Epassporte Visa - Official Launch

I don't know about the epassporte but I wanted to clear something up.

Someone asked how you can get rebills through paypal and cited sending an email as an example.

I have used paypal billing for non-adult things before. If you set up the paypal button as a subscription it acts just like ccbill or whatever. You bill the trial or give it away free and paypal automatically bills your fee weekly, monthly, yearly, or whatever you specify.

Every paypal account is set up from a checking account or credit card and usually both. When you choose to pay with paypal and have a 0 balance it is debited from your preferred payment method (i.e. checking or credit card). I am not 100% sure this is true on rebills but I would think it is.

Just letting you know.

UPDATE: I just checked my paypal account on a subscription I signed up to. I had a 0 balance when I joined. However because I chose to join paypal deducted the subscription fee from my bank account. I don't know how to show the earlier post I am replying to but hope this clears that up for you. Paypal does rebill and it doesn't matter the balance. It comes directly off credit card or checking account.

The one thing I haven't seen addressed (or maybe it was and I missed the post) what protections does the CONSUMER have with using this card? For example, I'm a surfer and sign up for a site I like using epassporte and the site has a missing/broken members area, not what was promised, etc.? What protections would I have by using this card? While we know most chargebacks are the proverbial wife finding the credit card statement type of thing, there are some legitimate chargebacks for the items mentioned. How do those get resolved?

While I'm sure most of us are looking at this as a great opportunity to cut down on chargebacks, I'm sure the scammmers are already planning how they'll use this system and that is what worries me more than if I'm going to get paid instantly on a signup...

ST,

I'm not quite sure why you are bringing up PayPal on this thread but PayPal has several disadvantages to this market. One, being the time it takes a new user to get set up to use it which is 3-5 days minimum.

Epassporte works globally, instantly. It operates on the Visa network because it is a Visa card. There have been comparisons to paypal I think due to the peer-to-peer capability. But, in the case of peer-to-peer transactions, personal accounts only pay .25 cents to do a transfer of ANY amount wether it's .01 cent or 1 million dollars. PayPal, if I'm not mistaken, charges a minimum of .75 cents or 2.2% which ever is greater. Also, peer-to-peer with PayPal is not instantaneous but with epassporte it is.

Enough about PayPal. They have a decent product but epassporte is a better alternative for many reasons. It's cheaper, faster, and easier... not to mention global.

--Rand

So Rand..

We gotta hook up when you guys get back into town.. I think our PornDollar program could take advantage of this..

-jason

The Visa brand does afford the consumer certain protections. Most of the reasons an adult surfer charges back are non-existent with epassporte because the charges made with it never appear on the customers mailed billing statement. So, none of the wife discovering what the old man's been doing. However in cases where there might be a legitimate reason for someone to ask for their money back, such as the site being down etc...
In a case such as this, the cardholder would call their bank or the processor. Either way, they are either calling the processor who has an incentive to avoid a chargeback, or, they call epassporte. Legitimate complaints can be much easier handled with a credit instead of a chargeback. Everybody's happy.

ok, thanks for clearing that up...

No doubt Jason! For sure.

You want to give me a call next week sometime and we can hook up for lunch or something?

--Rand

Rand....

Wasn't trying to say paypal was better than epassporte. I am planning on using epassporte myself. I was just clearing up something somebody said about it. Your fees are way better and that is a good reason to use it to receive money. I was simply stating that I have had no prob on their subscriptions.

However, I can't let you make an untrue statement. Yes if you go to paypal.com it takes up to a few days to get your account going. However if you click on a paypal button to pay for a subscription it goes through instantly. The account is created. You are then asked to verify the card but you can still use it and it still gets rebilled. It comes off your regular card every time you are rebilled.

Also, its 35 cents plus a percentage.

Again, not badmouthing epassporte and I agree it is a great product. I will use it. But don't badmouth another site when what you are saying isn't true. You get your money immediately also. I have a virtual card and a plastic card with them.

I would also like to hear your response as far as chargebacks go when the chargeback is legitimate. Thanks.

[edited out question Rand already answered -- fast moving thread]

Am also interested in the fee structure for "charging" the Epassporte. A screenshot in this thread showed a $5.00 charge for a $50 load -- if correct, that's a pretty vicious 10% bite, worse even than the credit card companies charge for cash advances. I'm having trouble imagining I would use an Epassporte except to receive funds and spend received funds, with rates like that.

Thanks ST,

I do try to be careful when I talk about PayPal because I'm going by what I've been told. Sounds like I was a little off on the fee but epassporte is still cheaper to use. I've never tested a subscition site using PayPal so what you mentioned above is good to know. I sincerely don't mean to mislead anyone.

As for the chargeback issue.... think about what a chargeback is. It is basically a refund that is issued by the bank because the customer could not resolve a problem with the merchant. The bank reverses the sale and charges the merchant a fee AND takes note of the problem to establish a chargeback ratio against the merchant. Now, how does a chargeback get initiated? If the consumer contacts the merchant and the issue is not resolved, the consumer then calls the bank. In the case of an epasspore transaction, the surfer will probably first call epassporte because that is where there online statement is and there is a handy link to Billing Inquiries on the site. The customer can call or email epasporte to resolve any issue. Epassporte will respond to any legitimate complaint by issuing a refund, not a chargeback. The customer gets what he wants and the merchante is not exposed to the chargeback. If the consumer calls the processor, in most cases that would probably be Paycom. Paycom can issue credits but not chargebacks. If the consumer bought something on Amazon that never arrived, they call Amazon, who, can issue a credit but not a chargeback. If they are not satisfied with Amazon's resolve, their only choice is to call the issuer. Which is, of course, epassporte. That's maybe a lengthy scenario but I hope that answers your consumer protection question.

--Rand

The load fee (not transfer P2P) is $5 per hundred or any portion thereof. So, it costs $5 to load $50 or a $100. It costs $10 to load $101 or $200. And so on... Remember that the person buying epassporte so they can purchase adult entertainment are problaby doing so because they can't use their normal creidt card to purcahse online, or, they are using epassporte for it's anonymity. Load fees are common on Virtual cards as you are paying for a service. Epassporte makes no money on finance charges or late fees as banks do with a revolving credit line.

Moving money from one person to another is only .25 cents a tran (up to 5 per day and $1 per tran thereafter) for a personal account. Rates vary for commercial or corporate accounts. And of course, there's no fee to spend the money on an epassporte card. (a little humor there).

--Rand

Rand, I emailed you about a corporate account yet no reply. I'm in the process of setting up a Virtual corporate VISA with a EU bank, I MIGHT be considering using epassporte instead. Can you tell me what docs you need for corporate accounts and what country requirements?

EU Virtual VISA is 1% per transaction.

thanks

That's cool with me.. Only if Miss Amparo goes with us..

Rand I also emailed you about a foreign character question.

Rand,

I'm sure you guys have thought this through to no end. But that seems a bit pricey for anything BUT the adult market no? 5% to load money into the account?

I know you don't want to talk about paypal, but techinically paypal is currently offering this same "wife-shield" service as well - but its free to the consumer no? (and its a good thing to know thy competition)

Paypal did used to offer the virtual visa' (create one-time visa accounts on the fly) but then I think they did away with it when they launched their own branded visa & atm/debit cards.

The thing that does suck with Paypal is that the fees never stop... if you keep tossing the same $100's around back and forth from P2P, eventually you'll have nothing (err not from the per trans fee... from the % fees).

You guys could probably process cajillions for the gaming industry, but sports bettors for example might not like
the idea of paying an extra 5% juice on their wagers. Maybe you guys would cut special deals with these merchants or something, or maybe this isn't a market your interested in.

You also price yourself out of the Ebays massive market (but again, maybe thats not something you guys aim to get a piece of) by charging a 5% load fee to the consumer. Picture this: you buy a video camera off ebay for say $990, shiping is $30... you need to send the guy $1020 - the epassporte fee brings your total up to $1070.00. Ebay buyers might not like this.

But again, maybe you guys have a very specific market in mind with this.... in which case I spose its a fair deal to consumers looking to purchase adult material discreetly.
But on the consumer end, I don't yet see the advantage over using paypal or the paypal atm/debit card (since its free & wife-friendly - providing she doesnt know about your paypal account.

If the funds go to Epoch, then Epoch is going to make 10%-15% on the merchant end anyway right? I'm not sure how feasible something like this would be, but maybe you could waive load fees for a consumer that is attemping to purchase access to a Epoch processed site? As sort of an incentive for webmasters to process with Epoch. Maybe there are other reasons for keeping those entities seperated though (epoch and epassporte).

As far as paying hosting/content bills with this... I think free to the consumer & 2.5% (or 3.5% international) to the merchant with paypal is probably the better choice no? I mean when your talking hundreds or thousands of dollars?

I don't know.. I just have lots of concerns & questions here.
It's so close to being a perfect solution for everyone I think if the fee were 2.5% you would have something so golden you wouldn't be able to count the money fast enough... because it would be able to cross into all of the markets metnioned.

Ah... but maybe 2.5% isnt even doable because of the fees you are charged on the backend for the consumer loading the funds. Hrmf. Or wait... does Paypal charge "Load Fees" for credit cards now too? Damn I think they might.. I'll check and reply when I get back in about an hour

Also what about rebills? Will the consumers funding card be automatically debited to pay for his/her rebills if the epassporte account doesn't have enough money in it?

Rand:

You said that with a legitimate complaint epassporte or paycom could be contacted and issue a credit if there was a real problem.

My question is,

If a credit is given to a customer for whatever reason would that be deducted from the sellers account. No matter what you are selling someone will eventually try to get a credit for the heck of it. If you aren't charging the seller for this then that is completely amazing. Of course a seller with a large amount of these would be removed I'm sure.

Please clarify how this affects the seller or webmaster when a credit is given.

Thanks for being cool about it and like I said, I would love to get an account for receiving funds.

Great Idea.

Whew! 5% is still a bit heavy, but it's not out of line compared to other virtual payment systems. Motivated porn buyers will probably pay.

2 questions more.

question 1.: if someone else want to load the funds on the card, is that possible, and how?

question 2.: if i want a Visa Electron for 35$ can i use it as a real visa card in shops or on vacation, does it have 16 numbers with a ccv code ?

So
If a person dont´have a creditcard...
Is it possible to still signup anyway and get money to epassporte account from another epassporte customer

Ok I went to Paypals FEE Page and its a little vague on fees for adding funds to the account using credit card. I know they try like hell to get it from your bank account first. But I'm curious what their fees are (if any) to add funds into a paypal account using your credit card.

Heres the breakdown of the fees though (for comparison)


-----------------------PAYPAL FEES--------------------------------

Open Account FREE (acutally they pay you?)
Send Money FREE
Withdraw to bank FREE to us bank accounts
w/fluctuating one-time fees for
international withdrawls

Add funds FREE us bank accounts
????? us credit cards
1.50 euro forinternational BANKS
????? international cards

RECEIVING FUNDS It seems to fluctuate from 2.2%
to 3.4% plus a small (change)
per-transaction fee. Plus if you
spend the money you recv using
their visa atm/debit card then
you get back 1.5% of that.

I'm really interested in knowing the CREDIT CARD 'add funds' rate for paypal - if it even exists as an option at anymore. Everything I see there suggests that it doesn't. Bank accounts only.

Just saw this.

There is a contract for corporate accounts, I will get you one when I get back to L.A. if you'll remind me via emai. Write to me at [email protected]

To my knowledge, there are no country requirements.

---Rand

I will email you back as soon as I can get an answer for you.

There was discussion about this on another thread. Stand by.

Does the plastic card, the Visa Electron, works on the internet transactions too?

Rand, I read about some fees here, but please write again, so it is clear in my mind the fee structure of epassporte in the following cases:
1. Transfer of funds from my Visa card (when I open the epassporte account) to this virtual account.
2. Transfer of funds from a company (sponsor) to a natural person (i.e. to me).
3. Transfer of funds from me to a company.
4. Transfer of funds from me to a natural person (relative, friend, etc.).
5. Transfer of funds from a natural person to me.
6. Transfer of funds from my epassporte virtual account to my bank account.
7. Transfer of funds from my epassporte virtual account to another Visa card of mine (if possible) - eventually to the same card I used when opening this epassporte virtual account.
8. Cash withdrawal from ATMs (other than the fees of the bank owning the respective ATMs).
I would be grateful if you could reply to every point in this order

GoBigTime

About your paypal question. I don't think you can actually "load" money into your paypal account from your credit card. The main reason behind this being that credit cards charge higher interest on cash withdrawals. If you loaded your paypal from a credit card you could then withdraw it and only pay your credit card company normal interests.

Instead paypal works like this. When you go somewhere that uses paypal and either click on a payment or subscription button you type in your username and password. It shows you the amount you are being billed and the funding source. Whether you choose credit or bank account it pulls exactly the amount you are spending from either source. Same goes for sending a cash payment to an individual. You type the amount and the source and it takes that from your card or bank account.

You can only upload funds with a check, or your bank account. Neither of which I would suggest. The reason being when you choose to upload money it takes up to 4 days to clear your bank. However, if you make a payment to someone, regardless of the funding option it sends them the money immediately. If your bank account is your primary source and it doesn't clear the funds then your credit card is charged I believe.

I see no reason to leave a balance in your paypal account at all. I don't like my money sitting anywhere. The only time I leave money there is when I plan to shop with the paypal debit card for the 1.5% cash back.

As for the fees you talked about I only know of 35 cents and 2.2% per transaction. (used to be 100% free for anything)

I have had an account since they started for ebay so I am pretty familiar with it. Anything else just ask.

No. Only the Virtual works online. It does not work offline, anywhere. The electron works worldwide at PIN-based Point of Sale Terminals (POS). So in the USA that means grocery stores, gas stations, most car rental agencies, some hotels and more and more retailers, especially the large chains. The elctron also works on any PLUS or Visa branded ATM, worldwide.

Once again, we are trying to keep up with the questions, take in your constructive comments (which, btw, I really like regarding the uses... it makes us think...) and to reply here and on several other boards.

The worldwide call in details will be posted on an new thread Friday. You will be able to listen to our basic presentation, then ask questions that all will hear. We will be available and that call line will stay open with Clay, Rand, Tony Keith (Director of IT), other Tech Support, marketing staff and me, as long as there are questions.

Thanks to all for the encouraging reception. The people at the show are all over this, as thet are able to get answers, face-to-face in real time. I think that once you have participated in the call in Monday you will all see the value, functionality and opportunity that epassporte provides.

Thanks....

Chris
CEO EPOCH

Rand answer my 2 questions please.

More people are asking about it, Can we use the Election Visa on the internet too and is it possible to load the balance with a friends creditcard.

i dont have a creditcard but can use his one to create one at your site and he will increase my amount then.

but how must i create a account, thats not possible, make it possible then you are the best company on the internet.

A credit given toward an epassporte purchase will work the same way as a credit given to any Visa card. Epassporte "is" a Visa card and you would not see any differences here. But you would see fewer chargebacks.

To get an account, sign up online at https://www.epassporte.com/. You can have a loaded Virtual Visa in less than time than it takes you to read this thread. Opt for the Electron Card and it will arrive to you in about 10 days.

1) Yes. If you are an affilate your sponsor may choose to pay you with epassporte. Thus, they would load funds on your card. Or, any other epassporte cardholder can transfer funds to your card instantly at a cost of .25 cents regardless of amount.

2) Yes. It "is" a real Visa Card. It does have 16 numbers and it does have a CVV2. It can be used to withdraw cash at any ATM or to purcahse goods/services at any PIN based Point of Sale merchant.

We expect that this card will even have uses for paying allowances, babysitters, housekeepers, etc.... It's easy to load funds instantly whenever needed and so easy to use.

You must have a Visa or MasterCard to obtain an epassporte at this time. There may be alternative methods coming soon such as the ability to get a card with a check or wire transfer.

It "is" possible for someone to create a Virtual Visa and then order an Electon card and send it to you for use. Actually, we expect the card will be used this way quite a bit for, say example, the kids in college etc... With epassporte you could send them funds 24 hours a day instantly for books, bail money, .. whatever.

So lets say my friend is someone, if someone signsup with my name on your site, how can he load the funds with his creditcard, thats impossible you can't enter the creditcard owner name, how?

and the visa election card, can i use it too to buy stuff on internet too or to pay on airports with a visa logo, because a visa card is not a atm card a atm card is a maestro here.

because i dont have a creditcard and can use a friends one, and i want a epassporte with my name on the election visa card, if you have time answer the 2 questions above, thanks.

Rand do you have icq or msn ?

its alot easyer to talk.

A full review of fees can be found in the T&C when signing up for an epassporte account. If I understand your question correctly, here are the fees:

1) Load fees are $5 per $100 or any portion there-of. There is no charge for account itself.
2) No cost to you to receive funds
3) For personal accounts, transfer fee is .25 cents for any amount (up to 5 transfers per day). Additional transfers (same day) are $1 per transfer.
4) See #3
5) See #2
6) Transfer not allowed. You can withdraw funds using an Electron card from any ATM.
7) Not available.
8) Not sure if there is a fee for this one. I'll check on that.

Your friend can purchase the card for you and have it your name. It will still need to be mailed to his billing address. But the name on the card could be yours.

--Rand

Nope. But I've got to sign off now and get down to the show floor at InterneXt.

I'll check back in soon.

How, tell me how he must sign up at your site (his name or my name) and how to load funds and how to get a election visa at my name, i only need that info.

and you didt answer my last question, can i use the electrion visa as a normal visa at shops and airports and everywhere.

because a atm card is not a visa card here in the netherlands. a atm card is a maestro card.

and what if i have some clients without a epassporte and want to pay me 25$ just as a example

then they must signup for epassport and pay 50$ to get a epassporte, cant you make a gateway to customers without letting them signup and pay with a cc to a epassporte account.

A Wire transfer would be cool
Everybody have bankaccounts but not everybody have creditcards or don´t feel safe to give card details on the internet to anyone

I think many of us europeans fall into this category.

As matter of fact even one of My Banks what i´m using recommends not to use creditcards online outside of my country until verified by visa system kicks in..

Jonnax,

We agree. We will be looking into solutions to allow for loading from wire/electronic transfers and local debit cards for certain countries/regions. This will vastly improve the number of surfers who will have access to using the epassporte Visa. Two things that make this great are

1) Anonymity for the surfer
and
2) foreign markets which could not previously purcahse memberships to U.S. websites will now be able to do so.

Add in the new chargeback protection and you've got a real answer to foreign traffic now.

Keep those ideas, thoughts, and questions coming. That's how we know what you want so that we can provide it.

BTW -- InterneXt convention floor just closed. Damn good show!

Rand- I've read about some news that epassporte will do some business with ibill so ibill will accept E-visa cards from blocked countries. On the other hand- and I think most of the -other companies won't allow the blocked countires whether we use E-visa card or not. Hopefully you will make it right.

An other good idea from Hansm that visitors could pay us to our epassporte account without having an epassport account. Isn't it profitable for you? ok, bill these transactions 0-1$ and we'll be happy

Rem,

Can you elaborate on your questions? I'm not sure I completely understand what you're asking.

--Rand

Epoch Clients Take Note:

All Epoch clients need to watch for the Epoch newsletter tomorrow afternoon for important news about epassporte.

This card would be more useful is you didn't already need to have a credit card to get one and fund it. If it was possible to fund it through a bank account or wire transfers waaay more people would use it. As it is, the only people I can see using this are people with sever porn addictions that come from the typical fraud countries that are willing to go through the process of shifting money from one card to another just to buy some porn.

In any case, epoch should put an advertisement for this card on their decline page.

*note* sorry if any of this has already been discussed in this thread, I'm too lazy today to read the whole thing.

Thanks Brown Bear,

Card funding through wire payments and online checks coming soon! Wire payments have already been requested as a means of obtaining and loading epassporte. Good stuff!

And yes, the point of epassporte is not to replace normal credit card trans but to provide a means for those in blocked countirers or in fraud DB's to be able to purchase their memberships.

All Epoch clients using the standard join form are already prompted to an epasspore option upon denial. Those using FlexPost allowing Epoch to handle denial responses are being prompted as well. Those clients handling their own denial responses with FlexPost will receive instuctions tomorrow about how to implement epassporte as an option.

I tried this last night and got a message to re-enter the zip. I went from the 9 to the 5 digit zip and it still said the same error message and declined. But my card was charged or preauthorized charged $55 and your system didn't register my data. I've called twice to customer service. The fellow last night said he would have someone call today and no one ever did. I called again and the customer service rep said they would look into it that there were kinks still in the system and they would for sure get back to me in 30 minutes. No one called back as promised.

So, all I can say is I hope to heck that $55 charge is just a pre authorized hold and comes off my card and you get the kinks fixed on this system before it goes into mass marketing, cause webmasters and customers have little patience for kinks.

err.. I think I'll give it a couple of months to get the bugs worked out before I sign up.

Per the posting above.

Rand must make it perfectly clear, that this Card will not work for normal POST retail transactions like a standard visa/ or visa check /debit card.

It can only be used retail wise at an ATM or at a retail establishment that accepts purchase with a pin code.

you can not use it as a stand alone charge card without a pin.
------------------------------------------


) Yes. It "is" a real Visa Card. It does have 16 numbers and it does have a CVV2. It can be used to withdraw cash at any ATM or to purcahse goods/services at any PIN based Point of Sale merchant.