PRE PAID CREDIT CARDS: REBILLS: is there anyway to tell the difference?

I don't believe so. I think they carry the same account number format and CVV code as a regular credit card.

The only differentiation may be in the account number, could possibly fall within in a certain range, or be prefixed with specific numbers etc..

bump for experts!

check the BIN number of the CC Num, that will tell you who the issuing bank is. I still don't think that will give you the solution to your problem.

I think the BIN is the first 5 or 6 digits of the CC Num and there are free lookup tools on the web to find the issuing bank based on a BIN number.

The bin number really wont tell you if its prepaid as many banks (issuers) offer prepaid and regular.

Hi Nick!

If you know the BIN, you can "try" to check it here - http://www.binbase.com/csv.php?module=search

It can tell you if the card is Debit or Credit, and also the level of card. ie, Gold or Classic etc.

The reason i say try, is that it may or may not tell you, depending on the issuing bank.

ok thanks everyone i am going to do some continued investigation myself, i havent been able to find much info on it, someone told me you can charge cards and see if they have a certain amount (for free trials), but that is probably one of the most illegal things i have heard LOL

i guess you could crosscheck the BIN and eliminate known prepaid card providers.

Yes... would love to hear a solution to what you are facing.

Some companies will do what is called a "pre-auth".

http://www.binbase.com/csv.php?module=a4

i read in here but it didnt really give me an answer if they can tell whether the card is prepaid or not compared to if it is the persons card, i am def. going to contact them.

i am just wondering on pre auth if you are just asking for chargebacks, i guess they cant charge it back as it is pending and is refunded.

i am looking deeper into this as the free trial model becomes more and more popular.

you can pre-auth for any amount - and then capture for a different amount - you cannot chargeback a pre-auth, only a captured sale

thank for clarifying,

i am just wondering if you are playing with fire on a free trial > payed membership model with a pre auth.

Pre-auth works, however in the situation we're discussing it will leads to CBs.

thats what i am thinking but the buddy i was talking about said they do pre auth.

it sucks when multiple people i know that have expierience have a different experiences!

In theory if you pre auth then capture right after you should be able to reduce CBs and verify funds. It could and can work in the right circumstances

free trials are not as risky as you may think, imo the difference in risk between a paid trial and a free trial is minimal - alot of the risk for a cb comes from the disclosure of the membership on your join flow

You'd be surprised how many people do pre-auth's. Every mainstream product I pay for always pre-auth's for $1, and it shows on my statement that it's just a pre-auth, most people know that. So if they chargeback because you just check for available funds, then they won't stay long anyway.

I know that some online merchants want to be able to ID, and decline, pre-paid cards. I guess they are actually debit card, not credit card. However, I am wondering if there might be an objection from MC, Visa, etc., regarding such a practise, and whether or not it might contravene the merchant agreement? MC and Visa make good money on these pre-paid card, and they market them to customers as, among other things, "works anywhere X card is accepted." If customers started having their cards declined because the merchant has flagged it as a pre-paid card and refuses to accept it, the issuer could have a problem.

R.A.T for life wodi

S.T.C. is still the greatest.

easy, obtain the visa/mc/discover prepaid BIN numbers and block them.. i have the db ill sell it to you for $500

A lot of people do pre-auths to verify cards even outside of porn. Satellite TV providers pre-auth up to 50 dollars for a $1 signup fee, and they do it specifically to reduce usage of prepaid cards.

Prepaid cards rarely come in denominations lower than $25 though, so even if you are getting free signups that you cant rebill 30 or 40 on because its a prepaid card, try hitting the card for a lower amount and you may at least be able to get something for your trouble.

Just an idea, I have no actual experience with trying to bill prepaid cards for adult paysites.

Bin number, as others have mentioned. Key is to utilize an upto date DB to catch most of them; some will still slipthrough, and conversely some credit cards will get wrongly flagged.

I wonder if 3rd party processors like CCBill offer such a debit / credit filtering service?

Technically, at least according to some folks, merchants are not supposed to differentiate between debit / credit - they are to be treated the same ... if that's true? ... then 3rd party processors likely don't provide such a filter for affiliates ... anyone know?

In regards to pre-auth, the advantage of doing them is to catch fraud. Pre-auth for the amount and then scrub again (sometimes a transaction will pass initial scrub, but a pre-auth provides more info and time to run a secondary scrub later on) prior to capture - much cheaper to toss out "questionable" transactions prior to capture than after.

IMHO, best to pre-auth only for the amount of the trial, and nothing more. Otherwise some surfers will get hit with over-limit / over-draft fees, and that will increase CBs / customer complaints.

Ron

Yes, there has to be a way to identify prepaid cards. I had prepaid card from US that I wanted to use on DVD rental from Red Box and it got rejected, but my debit card went thru just fine.

Most of them do, but don’t they go away after week or so?

hopefully for the sake of freedom and privacy the big credit companies will do whatever it takes to prevent merchants from differentiating between prepaid credit cards and others

You're actually discussing three different cards here -- credit, debit and funded accounts --

There isn't really any distinction between a credit and a debit transaction online, there's no pin number to key in so the transaction is still a card not present and should use the CVV2 on the back of the card for verification -- and merchants are not allowed to store the CVV2 numbers.

Pre-paid, funded cards are different BINs than regular bank issued card numbers and those can be blocked by database.

Authorizations cannot lead to a chargeback, as there was no transfer of funds on a capture from the consumer to the merchant. There are many ways to handle free trial situations, some more effective than others. Authorizations that are not captured within whatever time frame is in the contract simply disappear.

Last but not least, you can't disclose that you are going to charge someone 50 bucks and then turn around and try to charge them 40 bucks because the card wouldn't bill or rebill for the entire 50.

I'd like to buy this please email me: [email protected] with payment info

They're likely doing Bin filtering. But also, perhaps, they try pre-authing each DVD borrowed for $25...

I've never used Redbox, but figure they likely pre-auth for the maximum $25 "Buy It" amount for each DVD borrowed? Anyone know if that's what Redbox does or do they just pre-auth each for $1 only and hope the person has more available, if they return it late.

Ron

the credit card companies specifically market the cards as perfect for gifts and perfect for online purchases, don't think they want to damage that market by helping anyone block them

I will be shocked if discriminating only because a card is prepaid is not a violation of VC/MC rules. They don't want a merchant deciding for instance that they will not do any business with people using Bank of America Visa cards that would be a violation. It's nearly the same thing.

If you want to block 7/10 prepaid cards do at least zip code verification and possibly name verification.

actually most prepaid cards allow you to register a name and zipcode online to use with them

Are you sure this wouldn't be a violation of Visa's terms?

Some do, some don't. The Vanilla gift card which they sell in CVS stores does not do name and zip code both.

Probably fiter, because authorization doesn't even go to the bank that issued that card. I checked online and it had nothing on that card. However, there are rebate cards from stores like staples that go thru on redbox. Weird, eh?

curious about a 3rd type of card then i guess. i know my credit card i have allows me to obtain throw away type numbers, that make sense?
at anytime i am online i can log into the credit card companies site and generate myself a one time use card for my security when shopping online. it does carry my name, zip, shipping address, so forth. just is a throw away number after it is used on a transaction.

email sent

Use of pre-paid debit cards when disaster strikes.

I wonder if any of the card recipients made online purchases. lol

Schemes to distribute aid and benefits

By: The Economist

EARLIER this year more than 1.5m residents of Pakistan?s Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) fled their homes to escape fighting between the army and Islamist militants. Faced with the problem of distributing aid in a region with an honour code that frowns on cash handouts, the government turned in June to a local bank and Visa, a card-payments network. Within a week they began issuing pre-paid debit cards. Some 230,000 cards?one per displaced family?were handed out, each loaded with $300 per month that could be spent on food and medicine at any of 500 terminals in and around their camps.

Using plastic to channel aid and benefits is a growing global trend. Visa is also doing this in the Philippines, Mexico, Brazil, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic, where 800,000 people get food aid, fuel subsidies and even rewards for attending school on its Solidarity Card. MasterCard, another card network, is active in Poland and Peru. Mature economies have caught on, too: at least 38 American states distribute benefits on cards or plan to do so.

For governments, the savings can be substantial. It costs a penny to put money into an account linked to a card, compared with 60 cents to send out a cheque, says Shane Osborn, the state treasurer of Nebraska, whose card schemes include child benefit and income support. The state has been able to halve its call-centre staff because it now gets fewer inquiries about lost cheques and the like. Card schemes mean less fraud, too. Pakistan?s is backed by a database of biometric information.

For recipients the advantages include an end to cheque-cashing fees (of $1.5 billion a year in America alone, Visa claims), convenience (you don?t have to be at home to get the money) and greater security (the balance is safe if the card is lost). The card networks and banks, meanwhile, take a slice of every transaction from merchants.

There is also a social benefit. Ali Hakeem, head of Pakistan?s National Database and Registration Authority, sees the NWFP scheme as a ?massive financial-inclusion programme?. The hope is that some of the 95% of recipients who previously had no link to the formal financial system will eventually become regular bank customers because of the scheme, or at least hang on to their cards as a way to save as well as spend.

(Source:<http://tinyurl.com/na53ph>)

I get surfers freaking out all the time about the pre-auth's for the full membership price when they join trials... surfers don't know the difference in my opinion.

This is a pretty common practice with free trials these days.

A lot of people are doing step-down rebilling right now, Netbilling supports it... Are you saying they could get in trouble?

So long as it is in your terms you can do it. I have looked into it and found no violations. Everyone in forced continuity do it.

I haven't used them, but I did come across this company that offers an API to lookup card information including the card type:

Site: www_serviceobjects_com
Service: Bin Validation (under commerce)

Sorry for the delay, it took a while to get my posting privileges sorted.