If your considering copy and pasting your latest drive by spam here because you cant find any other place.
DONT!
Oprano has a ZERO tolerance policy for spam. Yours WILL be deleted. If you are looking for more exposure for your product please contact advertising@oprano.com for more information.
Legacy Archived Main BoardBusiness chat and general industry chat. All participation is welcome. Dont post your fucking spam here.
Originally posted by Nickatilynx@Jan 8 2005, 11:00 AM Merchant accounts need managing , and its not for the faint hearted.
Merchant accounts are the only way to go. You take full control over your own business. Business is not for the faint of heart nick. I have only ever used aggragators as secondary processors and got burned for many thousands of dollars. I am only one among many in that regard.
Originally posted by Nickatilynx@Jan 8 2005, 11:00 AM Merchant accounts need managing , and its not for the faint hearted.
No doubt Nick, I've seen way too many people either try to run fast and loose with the rules or simply haven't got the ability to handle their customer service. But after the IBill situation (among others) I'm wondering how many people would rather have control of their own destiny, so to speak, especially if they had the advice and support to learn how to manage their merchant accounts, especially those that should be able to see bottom line results by gaining the ability.
I haven't done the legwork to setup a merchant account yet, although we're probably the prototypical good candidate for it in adult. Low price points, we dont push the envelope at all with billing tricks, affiliates by invite only and we deliver what we promise. So we have NO chargebacks.
We started down the road with Netbilling a few months back, but waived off for a couple of reasons. First off the lady we were dealing with, although polite, was very obviously a "phone person". Anyone who knows me, knows you need to communicate electronically whenever possible or we're not going to get along. If I ask a simple question in email and you spend all day trying to tag up with me on my phone and never get me my answer, we're not doing business.
That aside, during the same time I learned from GonZo that he needed to make some sort of adjustment to his account with them and couldn't get anything more than a voicemail box to try to get it taken care of.
All these things set off red flags with me. I speculated at the time that they were over loaded from people fleeing iPSPs due to IBill and other issues.
Anyone else using them for a hands on review?
Any other vendors out there helping guide people thru the process of getting their own merchant account? There cant be many banks left in the U.S. who'll touch adult.
Originally posted by rhymer11@Jan 8 2005, 06:56 PM KK managing a merchant account is easy. You set your risk tolerance. You arrange your customer service, call centres and 800 numbers and at the end of the day, you make more money. But the real value is, you control your customer list. CC numbers addresses, rebillings, and if your credit is good no rolling reserve. But if there is a rolling reserve, it is held by an insured bank, not an aggragator. It is a win win situation.
BTW, it also seems that Visa has made it much harder to charge back. I haven't had a charge back in 18 months.
LOL, you do have a tendency to oversimplify things. While that is in some ways how a merchant account works, you've failed to take into account someone with a sizable affiliate program's need to constantly add trans each month and other variables that influence things.
cj hits the nail on the head, and the girls got experience all the way around the block and back with all the potential pitfalls of a merchant account, even if it's not in her name
Actually I have always wondered something about aggragators and I have never seen it addressed anywhere. It seems when they go tits up, all the reserve funds disappear. They claim the banks have siezed them or visa has dumped on them. Whatever!
Would it not seem like good business practice that those funds should be held in escrow to protect all involved in the event of disaster? However, it seems they are used as working capital and when the shit hits the fan, they disappear and the customers are screwed out of their hard earned profits. I may be wrong about this....legal disclaimer...but very few ever see those funds again.
Maybe someone from an aggragator could explain what exactly happens to the rolling reserve that is supposedly to be used as charge back protection. Or anyone else who has any insite into the inner workings of IPSP's.
Originally posted by rhymer11@Jan 9 2005, 11:01 AM
Maybe someone from an aggragator could explain what exactly happens to the rolling reserve that is supposedly to be used as charge back protection. Or anyone else who has any insite into the inner workings of IPSP's.
Who do you think holds the aggregators funds? The bank does, just like they do with anyone else's merchant account. An SMID is akin to a TID without a MID, something that is occasionally done for small volume merchants who want an account but don't have the volume to justify a bank assigning them both MIDs and TIDs. If the aggregators account is frozen or terminated, the bank stops sending them funds until their contracted reserve period has ended, and many times they still roll the funds through for months to pay the merchant account holder the balance due after credits and chargebacks are accounted for -- closing an account doesn't mean that those two things stop coming in, quite the opposite in fact.
The fact that you have no affiliate program makes a drastic difference on how your account fares, whether you realize it or not. Even the most well meaning of affiliates has a tendency to "overmarket" the program in order to make sales, and even if those surfers don't turn into chargebacks, they do turn into higher credits. Most every bank I know of has instigated credits as a percentage of sales into allowable ratios as well, since Mastercard reserves the right to fine on credits if they determine they are being issued solely for the sake of avoiding a CDC initiation.
Originally posted by Hell Puppy@Jan 9 2005, 05:57 AM I haven't done the legwork to setup a merchant account yet, although we're probably the prototypical good candidate for it in adult. Low price points, we dont push the envelope at all with billing tricks, affiliates by invite only and we deliver what we promise. So we have NO chargebacks.
This is a very common mistake made by people going for their own merchant account .... 'we provide good service therefore we will have no chargebacks'
People who chargeback are rarely doing so because they are pissed off with the service - a pissed off customer will try to contact the place they are pissed off at to abuse them, therefore you can step in and turn a potential chargeback into the lesser evil of a refund.
Anyone who immediately contacts the bank to chargeback obviously has some experience with the process - and nothing you could do with support, providing what you advertise etc has anything to do with it.
There's 2 types of people who chargeback ....
1) really really pissed off people who have tried all avenue's and chargeback is final straw
2) people who don't want to pay for the item
We initiated some steps to be proactive with chargebacks going back about a year. When someone tries to chargeback, they are phoned up by one of our service reps ...
'hi, just wondering why you are trying to chargeback this service?'
'errr .... umm ..... aaah ..... errr .... i ... i um .....'
'we just wanted to let you know that charging back this service is actually accusing us of fraud - so we were just wondering who owns this ip so we can sort it out'
'errr .... umm ...'
a phonecall will almost always prevent the chargeback from occuring ...
Assuming that all the processing problems belong to only those with deceptive billing practices is why so many small companies went out of business in '04 ... Visa taught customers to chargeback so they could protect and keep their clients, but its our responsibility to protect our business by not letting Visa's rules negatively effect us ...
rhymer, I've definately noticed its getting harder to chargeback ... and banks are also becoming aware of 'serial chargebackers' and looking at how trustworthy the customer is not just the site they joined.
and as you said, the scrubs are becoming better too - so the evil transactions don't even get through in the beginning. Its also helped by how many companies are now sharing their scrub list ... a scrub list has become the remove list of the processing world LOL
a good remove list can save your spam business (so nick tells me!!) and a good scrub can save your processing business ... companies share these assets in the same way we'd do traffic swaps
we've all learnt a lot about balance after riding this roller coaster for so long!! back in the day we just wanted every transaction we could get because it was a volume numbers game ... but in those days, there were SEVERAL companies who were doing 2k plus joins a day so we didn't care about 10 chargebacks ... there was always 10 new customers to replace them.
And in those days, 20 companies controlled 80% of the entire traffic in the biz ... while the 80/20 % rule still applies, but 20 companies used to be 80% of the industry - now it would probably be 2000 companies that make up the top 20% (purely a guess, i have no idea how many companies or people are in this biz - i just know there are too fucking many!!)
at least we were all a lot more 'calm' about processing in the second half of '04 than the first LOL
My Dad tried to chargeback his ISP bill from Telstra (Like BELL company in Aus) and his bank would not do it... told him to file a complaint with the Police if he thought they had frauded him!!
Originally posted by Opti@Jan 10 2005, 06:07 AM My Dad tried to chargeback his ISP bill from Telstra (Like BELL company in Aus) and his bank would not do it... told him to file a complaint with the Police if he thought they had frauded him!!
"and in those days, 20 companies controlled 80% of the entire traffic in the biz ... while the 80/20 % rule still applies, but 20 companies used to be 80% of the industry - now it would probably be 2000 companies that make up the top 20% (purely a guess, i have no idea how many companies or people are in this biz - i just know there are too fucking many!!)"
Its getting crowded at the top, I guess. There seems to be an inkling of panic on the boards of late. I was at a GFY party recently and it was full of traffic monkeys getting hammered on Grey Goose and bitiching that content providers were taking half of "their" profits. But their biggest question was how to get into content creation. I just laughed and laughed. And then I laughed some more.
The amateur market is turning into girl farms. It is getting way too hard to make it as a single website anymore. But to a great extent, those small websites were providing a lot of traffic to the larger businesses through affiliate programmes and exit traffic. Now they can barely afford to attend internext. There is certainly a big correction happening in the market at the moment. Everyone is manic about finding the next new thing. Or return to Old School, or get into mainstream, or whatever. But as far as I can see, the business is just settling into what the future has in store. If you are good at it, you will do well. Its just not as profitable as in the beginning. Nothing much has changed in my world except the obvious increase in competition, which just leads me to more creative marketing strategies and my business grows slowly. It plods along like a tortoise but I have seen a lot of hares come and go.
Originally posted by rhymer11@Jan 9 2005, 07:16 PM This is an interesting explanation, but the acronyms escape me...
"An SMID is akin to a TID without a MID"
Please explain.
edit:
"Most every bank I know of has instigated credits as a percentage of sales into allowable ratios as well, since Mastercard reserves the right to fine on credits if they determine they are being issued solely for the sake of avoiding a CDC initiation."
This particular situation is becoming a very rare occurence.
SMID =sponsored merchant id
MID =merchant id
TID = terminal id
Interesting that you are unfamiliar with those terms since they have been the standard for so long that there really arent any others to use.
I'm also not sure what you mean by your comment about something becoming a very rare occurence? If you mean credits issued in lieu of chargebacks, you're incorrect. If you mean banks penalizing accounts they find doing so, you're also incorrect.
So please clarify what you are referring to if you can.
Originally posted by rhymer11@Jan 10 2005, 09:37 AM Now as to the latter.....
credits in lieu of chargebacks are becoming a non issue because they are so very rare. I am sure the cc companies policy is still the same as it was when it was a very, very serious issue. I have been through all the CSI bullshit and I never, ever want to go through that shit again.
Billing is becoming less of a headache than in the "good old days". But just in case, I am working my way through the set up of an offshore account at the moment. Ya never know, do you?
I can assure you that while you personally may not have any problems with credits or chargebacks, this has not become any less of an issue today than it was a year ago today, two years ago today, or will be a year from today.
There's a very nasty, and as of yet, unconfirmed rumor, regarding Visa EU's allowable chargeback limits becoming even more restrictive in the next few months, and if so, that will once again create issues if it's true.
Some damn good discussion in this thread. Given situations like IBill, which really put the clamps on a great deal many people, it certainly is an issue worthy of great debate. Having your own merchant account is certainly better for your bottom line AS LONG AS you are able to manage it properly. Some people just seem to have a 'fuck that hassles' type of attitude and want someone else to deal with it so they can concentrate on other aspects of the biz.
Originally posted by TheEnforcer@Jan 10 2005, 10:42 AM Some damn good discussion in this thread. Given situations like IBill, which really put the clamps on a great deal many people, it certainly is an issue worthy of great debate. Having your own merchant account is certainly better for your bottom line AS LONG AS you are able to manage it properly. Some people just seem to have a 'fuck that hassles' type of attitude and want someone else to deal with it so they can concentrate on other aspects of the biz.
If you've got a bank that won't put up with nonsense, an ISO that's in it for the long term, resources and advice that will help to keep you out of hot water, and you're looking for something that's going to be profitable but not 'turn and burn', then there are merchant accounts out there.
I'm sure there are still some scamming ISOs and banks around, but we all know how long that lasts
Originally posted by Nickatilynx@Jan 10 2005, 07:26 PM I remember what Sserge said to me back in 97 about opening paysites..
"Nick, you have traffic , someone will always want traffic , let the person that pays you for the traffic have all the headaches."
I'm edging that way again....lol
I always count my money. I know what every click makes.
Call it scrub. Call it oversaturation. Call it a shave. But for the past year I cant come anywhere near making what I make off of my own sites when I send it to someone else.
It's true...we should see see sixty joins plus today. We always grow back up quicker than we think too Of course our traffic and ability to make joins tends to be directly related to my brother's state of sobriety.....probably get beaten for that but it has to be said
Originally posted by Technick@Jan 11 2005, 08:39 AM It's true...we should see see sixty joins plus today. We always grow back up quicker than we think too Of course our traffic and ability to make joins tends to be directly related to my brother's state of sobriety.....probably get beaten for that but it has to be said
Congratulations and I wish you all the best...both of you. Nick I am trying hard here.
Originally posted by Nickatilynx@Jan 11 2005, 11:53 AM
I , personally, do not intend to really fuck with you , except in normal webboard thrust and parry.
I'll just bet you want to thrust and parry with him!!
Hahaha, this was certainly never intended to become a debate on whether or not Nick's money goes as fast as his judgement when he's on the sauce.
Nor was it intended to be a discussion as to whether or not content oriented folks will ever understand the true value of traffic opposed to content
cj made a comment that her chargebacks were a lot higher when she ran sales through an IPSP model -- anyone else who has utilized both notice that?
And what are other things about your billing -- regardless of whose merchant account you are on, that confuse you or make you say hmmmm, when you see them on your statement or in your stats?
Originally posted by Hell Puppy@Jan 9 2005, 02:57 AM I haven't done the legwork to setup a merchant account yet, although we're probably the prototypical good candidate for it in adult. Low price points, we dont push the envelope at all with billing tricks, affiliates by invite only and we deliver what we promise. So we have NO chargebacks.
We started down the road with Netbilling a few months back, but waived off for a couple of reasons. First off the lady we were dealing with, although polite, was very obviously a "phone person". Anyone who knows me, knows you need to communicate electronically whenever possible or we're not going to get along. If I ask a simple question in email and you spend all day trying to tag up with me on my phone and never get me my answer, we're not doing business.
That aside, during the same time I learned from GonZo that he needed to make some sort of adjustment to his account with them and couldn't get anything more than a voicemail box to try to get it taken care of.
All these things set off red flags with me. I speculated at the time that they were over loaded from people fleeing iPSPs due to IBill and other issues.
Anyone else using them for a hands on review?
Any other vendors out there helping guide people thru the process of getting their own merchant account? There cant be many banks left in the U.S. who'll touch adult.
Hi,
We are certainly phone poeple but do use ICQ and email quite extensively. We build our relationships with face to face meetings and on the phone mostly. I'm sorry if that does not work for you but I hope we can serve you in the future.
01-08-2005
Linear Mode
