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Imageauction · 12-04-2004, 09:17 AM

Epassporte is good and definately of use to anybody in the adult industry but that being said it does have some issues that are not being addressed. We have a commercial account, so these comments are limited to commercial accounts.

1) Bad reporting capabilities. No ability to retrieve transaction details over 30 days old.

2) Incoming payment fees are high at 9.95%. Certainly better than say taking money through a 3rd party processor but this level is not justified when the money is coming from existing funded ePassporte accounts and not from a credit card.

3) Delay of 2 weeks before funds are available then delay until funds reach $50 to move from your epPurchase Account to your main account and then $2 fee (potentially 4% of your funds if you get only $50 per week).

4) Charges of $2 per payment sent from a Commercial account. This is significantly more than the 25 cents for payments sent from a personal account (which most businesses are using). Workaround (this was recommended by an ePassporte employee) is to create a personal account and fund that account one time for $2 and then send money to everyone you need to send money to at 25 cents (or $1 if you do more than 5 a day). Of course if you're only sending to one person or to hundreds of people this may not be an effective tool.
This charge disparity causes significant problems when we are paying people because we have to explain to them that we are deducting the $2 from their pay for ePassporte fees and because they don't have commercial accounts they don't understand it.

SCENARIO....the way we interact with ePassporte is that a customer pays us for some content on our site http://www.imageauction.com then when the funds are available we pay the seller. Lets take an example of the customer paying $56. Immediately ePassporte takes 9.95% (or $5.57). That leaves $50.43. Assuming we had no other money in our epPurchase account, those funds would be transfered to our main account less the $2 fee leaving $48.43. Assuming we have no other money in our main account we have $46.43 to pay out because ePassporte charges an additional $2 for each payment sent. So the seller can only get $46.43 or 82% of the original amount paid. This of course doesn't include our commission. But you can see in this scenario ePassporte is costing 18%.

My complaints about ePassporte are as follows

Confusing system of epPurchase and ePassporte accounts. I think they have to do this to comply with some Visa regulations but they could do a better job of explaining whats going on.
Transaction fees should be for receiving money only, no charges for sending money. Its much more palatable for people to take a hit when getting money.
Better reporting capabilities

Hope this helps.

12-04-2004, 09:17 AM
Imageauction Confirmed User Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Tampa Posts: 355	Epassporte is good and definately of use to anybody in the adult industry but that being said it does have some issues that are not being addressed. We have a commercial account, so these comments are limited to commercial accounts. 1) Bad reporting capabilities. No ability to retrieve transaction details over 30 days old. 2) Incoming payment fees are high at 9.95%. Certainly better than say taking money through a 3rd party processor but this level is not justified when the money is coming from existing funded ePassporte accounts and not from a credit card. 3) Delay of 2 weeks before funds are available then delay until funds reach $50 to move from your epPurchase Account to your main account and then $2 fee (potentially 4% of your funds if you get only $50 per week). 4) Charges of $2 per payment sent from a Commercial account. This is significantly more than the 25 cents for payments sent from a personal account (which most businesses are using). Workaround (this was recommended by an ePassporte employee) is to create a personal account and fund that account one time for $2 and then send money to everyone you need to send money to at 25 cents (or $1 if you do more than 5 a day). Of course if you're only sending to one person or to hundreds of people this may not be an effective tool. This charge disparity causes significant problems when we are paying people because we have to explain to them that we are deducting the $2 from their pay for ePassporte fees and because they don't have commercial accounts they don't understand it. SCENARIO....the way we interact with ePassporte is that a customer pays us for some content on our site http://www.imageauction.com then when the funds are available we pay the seller. Lets take an example of the customer paying $56. Immediately ePassporte takes 9.95% (or $5.57). That leaves $50.43. Assuming we had no other money in our epPurchase account, those funds would be transfered to our main account less the $2 fee leaving $48.43. Assuming we have no other money in our main account we have $46.43 to pay out because ePassporte charges an additional $2 for each payment sent. So the seller can only get $46.43 or 82% of the original amount paid. This of course doesn't include our commission. But you can see in this scenario ePassporte is costing 18%. My complaints about ePassporte are as follows Confusing system of epPurchase and ePassporte accounts. I think they have to do this to comply with some Visa regulations but they could do a better job of explaining whats going on. Transaction fees should be for receiving money only, no charges for sending money. Its much more palatable for people to take a hit when getting money. Better reporting capabilities Hope this helps. __________________ SIG TOO BIG! Maximum 120x60 button and no more than 3 text lines of DEFAULT SIZE and COLOR. Unless your sig is for a GFY top banner sponsor, then you may use a 624x80 instead of a 120x60.