Quote:
Originally posted by Kimmykim
You don't have to believe it.
If it's so unbelievable, then why would Visa continue to restrict and restrict and restrict? They've surely chopped the transactions by a third, and that doesn't seem to be bothering them... if it's such a big deal wouldn't they already be feeling it?
I mean shoot, if you only got a hundred bucks and you lose a twenty or two, you know it right?
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Visa did $2.4 billion (with a ?B?) in 2002 sales, so far. Internet Porn, not to be confused with the Porn paid for with Visa cards in hotels (pay per view movies) and other forms (sex shops, etc) is less than 2% of their transaction volume. It is a lot of money, but KK is exactly right, who cares? Take 2% of anyone?s business and they would not care. They may not like it, but it won?t put them out of business. If it did, they were dead man walking already.
This is the kicker?Visa is a ?not for profit association?. They are owned by their Members, which are banks. In 2002 Visa, the ?not for profit association? realized $500 million in ?operating revenue. We, in the real world, call that profit. They don?t, they call it advertising money to ?build the brand?. They have to spend the cash. They have done one helluva job ?building the brand? with all of that money. And that effort and money spent has put money in all of our pockets. So give the Devil his due. If not for Visa and MasterCard, this industry would not have grown to this level this fast. True, another method would have come about, but Visa was there, then and we all profited by them being there, then.
Face it; Visa is 60+% of our business. We are 2% of theirs. We HAVE to make a profit and we NEED them. They don?t have to make anything and could care less about the revenue we generate. So we play by their rules or they take their ball and go home. The trick is to CHANGE the game! More on that later? January 6th.
What Visa does care about is ?Acceptance?. They want their cardholders to be able to use their Visa everywhere. Their slogan is ?Visa, it?s everywhere you want to be.? That includes the Internet and the Porn sites on it - us, in other words. So they allow us to operate, but they control what WAS rampant fraud. When this industry started we had the same thresholds (which were - none) that everyone else had. The industry screwed it up. Those wanting to make as much as they could as fast as they could just screwed it up. I assume back then everyone just thought this Internet thing was a flash in the pan and did whatever to make money. Low and behold 6 or 7 years later most are still round, all are more sophisticated and now we bitch about ?rules?. Audiotext went through the same evolution. There are now only 2 points of entry into the Visa system for all of US Audiotext. There used to be 100?s. Visa chose to fight the fraud in that space by limiting those allowed to process. They are doing the same in our space with the IPSP rules. They are not enforcing them 100% yet, but they will be soon. Ron Cadwell at CCBill can back me up here: When Visa does enforce the rules worldwide; the points of entry will decrease again.
Everyone on this board knows that fraud in the credit card industry is tried out online first nowadays. It is fast, anonymous and proves if a card is good right away. Some people reading this board perpetrate (or have in the past known someone that has perpetrated) this type of fraud and other types, more subtle, like just banging the shit out of a card number to earn a sign up fee or whatever. So the rules, the tightening of Visa policy, all that is a direct result of fraud on the part of mostly former Webmasters in this business. As always, the bad guys screw it up for the good guys. Being honest, disclosing your pricing, allowing cardholders to cancel without a trick or scam is what makes for a long-term player. All of you that are doing the right thing hang in there. It will pay off. The playing field is leveling, then true competition will win over just being able to scam faster than the next guy.
But that?s just my opinion, I could be wrong.
End of Rant.
C