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Old 07-29-2002, 09:52 PM  
ldinternet
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Join Date: Apr 2001
Posts: 8,245
Quote:
Originally posted by Dildozer
So my understanding of you people is that dialer companies are all crooks. How come? I don't understand how they could lose money if let's they make $x.xx a minute profit for each minute.
Well, they're running a program, paying for staff, offices, and the other costs associated with running a dialer program, then they have to pay webmasters too and deal with chargebacks. Either the telephone company, dialer company, or both will be making a nice fat profit and paying the webmaster a small percentage of their rate to surfers. For example, charge surfers $8 and pay the webmaster $1.

So I send 5 surfers, each connect for 10 minutes.

I earn 5 * 10 = 50 minutes, * $1 = $50 in my pocket.

The dialer company and telephone company can split their profit between themselves however they like. Their profit would be...

50 minutes * $7 (after they have paid me) = $350

Already I have my check from the dialer company, I've cashed it and it is sitting in my account. At the end of the month the surfers get their telephone bills for $80 each, and they're like... "what the fuck?!". So they call their telephone company and they work it out together -- the telephone company refunds the surfer. Four out of five of those calls may charge back.

The initial income was $400.
I was paid $50.

$350 remains.
There are 4 chargebacks at $80 each... 4 * 80 = $320.

Deduct expenses totalling more than $30 (which has to be split between the dialer company and telecom company in the first place) and there is a net loss. $15 each from five calls? Both companies will be thinking, "fuck that!"


I'm not saying that 4 out of every 5 dialer surfers do charge back, but this is just an example of how excessive chargebacks affect the dialer business and are a problem, and how a dialer company can lose money even when charging so much per minute and making an insane profit on those callers that don't charge back. I don't know how it worked with Dialer King. Whether they were making a loss on their US minutes or just had a lot of chargebacks, I don't know. Personally I don't care.

Charging less is a possibility but nobody (webmaster, dialer company, telecom company) wants to be earning like 3 cents per minute, blah de blah blah blah... anyway, fuck dialers.
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