[RawAlex]

I have seen a few discussions around about how bad the last couple of weeks have been all over the place.

There is plenty of speculation, including that the World Cup is eating into sales (as people spend less time online for porn, more time online for, well, football).

My personal opinion is that at different times, cc processors hit a wall for various reasons, including chargebacks and the like. They have to work hard to remain in their windows, and as such, they sometimes have to turn the fraud detection up to 11, trying to avoid any chargebacks during a period.

There has been plenty of shakeout as a result of Visa stopping cross billings of sorts, and also issues with offshore Visa acquiring banks. I can't help but thinking that the processors are busy trying to cough up a major hairball on this one.

All speculation, as none of the processors would admit anything at any time.