Babenet Scams....

[Mike AI]

piecash, capitolbucks, sexpromote, liquidbucks, orgasmcash, etc are all front ends for Babenet's processing and such.

is this a scam? How do they get away with it? Is babenet going to help bring down credit card processing for online porn?

How do they get away with it?

[slavdogg]

i've been waiting for someone to bring this up
amazing how many programs are selling the same thing

Mike, dont forget your advertisers xbucks.com plus pinkpays.com, matrixbucks.com and many more..

[sharky]

have you sent to any of these programs mike?

I have sent to piecash.... did well with it in the beginning, however it seems their counting has dropped quite a bit lately.

I was going to start sending to orgasmcash and possibly liquidbucks, but am a little concerned now.

???

[Mike AI]

Yeah Slav, I do not know them all.... they seem to be popping up every week.

Do you think other webmasters know this? Seems like babenet is doing this to mislead webmasters and surfers.... and maybe VISA?

[Brad Mitchell]

I'll make sure have my popcorn handy to see how this thread fares tomorrow...

Brad

[Mike AI]

Brad no need for popcorn, I do not think the thread will go anywhere... a lot of people do not care, or are too chicken to say anything.

babenet, is a 800lb gorilla.... and many people rely upon them for business.

[*KK*]

The Orgasm guys are in Canada Mike, they might be using a lifetimebucks setup, but they are not the same company. The rest I really don't know about so won't comment about.

I will say this tho -- no one company is going to bring down processing. Several, working in parallel lines, perhaps, but one, no.

[Hooper]

I'm suprised this hasnt been brought up before. I think you left out at least 20 more companies using their processing.

I stay away from them. They dont convert well enough for me to justify fucking the surfer that hard.

[Lensman]

Their strategy is amazing. But I didn't know that orgasmcash was one of theirs. But you're forgetting http://www.lifetimebucks.com

[Shann]

hey it works for us! We are a totally different company, a lot of companies (no gonna name names) have actually offered to let us use their back ends, this is nothing new, slightly more obvious that's all.

And Sharky I loved your traffic, I'll hit you up on icq and we can talk.

[Toolz]

I don't see any difference to this compared to the ARS Build Your Own Tour system. You create an affiliate program with sites in it, determine what you're gonna pay your webmasters and find somewhere to sell those members too. There's probably 20+ companies doing this right now. Is it a bad idea? Well yes and no, no because maintaining massive members areas can become quite expensive. Yes because you have no control over your numbers and don't know how many actual processing attempts you're getting, thus you have to rely on the Babenet backend to be your stats program as the webmaster program. Thus creating 2 possible links where signups can fall through the cracks. As far as it destroying our industry I see a lot worse things coming from companies not using them for a backend. I've used several of the programs using them for backend processing and noticed fairly consistent sales.

[sextoyking]

I Hear Plat. bucks is converting real well lately.


I had to change the subject you know ))

[slavdogg]

Originally posted by Hooper@Feb 11 2003, 12:17 AM
I stay away from them. They dont convert well enough for me

same here Hooper !

[Mutt]

Mike i've posted on GFY about the scam these Babenet fronts are fueling.

And if you're a webmaster making money off their scam, and can't see that what they are doing is wrong, immoral, and illegal then I dunno.

[Mutt]

Toolz, how can you compare ARS to the Babenet operation?
Have you gone through their signup process?

[slavdogg]

Originally posted by Mike AI@Feb 10 2003, 11:31 PM


Do you think other webmasters know this? Seems like babenet is doing this to mislead webmasters and surfers.... and maybe VISA?

Mike, i dont think its done to mislead anyone
If it is they're doing a bad job at it, after all everything goes through legalnudeteens.com or one of the other sites. As far as misleading surfers, i'v seen full disclosures on all sign up / credit card pages on the same screen. Its your bad if you cant read. Thats no different than you selling a trial membership or a 1 month membership expecting the surfer not to see or know that its a recurring membership.

As Lensman said it is an amazing strategy in many ways i would say, but you might not be looking at it from a right perspective

I see it as growing lifetimebucks.com horizontally though 20 dif programs.
At the same time selling a 40$ membership and paying out about $40.

Why some programs are paying out $30 and others 45$ i dont know, they all look the same to me.


Bottom line they dont convert better than normal sites with a paid trial.

[GregP]

Bottom line they dont convert better than normal sites with a paid trial.
-------------------------------------------------------
I disagree, I have done mailings for alot of companies and by far the best converting sites have been our own and others using similar backends.

[Carrie]

Maybe they set up a program like yourpaysite.com - which is basically the same thing as the ARS BYOT proggy. You build the tour and call it whatever you want, they provide the processing and the backend. You get $x per signup.

[Mike AI]

Do you think we can build a definitive list of all the "programs" who are using babenet back ends? I think it would help the community make more informed choices.

Also toolz, I think the ARS system and babenet are a little different. ARS is run by ethical, top notch people. Babenet has alway been very slimy... and continues to be so to this day.

[Hooper]

I think people are putting too much thought into how it functions.

You build a one page tour (say a teen tour) and the form at the bottom posts to legalnudeteens is all, with your code and the affiliate's code. You get like 45 or 50 bucks, pay the affiliate who sent you the traffic less.

[Mike AI]

Hoop, I think we all understand how it works.

But programs setting themselves up as seperaste, independant programs are merely resellers for babenet. This is a typical MLM setup....

The problem is when babenet keeps fleecing all the surfers, it starts bulding up issues where surfers get burned and this leads to compalints, and lower conversions for everyone.

Also if babenet bites the bullet, then all the "programs" in the pyramid would go down as well.

I personally prefer to send traffic to programs that stand on their own, manage all of their work, which gives them incentives to make things happen anddo things right.

Could be a reason we never had good conversions with any of the programs above.... heck, they should not even be called programs, more like resellers, or affiliates, or something.

[Platinum Dave]

As someone said earlier I am surprised this issue was not brought up long time ago.

How easy it for someone to start an affiliate program when all you need is pay site designs and babenet backend.

I dont like it either, I am sure this will play out in the next few months.

Hey Guys,

Razoractive here from OrgasmCash.
Here's the deal with the Babenet situation, right now OrgasmCash is currently working with multiple companies and if you were to go through our program you would see that.
We are working with several others on the back-end because we are sharing merchant accounts to do processing.

What you guys/gals should do is look at our testimonials @ http://www.orgasmcash.com and see what our webmasters are saying about us.

Razoractive

[GregP]

As someone said earlier I am surprised this issue was not brought up long time ago.

How easy it for someone to start an affiliate program when all you need is pay site designs and babenet backend.

I dont like it either, I am sure this will play out in the next few months.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
That's Funny Dave , Why do you send us traffic then??

[Winetalk.com]

Originally posted by Platinum Dave@Feb 11 2003, 11:21 AM
As someone said earlier I am surprised this issue was not brought up long time ago.

How easy it for someone to start an affiliate program when all you need is pay site designs and babenet backend.

I dont like it either, I am sure this will play out in the next few months.

I wouldn't wanna be a surfer who joins the site just to realize it has seen 27 times it already!

[Mike AI]

Serge that is a great point. Imagine if everyone sent surfers to these sites.... it would be the end.

Razoractive, do you really think people of Oprano is going to read the testimonials you have on your webmaster tour? :P Thanks for the big laugh!!!

Razor, what other back ends are you working on? Developing any on your own? You handle the merchant accounts, or 3rd party billing ??

Give us details.....

[Toolz]

Originally posted by Mike AI@Feb 11 2003, 07:40 AM

Also toolz, I think the ARS system and babenet are a little different. ARS is run by ethical, top notch people. Babenet has alway been very slimy... and continues to be so to this day.

Mike I was in no way comparing the way the "operation" is run but the way the Build Your Own Tour system functions is very similar. Webmasters can create their own mini-program and send to one mega-members area. No different than every company out there that let's you send to the join page, no different than them creating a tour and making a webmaster program based around the fact that joins are sent to the join page of say SIC cash, Topbucks, ARS or any other program taking join page hits currently.

[Mutt]

surfer doesn't stand a chance of understanding what he's getting himself into on any of the Babenet sites. Rationalize it all you want, if it happened to your mother while she was buying some other product on the Net you'd be screaming 'THIEF'.

How did this come to pass anyway? Did Babenet put the word out that they were looking for people to work with them?

Go look at the pre-signup page on any of the sites and then follow through to the actual signup page - read it all and if you tell me that is only 'aggressive marketing' you are seeing the world through very dark colored glasses.

[Shann]

I wouldn't want to be a surfer who joins a big affiliate site anyway, they all have the same shit, buy all the same content from eachother, is this news shocking? Every major company buys all the same content, minus the few custom shoots here and there it's all the same. Aside from REAL amatuer sites.

And yes, why is it that is this is such a BAD business model, that so many who complain about it send traffic to it? Anybody ever miss a cheque from PieCash? Anyone ever not get attention when needed? Nope. Anyone complain about being on our exits or getting us to send them mailers? Nope.

Send to who you want to send to, same back ends or not, but if you think babenet is the only company doing it, you'd be very very surprised.

If you dont' want to send us traffic, then don't.

[GregP]

And yes, why is it that is this is such a BAD business model, that so many who complain about it send traffic to it? Anybody ever miss a cheque from PieCash? Anyone ever not get attention when needed? Nope. Anyone complain about being on our exits or getting us to send them mailers? Nope.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Very well said Shann. Did you notice the post from Platinum Dave ?? What a joke.. They have never had a problem with our traffic before , or sending to us

Hey guys,

I think there a lot of people out there that you don't even know about that have front ends to babenets sites. Really I don't see a huge problem there but all I know is that people are happy with our program and were all out to do one thing! MAKE MONEY and HAVE FUN DOING IT!!!!!!!!!!!!

k gotta go and make some money now,

Razoractive is outta here..........

Originally posted by Mike AI@Feb 11 2003, 07:55 AM

Also if babenet bites the bullet, then all the "programs" in the pyramid would go down as well.

I remember "DMR" biting the bullet. And alot of those "programs" in that pyramid went down.

[Mike AI]

Shann, Greg... I do not think anyone is bashing you guys. I have not seen any webmaster saying they did not get paid. You guys do a good job of handling webmasters. Since in reality that is all you guys have to worry about, sine the backend is handled by babenet.

I think webmasters should be educated, and informed on these issues. IT is like processing by third party billers. I like to know who programs process with.... I prefer not to send traffic to programs that use Ibill, and would never use any rev share program that relies upon Ibill.

Webmasters should be informed so they can make good decisions about what is best for their situation.

Personally I have never had any good dealing with babenet, and hence I would like to know which programs are using their back end.

Also if yuu are sending traffic to 3-4 babenet affilaite programs, its kind of cheating yourself with getting signups - since thesame surfer might end up joining the same sites.....

Just trying to educate webmasters here at Oprano....

[Mike AI]

I think there a lot of people out there that you don't even know about that have front ends to babenets sites

Razor I think you are right, that is why I am looking to acertain which programs are part of this. It seems to me that some programs may be hiding their association with babenet.

It seems like babenet is setting up a MLM scheme, and is doing this to hide behind legitiamte webmasters or other good people to get traffic and signups....

Just a matter of putting all your eggs in one basket. If you are sending to 5 different programs and they are all front ends for babenet, you are really not sending traffic to 5 different programs but 1. I do not think webmasters understand this.

In todays environment it is important to send traffic out and not put all your eggs in one basket.... incase the basket collapses you do not get taken out.

[sharky]

Originally posted by Mike AI@Feb 11 2003, 12:04 PM


Also if yuu are sending traffic to 3-4 babenet affilaite programs, its kind of cheating yourself with getting signups - since thesame surfer might end up joining the same sites.....

Actually..
if the sites on the front end are different, it fucks babenet as the user is probably going to cancel the sites.... It wouldn't fuck you unless you are on a revshare.

Then again (and i do not know), if they are doing cross sells out the wazzooo it wouldn't really matter to them.

lol

:-)

Ya babenet has been way better than then trying to wait on epoch to payout.
When epoch is slow it causes the webmaster program to payout slow.
Babenet at least pays on time.

[Mike AI]

LAJeff the point you make is very valid, and something webmasters should be aware of. It is a plus about babenet.

Sharky, come one you know about babenet, you have been around. Do you really think they are going to "loose" on a signup they pay out on?

[RawAlex]

Here is my take and sort of question on the concept:

If each of these programs is using babenet as "processing" and "backend", does that not create alot of risk against Visa? Let me explain:

Babenet is the only one with processing in this whole discussion. Let's say 20 different programs are in fact using babenet as the actual site. Let's say that, for whatever reason, Babenet goes out of compliance with Visa and loses processing.

Suddenly 20 programs when out of compliance at the same time.

Just as importantly, there are people who choose not to do business with certain companies. Without programs totally disclosing the nature of their business arrangements, it would be very likely that someone who doesn't want to do business with babenet, example, might end up using otherwebmasterprogram.com and end up dealing with babenet anyway.

Most importantly, the money to pay the middle men programs comes from somewhere - and hint, I don't suspect it comes out of babenet's piece fo the pie. I'll let you all figure out where that money comes from.

Alex

[Shann]

So the only programs that are "questionable" are ones with Babenet backends and of course no one will send to rev share.

Isnt' using Babenet a great way to get your foot in the door so you can optimize your tours grow your database, nail down eveything THEN maybe start your own backend? I just can't see why all of a sudden this is a major issue.

We are totally upfront about who our back end is, and I've never had anyone tell me "no way, i got babenet issues" and if someone HAS babenet issues what are they? I'm dying to know.

Where are these surfer ethics coming from? Is recurring billing not also questionable technically? They want to buy porn, let em. They dont' care who the back end is. If they dont' like it, they can cancel or charge back. Webmasters get paid from me $40, I don't hear them complaining about their surfers.

[Mike AI]

Shann, I think you are getting the wrong vibe from this.

We are not attacking Piecash. It appears the babenet back end offers a nice setup for new webmasters who want to get into running a program.

But it is not the same as running an 100% independant program.

It is a lot like revshare, where anyone can set up a front end/back end and get affiliates.

I guess the babenet back end is a great way to start a "program" from scratch without a huge investment of capitol.

The pecking order, at least in my mind are programs that do everything themselves. Front end, Back End, etc.....

Then rev share, because they too must run their back ends... of course they need to run the backends and members area REALLY well in order to make sure surfers stay as members and rebill.

Then the people who are only resellers for other peoples backs ends. This is babenet, and I guess ARS on some instances...

It is all a mater of preferance and who each person things can do a better job in maximizing the $$ per click.

It is just there should be another catagory for programs... so webmasters are clear.

PPS Tier 1 Porgrams
Rev Share Tier 1 Programs
Then tier 2 programs which has 3rd party back ends.

I've worked for babenet. In 99 they were fined over a million bucks by visa for their bad business ways. Never updated anything, sold live feeds that were not always live. Customer service guys that acted like the jerky boys.

Can't say much more but after working for them I would never, ever do business with them. All they do is bait and switch.

Pretty funny, no doubt they are still trying to upsell their "live" recorded feeds from 98 up in those sites and paying fat guys to chat.

edit- not sure if my user name conflicts with someone elses... it was not my intention to do so.



Last edited by ollyperv at Feb 11 2003, 10:17 AM

[Mike AI]

ollyperv thanks for the post.

This is the same experiences I have had with babenet as well. I am amazed they are still in businenss.

If you have any more info, would love to hear about it.

[Mike AI]

Shann, Greg, can you guys explain how the babenet thing works?

Is there a place online I can read about it, find out information to see if this is something I would want to set up?

I am curious how they handle payouts to their resellers? Do they send money to piecahs and piecash pays webmasters out? Or does babenet issues checks to webmasters in Piecash's name?

How does chargebacks work?

How do you determine what to pay out? Does babenet payout more based on number of signups?

What about count? Who handles the count of clicks and such? Is it you, or babenet?

Please excuse my ignorance, I am new to this and trying to get my head straight.

I have and always have had a SERIOUS problem with any company that uses multiple front ends for a single member's area.

I had a huge fight with someone from a very large company (that shall remain unnamed now) back in 2000 for running 17 different tours, with all different niches, for one back end.

It is tantamount to fraud in my opinion and tons of companies do it. It's just not right to mislead the surfer in that manner.

If you're advertising a pregnant site, the site should have nothing but pregnant content in it, latin should have latin, ebony ebony, etc. I also object strongly to filler.

It just irks me to no end to see my huge competitors claim that they have 100K pics and a million videos in their latina site, but in reality the latin section contains maybe 10K latin pics and one latin video plugin, the rest is filler from their other sites. And we all wonder why the surfers have become gunshy.

In the redesigns of my site, I've even kept basically the same color scheme in my tours because I don't want surfers joining thinking that they've never belonged to the site before.

I have no problem with multiple tours, as long as they all use the same site name. I plan to have more than one tour now, and I may even change the color scheme on the next one, but it's still going to say Latina Pics all over it.

I get tons of rejoins to my site, but it's not because the guy doesn't remember he ever joined, he comes back because he liked the site. I've had some guys join 10 times over the last 4 years, but they knew what site they were joining. If a reseller of my site wants to build their own tour..fine, as long as they brand it clearly with my site name. Otherwise, it's deceptive advertising. In the real world, the FTC would shut that shit down in a heartbeat.

There is no valid reason to put different site names on tours leading to the same backend. I guess this falls under Nick's famous line, "we only have the morals we can afford", but in the end, it's still a scam.

[Winetalk.com]

http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showthread.p...threadid=106761

sneaker
My posts are basically a brain dump

Registered: Dec 2002
Location:
Posts: 75
Better hope Visa doesn't find out you guys are "sharing a merchant account" when they drop the hammer it hurts. And remember MLM scams are prosecutable.

[KC]

Originally posted by originalheather@Feb 11 2003, 02:19 PM
I have and always have had a SERIOUS problem with any company that uses multiple front ends for a single member's area.

It is tantamount to fraud in my opinion and tons of companies do it. It's just not right to mislead the surfer in that manner.

If you're advertising a pregnant site, the site should have nothing but pregnant content in it, latin should have latin, ebony ebony, etc. I also object strongly to filler.

Heather,

Come on now.... You consider it fraud if a paysite over delivers on it's promises? That's a little extreme.

Providing a great site with a lot of extra content SOME surfers might look at will only increase retention. Do you really think it's fraudulent? As long as the site delivers what the tour says it does for the price the tour says and everything is disclosed properly, I don't see how that's fraud.

KC,

You didn't read what I wrote. I object to sites claiming that they have X number of a certain kind of content when they're counting their filler in the total number.

SOME surfers might look at that other content and if you have a generic site, great, no problem, but if you're advertising a niche, you should tell the surfer on the outside the truth about how much of that niche content you have.

A general site can say they have 200K pics of whatever, it doesn't matter, but it's still misleading for anyone with a niche tour to either claim or insinuate that they have more content of that specific niche than they do.

We all know that there is no preggo, latin, foot or whatever fairly specific niche site that has a million videos of that niche.

Look at the tours of a lot of the niche sites out there..they are misleading at the least, downright fraudulent at the worst.

[KC]

Originally posted by originalheather@Feb 11 2003, 02:48 PM
KC,

You didn't read what I wrote. I object to sites claiming that they have X number of a certain kind of content when they're counting their filler in the total number.

SOME surfers might look at that other content and if you have a generic site, great, no problem, but if you're advertising a niche, you should tell the surfer on the outside the truth about how much of that niche content you have.

A general site can say they have 200K pics of whatever, it doesn't matter, but it's still misleading for anyone with a niche tour to either claim or insinuate that they have more content of that specific niche than they do.

We all know that there is no preggo, latin, foot or whatever fairly specific niche site that has a million videos of that niche.

Look at the tours of a lot of the niche sites out there..they are misleading at the least, downright fraudulent at the worst.

Sorry, I somehow missed that line when I read it the first time.. I would agree that it could be misleading..

There are a lot of misleading things about this industry. I don't see them going away anytime soon either.

[Shann]

Originally posted by Mike AI@Feb 11 2003, 10:34 AM
Shann, Greg, can you guys explain how the babenet thing works?

Is there a place online I can read about it, find out information to see if this is something I would want to set up?

I am curious how they handle payouts to their resellers? Do they send money to piecahs and piecash pays webmasters out? Or does babenet issues checks to webmasters in Piecash's name?

How does chargebacks work?

How do you determine what to pay out? Does babenet payout more based on number of signups?

What about count? Who handles the count of clicks and such? Is it you, or babenet?

Please excuse my ignorance, I am new to this and trying to get my head straight.

Sure you're new! lol

For info on www.piecash.com go there and click on Program Details, that's always a good start.

Do you mean set up your own front ends with Babenet Mike AI? I think you would need to speak to them directly on that if you wanted to go that route.

Piecash pays out twice a month, 5 days after the pay period is over so we payout on the 5th and the 20th. The cheques come from us, Real World Media LLC. Not sure when Babenet pays us, doesn't seem relevant.

There are no chargebacks to the webmaster.

How do we determine what to pay out? Why we picked it out of a hat of course! lol It was predetermined before we launched our program. We payout $40, 1 joins a month or a day. Maybe more for larger amounts of sign ups, it's negotiable. That's our policy. Does babenet payout more based on the number of sign ups? I don't know, I don't work for babenet.

We have our own affiliate program, we track our clicks and joins it's all in our program.

Hope that answers all your questions! I'm going to the gym now, so if being attacked I'll be back in about 2 hours.

I'm also available if you'd like to talk directly on icq 52624206 or email me sales@piecash.com and even aim me trafficqueenxxx

Mwah!

[*KK*]

Babenet is not the first to run backends for other people and they won't be the last. I'm not sure what the big deal is with their setup -- it's similar to an ARS BYOT, somewhat similar to an AVS -- after all, other people are building sites and the premise is that surfers get that site and more content -- a surfer that joins two platinum avs sites from the same vendor gets the same additional content with those avs memberships... I think PMB was one of the first doing a build your own tour type of setup, years ago...

Of course when other people have these types of ideas, and I've seen one really good one that is along the course of Babenet's, I venture to say people won't be bitching nearly so loud since it's someone else handling the backend. But at the end of the day its the same setup.

If you truly believe that ONE company can affect Visa that much, and that company is not an ISPS, you probably have too much time on your hands. If you don't like Babenet, that's fine, say so and go on about your business, but don't get on a soapbox about their business practices which are not so very different from many others.

I haven't paid much attention to their actual signup process, but Visa's got specific rules about what has to go where for the disclosure and Visa's also got a company out surfing adult web sites full time looking for violations -- so if there are that many people using this setup, do you not think that Visa is aware of it... not to mention Babenet's bank?

I am not seeing where this is an MLM either... it's my understanding that Babenet is paying the intermediary, ie Piecash (just using you as an example Shan) and then it's up to the intermediary to determine how much and when to pay the reseller. Babenet in no way guarantees what will be paid to resellers as far as amounts, dates, etc that I've seen in all this...

Just seems to be making a lot of ado about nothing really important.