Pal launched its subscription platform only this year. Epoch rises after a turbulent shake down. CCBill is getting a bad rap and rumor is that Globill isn’t paying people.

It seems like the third party processing game is about to get very interesting. Who will survive? Why and why not?

Also, how do you see the future or processing and online billing? Is your company using third party or do you have your own gateway? Do you use more then one bank?

Who’s gonna die?

[art]

Originally posted by Dianna Vesta@Nov 7 2002, 02:37 PM
It seems like the third party processing game is about to get very interesting. Who will survive? Why and why not?

I think it's going to be an anticlimax.

When the dust settles and all the forms are filled in, some smaller webmasters will feel the pain. In some cases the scrub will be turned up a bit, and it will be business as usual again.

I don't see any of the bigger IPSPs going under because of this. They will lose some smaller webmasters, that's all. I'm moving away from Paycom, but they surely won't miss processing my $13k/month..

Greetings,

Art

[sharky]

Hmm. speak of the devil:

Dear iBill Client

After further review by Visa regarding the new Internet Payment Service Provider regulations, you will no longer be required to pay the $750
registration fee. Visa regulations still necessitate iBill to register all of their sponsored merchants, making it mandatory for you to complete the registration from.

[MissEve]

hmmm, I wonder if Epoch will announce anything? I think they were supposed to deduct the $750 from this weeks payouts but they didnt, my wire was for the full amount.

[Mike AI]

What is up with that Sharky??

I wonder if this is only for IBill? Or if it is applied to everyone.

Maybe this is a money grab of some sorts...

[Almighty Colin]

Art,

I agree with you.

[Dianna Vesta]

Holy cows! It's a marketing frenzy to the deadline!

Going once, going twice...

BAM

CCBILL says they'll GIVE you 750 to move!

Do I hear 1000?

We need to get these people over here posting.

[Nickatilynx]

Call me a mind reader...but I think one of the big boys of processing is gonna be here soon

[Dianna Vesta]

Originally posted by Nickatilynx@Nov 7 2002, 06:39 PM
Call me a mind reader...but I think one of the big boys of processing is gonna be here soon

Good job! I think they all need to come and end some of these mysteries. I don't see anywhere at Ibill where that statement is made.

can we get an Oprano interview?

[cj]

sharky, when did you get that email?
I'm just doing the registration at the moment and haven't seen that notice yet

Looks a little suss ... the big 3 get together to JOINTLY rescue the industry, agree on a procedure, then ibill turns around and pulls the $750 fee at the last minute ... i guess the big 3 don't want to help each other at all ;-)

dianna, is this for real or are you being funny?
>>CCBILL says they'll GIVE you 750 to move!

jesus guys, make up your freaking minds ... this procedure is hard enough as it is!!!

[Mike AI]

I am thinking the same thing CJ....

Does the right hand know what the left hand is doing?

[cj]

Does the right hand know what the left hand is doing?
---

the right hand is thwacking the gadget and the left is fucking webmasters up the ass ... its all very straightforward!

[rand]

Hmmm... Maybe Nickatilynx does have psychic power.

Rand here from Epoch.

First let me say that I don't think any of the major IPSP's are going to have any adverse side-effects coming out of the new Visa reg's other than loss of some of the smallest programs. I can personally say that 98-99% of our entire business is registered. We are very happy about that.

I think what ART said is exactly right, except for the part about moving away from Paycom. We would definitely hate to see you go, ART, and if there's anything you need from us to keep your business right where it is please let me know. We want everyone's business. If you don't use us for a primary, you should at least have us as a back-up. What can we do for your program?

As for the registration fee, that goes for all domestic (U.S.) IPSP's for every and for every sponsored merchant using their services. If any program is telling you that you don't have to pay it, well, the IPSP must be paying it for you. I guess that's a good way to get a lot of small programs to come your way. I would think you would want your processing wherever you make the most money, despite the fee or lack of. Moving processors can be costly in itself. Whatever you decide to do, you should pick a processor based on how it affects your business. How much of your money do you get to keep? How are your credits and chargebacks? Etc......

MissEve, the registration fee will come out of your next payout.

Epoch, Ibill, and CCBill worked together to insure that there was the least amount of confusion as possible regarding the registration process as there was little time to accomplish what needed to be done. It was an unprecedented move and I hope that the unified voice helped webmasters to make clear informed decisions about how to handle their business.

There is a lot of misinformation out there. The initial round of registration is complete. Registration will, of course, continue. But those with recurring Visa transactions should have already registered.

--Rand at EPOCH

[Mike AI]

Thanks for the update and heads up Rand!

[rand]

My pleasure Mike. Guess I haven't posted here in a while. (Been busy with Visa registration and all). I had to register to post and everything! Kinda cool though! I really like the format.

One more thing guys, if you have any questions about the new Visa reg's or about how Epoch can help you make more money, write to visaregs@paycom.net. And here's some info we put up online:

1) The Visa Reg's FAQ
http://paycom.net/visaregfaq/

2) "Tips for Registration"
http://www.epochsystems.com/regtips/

3) To register, proceed to
https://www.epochsystems.com/visaregistry


--Rand

[Nickatilynx]

Rand,

Thks for clarifying and being available.

OK...Mystic Nick's next prediction is:

Tomorrow I believe that Serge and Brad Shaw will kiss and make up.


(OK forget that.Its never happening. I'll quit whilst I'm ahead)

[sharky]

MikeAI & CJ -

That was sent to me by a friend that uses ibill. I wonder what the heck is going on. It sounded like Visa was rethinking the fee.. but Rand above says it's not true... well what is it??? is ibill covering the fee to keep others from moving away?


:-)

[cj]

is ibill covering the fee to keep others from moving away?
---

i just finished my registration less than 8 hours ago, and it still said 'choose how you'd like to pay the $750 fee' ...

The only options it shows for not paying the fee don't allow you to process using visa ...

hmmmmm, curiouser and curiouser!!!

[Dianna Vesta]

Originally posted by cj@Nov 7 2002, 07:02 PM
sharky, when did you get that email?
I'm just doing the registration at the moment and haven't seen that notice yet

Looks a little suss ... the big 3 get together to JOINTLY rescue the industry, agree on a procedure, then ibill turns around and pulls the $750 fee at the last minute ... i guess the big 3 don't want to help each other at all ;-)

dianna, is this for real or are you being funny?
>>CCBILL says they'll GIVE you 750 to move!

jesus guys, make up your freaking minds ... this procedure is hard enough as it is!!!

Kidding- I can't find the thing about Ibill. I think it's gossip.

I'll do your processing if you move to my account and give me 30%! lol

[Epoch]

From GFY

http://gofuckyourself.com/showthread.php?s...&threadid=86953

Originally posted by iBill-Cathy
All, iBill is required by Visa to charge the $750 to all high risk sponsored merchants. Adult digital content is
considered high risk by Visa. All non-high risk clients (non-adult digital content, tangible good merchants)
are not required by Visa to pay the fee, but are rquired to register as a sponsored merchant.

Clay

[sharky]

Hmm.

Like I said, It was sent to me from a friend.

[Winetalk.com]

Originally posted by Nickatilynx@Nov 7 2002, 09:49 PM
Rand,

Thks for clarifying and being available.

OK...Mystic Nick's next prediction is:

Tomorrow I believe that Serge and Brad Shaw will kiss and make up.


(OK forget that.Its never happening. I'll quit whilst I'm ahead)

Nick,
I kissed KK,
it's more than enough,
one kiss per family only
;-))

...but Brad can kiss my hairy russian ass any time
;-))

[Nickatilynx]

Careful what you wish for Serge

[bpj]

One thing I can tell everybody..... WTS will survive the big, bad Visa monster! Why take any chances with your Check revenues??? This is ONE part of your income that CAN be protected!

FYI, for CC processing, I personally use Epoch and Jettis. Is there still risk using them? Yes! Is it a lower risk than the rest? You betcha....
I've known Clay and Kjell from day one and give them the BEST chances on getting through these times unscathed!

ACHdebit.com - The LEADER in ACH processing!

[Mike AI]

BPJ I think checking will become a bigger part of everyones business.

You guys should come up with some clever marketing devices that us webmasters can use to help motivate customers to use checks. I know you have mentioned some in the past, but a step by step in depth explaination and pointers on a website that we casn check out and emulate would be great.....

[Nickatilynx]

Mike,

I agree.Its something I personally would be very interested in exploring.I have tried to put some traffic towards it with not my success.

I KNOW this is a revenue strream that I'm missing out on through no fault of ach debit,the blame rests solely with my lack of ability to market in this area.

But I desperately want to learn

Perhaps ,Mike, you would allow bpj a marketing workshop/thread somewhere on your boards?

www.telecheck.com

Bottom line is anyone who has a credit card MUST have a checking account (in the US.) The only problem is guaranteeing those funds, and until TeleCheck somehow decides to accept adult (won't happen) the industry should investigate their technology and try to come up with something comparable. I was told by 3 different places at one time or another 'we're working on a guaranteed funds check solution' but have yet to see a thing.

C.

[wig]

Cal,

Guaranteed check solutions are nothing but math and merchant ignorance. The merchant should do the same math.

It is all about throughput. ACH Debit does not charge its' merchants for returned checks, so the question becomes how much throughput do you want to limit in order to reduce returned items (bad checks).

The answer is simple because I have already done the math. If you want to use our TOAST fraud prevention system where we utilize StarCheck, Experian, EpicWare and all our proprietary fraud screening, you are going to eliminate a lot of good transactions with the bad. I can reduce your returns substantially if you want, but do you gain or lose??

We can even initiate two ACH credits to the consumer's account (for pennies like 38 and 43 cents) and then make them use these numbers as a pin code to verify the account. Same with email validation where the transaction is not accepted until the email is received and verified through a pin code.

The problem is, in the adult marketplace, you are dealing with impulse and anomynity. People are not going to provide you with the correct info. The result is you lose way more good transactions producing a net loss.

Since we do not charge for returned items, our adult merchants are better keeping the pipe fully open. The math works here, too. Only a newbie who is worried about bandwidth and someone getting some free access complains. Otherwise, it makes economic sense. They have simply not done the math.

WTS has all the bells and whistles available, and we utilize these extensively in the non-adult marketplace -- especially where tangible products are involved. It's all a question of what you want.

Here is a link where we have put together some info that may provide some addilitional information.

http://www.achdebit.com/sales/study.html

I also would be glad to participate in a thread on this and I know bpj would, too.

Well I hope you're not calling me ignorant! <_<

But I'll put that aside, my question to you would be, in that case:

How does telecheck GUARANTEE funds!

Quote from their site (this is from the internet services page not their terminals):

"It’s guaranteed - No more returned checks. TeleCheck assures payment on all warranted transactions. We handle the fraud screening, risk management and related customer service."

One big plus is of course, they're First Data (the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain), but I don't see ACHDebit offering to take a $40 hit for the 10-20+ percent of transactions which result in refunds/revokes through the average check processor on the internet.

I don't know how their internet terminal works because we haven't set it up on our sites yet (we will, I shall report findings when complete) but since their terminals simply slide a check and report findings in a matter of seconds to a retail store, it's fair to guess that they don't have crazy pincode systems for internet acceptance. My guess is they're just tied into all the big networks and they have access to your bank records (?) so they know and can verify funds regardless. Please feel free to enlighten me.

C.

[wig]

Cal,

Sorry, it was not aimed at you. Guaranty companies simply do the math. In other words, they take the amount of monetary loss expected by the merchant and then they charge a fee per transaction that covers that plus a bit more. It's risk analysis.

Scanning checks to get the MICR data and then doing a real-time check via StarCheck, SafeCheck, etc. is exactly what they are doing. We can do the same thing. Like I said, it is all about the throughput.

The only difference in your illustration is that the ABA and account number are captured at the point of sale. The MICR data is scanned / read and there is no room for error (ie leading and trailing zeros, check numbers, etc) like there is on the web.

There are also rules on what can be done at the POS and in non face-to-face enviornments (similar to credit cards). In other words, check guaranty in a non face-to-face enviornment is more expensive than the retail POS.

Trust me when I say that if I or any other company is going to guaranty your checks, we are going to charge you in a way that we are not going to lose money.

No doubt they are, I'm not arguing it. I'm just saying TeleCheck (via First Data) probably can tap into everyone's personal records without much problem, no? I mean they do handle the bulk of the nation's credit transactions, I doubt it's too hard for them to get any tidbit of info on you they want, short of your medical records.

Telecheck is $1 per transaction I believe, I could be wrong but that is what I was quoted a few months ago.

Just trying to make some sense of the madness!

C.

[cj]

excellent thread so far ... thanks for the info guys ;-)

[wig]

Cal,

I cannot compare ourselves to telecheck. The fact is, we are talking about a niche market. One that telecheck is not involved in, nor do they have pricing / programs for and one that we specialize in.

Tapping into personal records doesn't mean shit when the guy puts mickey mouse as his name, 1234 main as his address and 555-555-5555 as his phone BUT puts in a good ABA and account number.

I have done the math. My merchants have done the math. Ask Python, Cybererotica, etc. Since we do not charge for the returned checks, but rather eat that fee to allow the merchant maximum throughput, it is in the ADULT merchants best interest.

Fine print and math is sometimes a bitch, but it always is what matters.

Originally posted by wig@Nov 9 2002, 02:59 PM
Tapping into personal records doesn't mean shit when the guy puts mickey mouse as his name, 1234 main as his address and 555-555-5555 as his phone BUT puts in a good ABA and account number.

Well isn't that the whole point of tapping into personal records? To verify name and address and not give the customer any deniability?

I'm not bagging on your company here, or saying you have a bad product in any way. I agree that if I had a membership site I'd use a system like yours and be fine with it. Just saying if someone out there is doing 1 thing, why can't others investigate. I'm sure you have, and you say that your system is the best you can do. That works, I'm just questioning if there's anything better we can do as an industry to open up other revenue streams.

C.

[wig]

Originally posted by Cal+Nov 9 2002, 06:29 PM-->