And its operators like yourself who try and run an honest business who are truly screwed by the other scam operators and the resulting wrath of Mastercard.

But, if it takes the wrath of MC to take the scum operators out..well so be it.

How can you call the other guy a moron? Those things he spoke about dont happen, are you living in dream land? We became high risk because adult webmasters fucked the customer and then webmaster lost their rights to fight. Thank you Paycom for fighting for us and I still havent heard from anyone.

Thank you, Paycom.

Thank you very much!

are you 100% sure you are not spacedog?

hey, when is your big fancy, shiny new program coming out? Come on, show us how it's done

wait until you get those users who come in and suck up your bandwidth and then scream like litle itches with bruised knees when wifey finds the credit card bill and you get a chargeback..those are so much fun.....wait until you get your first email "my 10 year old son stole my credit card and bought a membership to your site" emails....how about the day you may have an issue with leased feeds or a server and and people aske for a refund that egts counted the same as a chargeback...

it'll never happen though, because we have yet to see your big, shiny new program....and I doubt we ever will......

while I agree the scammers who purposely double bill should be dealt with, I also believe that surfers who defraud website should likely be punished, but it is not going to happen anytime soon......

as for the cancelling a trial 24 hours before it expires, have you ever tried to cancel an AOL membership? how about a magazine subscription?

I can't believe I've wasted this much typing time on a reply to your typically uneducated post......

Hats off to you :thumbsup

stop being a fag and re-read the whole thing..

"To make this issue even more onerous, MasterCard counts known stolen cards against us in calculating the ratios. For example: DPI was hacked and hackers got 13 million card numbers (about 5 million or so were MasterCards). MasterCard knows which cards were compromised, but has not cancelled those cards nor will it give us a list of the compromised accounts numbers so we can block them in our system. The result is that criminals can buy the card numbers from the hackers, sign up as resellers, run the cards through our system; and MasterCard places the full liability for that fraud on our clients' and our shoulders."

what does this have to do with trials?
oh, and did you know the #1 thing that is bought with stolen credit cards or with "daddy's card" are adult site memberships? because there is no shipping address involved.



good luck EPOCH

Yes...my mistake...all things are rosy and ethical in adult land.

Nah, fuck it...Paycom, enjoy your shining moment...but maybe you should take a second and look at the type of crap that you allow to process through your system....

Mastercard has my vote...

And SBoy...yes, there is some customer fraud...but nothing compared to the absolute shit that this industry rans down on the consumer on a daily basis....

Like you, I hate all that tricky billing scummy shit, and believe that that type of stuff has helped the situation reach this point.

My friend convinced me to read the actual pdf file that's linked in the first post.

I only made it to page 42, but I would have to say MC is doing some really crappy stuff that needs to be addressed, too. While the tricky billers aren't helping, MC themselves is a large part of the problem if what is being alleged is true.

At least read it before making judgements. ;) It's a pretty informative document and rather interesting. I thought it was anyways, even though I didn't finish it. I'll probably try reading the rest later tonight.

Good luck epoch its about time the card associations got some heat :thumbsup

I am 100% behind you Paycom/Epoch. I am glad you are fighting back against unfair business practices.
ZoiNk

I'm sure they will gladly settle out of court with you for an undisclosed sum. Problem is we will all still be fucked.

But hey, mad props for throwing their bullshit back in their faces.

sarcasm always proves points, doesnt it.

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahaha=

There are always going to be bad apples.. have you ever looked at your car insurance policy... how much do they charge you for shit you don't need??? its all in teh fine print.. ya just have to read it...

but lets stick to the subject...
this is about anti trust violations... MC bullying b/c they can...

Paycom/Epoch Way to go!


We are 100% behind you on this one!

:thumbsup

Go EPOCH It's your birthday!

kudos for standing up to mastercard! now if only all the processors would get together and do this to visa, who seems to be an all-powerful company whose word we all are forced to live by even though we make them billions of dollars...

That's about time someone tries to stop those monopolists.

Go get em Paycom/Epoch

Wow.
This is insane!

Look ... I support Epoch in this ...

But for crying out loud! Can't this industry take responsibility for any of this?

It's the fucking REBILLS people!

Yes, Mastercard is scum. Yes, many surfers are scum too ...

But you inevitably piss off even the best customers with rebills!

I've used every adult processor ... and cancelling is always a pain in the ass!

Why should that burden be put upon the customer. It's wrong!

Sure ... a few sites offer non-recurring ... very few ... but you still have to buy three months of membership for most of them ...

It's a fucking scam ...

And then webmasters bitch and scream when customers get pissed off and chargeback or demand refunds because they forgot to cancel ...

Something the customer shouldn't have to worry about in the first place!

Like Duh ... What did you expect? This was bound to happen sooner or later.

This industry only has itself to blame ... just as much as anything else.

For the sake of argument, i SOMEWHAT agree with 49th 'to a point.'

First off, i believe Mastercards rules are simply insane and i fully give props to Epoch for taking on such a big issue head on. We been with Epoch since they practically started. But i have to say that even though Mastercard is at fault, ......partially, so are we as an industry.

For instance: Have any of you signed up to any big sites lately doing cross sells? For the sake of it, i went to a couple sites that are charging 39.95 (40 bucks basically) and they're cross selling TWO additional sites for another 40 bucks a pop. So, if the surfer doesn't read down, they get popped with 40+40+40 in the end. Ofcourse there's going to be chargebacks. Blame the surfer right? Sure...why not....they didn't read down.

But what really caught my eye is that these check boxes above for the two additional cross sells, are already "PRE-CHECKED."

It's one thing if the surfer opts to check the boxes himself for the extra two $40 cross sells, cause he wants the access to the other two sites.....but let the surfer check the boxes himself. Why risk the chargebacks? It's a model i don't understand.

Then there's the "FreeAvs" business model. Signup for free, but if you don't read the fineprint in the terms and condition, you'll end up with a 75-120 dollar ding on credit card statement that month.

Some will call the two above deceiving, while others don't. Everyone has there own opinion. Very few will voice it.

Now, in NO way am i sticking up for the surfer for not reading the 'fine print' but to be honest, i was pretty suprised that the cross selling check boxes were pre-checked.

Most will argue that's it's not our responsiblity..it's the surfers. But it's this attitude that gets us all into shit in the first place. I agree to a sense that it's not our responsibility if they don't read the fineprint. I didn't make this post in defense for the surfer. But at the same time, i believe it takes the cooperation of all the parties involved to make a profitable business model that everyone can live with....one that will also help take down some heat from our industry.

You just have to ask yourself... if you YOU were Mastercard, what would you do if you saw the above?

Even though Mastercard has gone above an beyond being completely fucked up with unrealistic expectations and foulplay, this sort of thing didn't just happen out of nowhere. Then again, maybe it does with a monopoly like MasterCard. Every issue has a beginning point...who started it? Them or us? I can't even answer that question.


Anyway, just my opinion and my :2 cents:
flame away if you must...

I agree. This industry can't police itself. It really has been built upon deceptive business practices which have somehow become sacred cows.

Well ... sacred cows be damned. I wouldn't be surprized if Visa and Mastercard cut us off entirely.

the only reason that paycom is doing so many cross sells is because thier charebacks are so high they need to stop themselfs from getting shut down!!! Be scared of the what the future holds for paycom!!!

Masturbation Man

Much thanks for all the support on this board. Some interesting opinions too.

It will be interesting to see this unfold. Let's hope responsible webmasters and reasonable billing solutions help make this industry a better machine.

--Rand



http://www.epochsystems.com/images/r...ner_120x60.gif

Tricky billing is certainly not helping the situation... but I take my hat off to Paycom for starting the lawsuit that is long overdue. I'd like to see IBill, CCBill and some of the others join in - that would be some serious muscle if everyone was together on that.

Brad

Second:

When CVV2 is perfected the credit card companies wont have to put the blame on the webmaster. It will be put on the issuing banks. This is still about 2 years away. All internet buyers will have a private pin like ATM within 2 years. This will solve most problems and charge back issues, but the technogy is new.

Masturbation Man

And that about sums it up. Quite frankly, all this crying about how bad webmasters are across the board is crap, pure and simple.

Yes, there are bad webmasters. No, there are not enough bad webmasters to warrant the stance that Mastercard has taken against legitimate and compliant IPSPs.

You think slapping some fines down on people is ALL they've done or asked for? If so, I've got a bridge looking for a home...

Mastercard, in this instance, has been as much a perpetrator of fraudulent transactions as any webmaster or surfer has, by not releasing the card numbers to the processors and gateways that could decline these cards, by not notifying the issuing banks so the cards can be replaced, and by then penalizing merchants and issuing banks if these cards are used fraudulently.

All so they don't have egg on their face and an increased cost of doing business, THEY are considered the good guy by some of the non-thinking on this board?

Furthermore the fact that pretty much every complaint about a Mastercard sale to a processor results in an immediate credit -- REGARDLESS of the circumstances -- should make Mastercard happy. But NOOOOOOO, they want to penalize acquirers for doing what they imply needs to be done in order to make the consumers and Mastercard happy...

Quite frankly I would find it very disturbing if some of the Attorneys General were not taking a hard look at Mastercard in the states where this and other suits may originate.

I'd also be surprised if there is not a class action lawsuit going by the end of the week as other people in this industry realize that you cannot make them happy whether you play by their rules or whether you take their ball and go home.

If all the billing companies get involved we could lose credit cards in general. This is all political so bush can get elected again. He needs the religious groups to back him. If they see him going after the adult industry that means the winning votes he will need.

Masturbation Man

Maybe sooner then you think. PayPal decided to cut out adult payments after being threatend with an anti-trust suit, I'm sure its on the list of options.

Third:

When everyone sees the new Master Card regulations in a month less then 10% of adult webmasters will be using MC. They are worse than Visa.

Masturbation Man

Good Board Name!

Maybe if you quick whacking off your brain would function a little better.

Were you in a coma for the last 2 years?

CVV2 has been around for a long time.

the "pin" is called SecureCode for MC and Verified by Visa for, you guessed it... Visa.

Wake up...

Um, not sure where you get your information but CVV2 has nothing to do with a pin number. Its the printed number on the back of the card, more specifically the 3 digit number that Mastercard doesn't make one of its huge issuers like Paypal be compliant with for the cards to work... no point in having it there if the card company isn't going to enforce compliance with the system.

The pin number system is called Verified by Visa, it's not 2 years away, it's already in use by some banks like Bank of America. I give VbV about 6 months in actual widespread use before it's dropped from the system, especially when the banks are not disclosing to consumers that by registering their cards with the PIN they are losing their right to charge back online purchases. I'm sure it's in the fine print somewhere, but God forbid the surfer would have to read that fine print to find out according to some here.

How do I know this? I used 1800flowers.com and a B of A Visa and after the purchase I was hit with two pops -- one for a subscription to a magazine with all my info pre-populated into the fields, INCLUDING cc number, and another from B of A, asking me to register my card for 'zero liability' on the internet.

Would you please provide us with a copy?
C

Paypal did not drop adult because of a lawsuit. I was in San Fran last week for the Paypal Connect conference and the adult topic was specifically mentioned, along with fraud control and other aspects of the business model they use.

If you cannot manage fraud, then you cannot transact in the adult space on the web. Period. Amex got out because of it, a slew of acquiring banks either got out or went under because of it, and anyone else who doesn't understand or have a way to control fraud in the market will be on their way out the door as well.

It's pretty simple.

Good job Epoch, make us proud!

Under 1% credits and charge backs IS impossible.

I dont see any choice in the matter for paycom but to do something like this. Its nice to have a company stand up for us and fight back but also makes me worried will Master Card just say enough is enough and pull out of the adult industry billing all together?

that would hurt big time since Master Card is close to 50% of all credit cards in the world.

I missed the confrence call since the phone number was not accessable from my area (Toronto)

I would have liked to listen in and participate. Now I have to get the information bit by bit which is so time consuming.

Chris can you have Clay or someone give me a call to give me more details and answer a few questions directly please.

thank you

Here is my take on this after reading through some of the filing..

Paycom has no real choice but to fight it in court as a tactical measure to contest some pretty heavy fines and restrictions on their business.

MC looks like they are telling Paycom to restructure their business to the extent that it probably precludes adult high risk transactions. As well that 1.5 million cash fine is pretty stiff. I have no idea about Paycom's financials but it could conceivably push them into a WSB style catchup payout situation which would be the kiss of death.

Possibly as long as the suit is before the courts this can all be delayed.

I am in no way being negative about Paycom here, I hope they get us all a tiny bit of payback. Just my addled take on things.

I kinda doubt that...

Sure. Email Clay at [email protected] with your numbers. He will call you in the AM. I bet he has them already :)

Strange. Another large client dialed in from Toronto. Sorry for that problem.

C