Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnnyJames
I honestly don't understand why ANYONE would use a third party biller, but I am new to the adult side of the biz, so maybe someone can enlighten me.
Why not have total control over the billing? How many companies have simply folded and left people's mortgages unpaid? What a headache.
I have an established mainstream media company and we already have accountants and office staff, so maybe that's the difference.
It seems like a major program with the kinds of signups above (500-1500 or more daily) wouldn't dare trust a third party except in a cascade chain.
Agree with spacedog on the stats issue. It seems you would HAVE to use a third party stat provider or run the risk of constantly being accused of shady dealing.
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Well first if you use a merchant account, you better have two accounts to start with because one could drop at any time. A large one in the Philippines fairly recently dropped all adult so people who were only using them were pretty much screwed until they could get another account to send their rebills through.
Fraud is another aspect, as you really have to monitor it carefully yourself. If you go with 3rd-party they usually alert you on anything their system flags (I know CCBill does for a fact). These days, unless you are on very very large volume, adult merchant accounts can even cost as much or more as 3rd-party billing when you include many charge per transaction fees/decline fees.
Thus I find merchant accounts are not as advantageous as in the past. The best thing to do is mix it up though and have 2+ merchant accounts (one main, one backup), 2+ 3rd-party established billers (main and backups) and
share the volume between them (giving weight to approval rates, fees, etc...)
