Depends who's out to get you.

I just quit smoking so I am a bit aggravated right now; not too mention the fact that I lost my car at the Glendale Galleria for two hours.

I will gather my thoughts and attempt an informative post in the morning :)

In no way shape or form was I intending to slander the competition; just validating my company's place in the industry.

My icq is: 148382046

Feel free to contact me with questions, I am not as bad as the reputation that precedes me :)

With all your lawyers, experience, and processing power...please come up with a viable solution or suggestions for Canadian webmasters.
In the letter I got from ACPay I was told I would have to pay $750, which isn't a problem. The complications of establishing a U.S. presence are, and your letter did not mention whether this was necessary or not.

Regards,

p00p

AC Cory:

I am posting because our name has been brought up several times and also, because yesterday was One Year for me of not smoking, after 23 years of puffing my brains out! Good luck. Buy gum. Punch things.

Now, for business:

Should I welcome you to the wonderful (yet small) world of IPSP?s here in Visa USA? I guess so based upon the fee news from yesterday. Good luck and we hope to have a positive dialog with you and AC Pay. Competition is a good thing. Communication is better.

You can always email me at [email protected]

C

Looking forward to that informative post ;)

And good luck on quiting smoking, yeah punching stuff works wonders for stress. Any Visa reps around??

:Graucho

Mmmm... Nope.

Electracash for checks and NoCreditCard for dialer are part of the MPA2 too, so that is not correct. Also, we have added Netbilling for those using their own merchant account. :Buck:

The fact of the matter is, this company made a major mistake. Did we make a mistake in our dealings with Visa? No. We made a marketing mistake which in turn created a mess. By not charging, we attracted webmasters whose sole interest was to avoid the Visa fees; hence, we attracted a sector of webmasters who weren?t serious. For the past 2 months, I have hoped and wished that we would start charging because I believe that it will serve to interest those that are serious and hopefully weed out the non-serious webmasters.

The $350 is intended to create an atmosphere that allows us to process for serious webmasters. In this industry, paysites in general are not for people who are not serious; that is what affiliate programs and avs sites serve as. Most of you have rambled on and on about this charge yet we haven?t accepted a check from anyone of you guys :). If you have a decent idea of what is going on, you won?t be charged. This issue is a non-issue until it is applied, in my opinion.

To further on with my opinion, I would like to explain to you in the most straightforward manner I know how what many non-serious webmasters do: they waste time, effort, energy and play keyboard warriors. AC Pay is focused on dealing with webmasters that understand the dynamics of running a vast and profitable business.

Plain and simple, business cost money. You can?t open a bar for free, you need to give 100k in application fees and then you may get turned down; your fee being non-refundable. We know who wants to run a legit, upstanding and intelligent bar as opposed to some fly-by-night operation that doesn?t make any real earnings and in many cases, puts the ?neighborhood? at risk.

?Someday, the little webmaster will be a large one!?

I understand this. And this is accounted for. If you are a little webmaster and know what you are doing, I doubt you are charged. Again, this fee is a non-issue.


Canadian webmasters:

It is my understanding that Canadian webmasters fall within the US Banking region. If we are wrong, this will be changed. I am having it investigated.


I am probably a bit more agitated than need be right now because of this quitting smoking thing so I am sorry upfront if it seems that I am being a bit harsh. I also thank many of you guys for being supportive of my non-smoking challenge. The fact of the matter is that these are very complicated times. I believe that it is in our best interest to work together; rather than harbor the tempest.

It is funny to me these days, how so many webmasters jump down our throats before fully understanding the nature of the beast. Posting things like ?I heard AC Pay pissed off Visa? is so completely irresponsible. People, these boards are read by EVERYONE. Trust me when I say this. I, no different from our competitors, are subjected to briefings on a daily basis. Believe it or not, I have seen many of you post negative things about our competitors that have made me cringe. Like Chris (Epic) stated on GFY, competition is a good thing. We don?t wish for Epic or CC Bill to go out of business. I mostly wish that people who don?t understand things would unplug their keyboards. I wish that I could say more in regard to that, but I just can?t.

I in no way, shape or form want to insult any of you. I consider many of you friends; but, I am a straightforward guy. Because of my direct nature, some people interpret me as an asshole; this is not true, I am just extremely aggressive and as many people can attest for, I have made many people out there a lot of money. If you want to be sensitive, you will likely be best off not dealing with me, if you want to make money, maybe a guy of my nature can help. I haven?t been answering my icq all morning because I have been busy; I am now open for messages :)

Thanks Chris.

It feels damn good to not smoke.

We will do lunch sometime. I love the Cheesecake Factory in the Marina.

OK, now I am really confused. I am not trying to stir shit here but given the nature of some of my partnerships with various site owners, I am asking these questions so that there are some valid answers on the table.

This 350 fee is for ACPay to determine who is serious and who is not? The 750 fee is going to Visa and the bank or is going to ACPay? I know where the funds that were collected by CCBill, IBill etc went, and why they were charged... it was a direct Visa USA situation.

Does ACPay settle in the US? If so then why were the accounts not charged and put into compliance last year when everyone else did this?

If ACPay is not settling in the US then how can you justify charging web site owners 750, since Visa Intl isn't collecting fees that I am aware of (please correct me if I am wrong).

This just seems to be a really strange situation, and before I would advise any of my consulting clients on which processing they should be looking at, I would like the answers if you can give them to me Cory.

I try to be unbiased when people, including my clients, ask for advice regarding their businesses, especially since I charge them quite a bit to give them that advice, and I want to make sure that I am guiding them correctly.

Thanks

I would imagine if that were the case than CCBil, Epoch, and iBill would be signing up Canadian webmasters without any problem.

Sticking my foot in as an Australian... I'm a semi-customer of acpay (haven't actually completed the signup process), am I wasting my time and money if I do? I don't mind paying the $350, but I do mind if I am going to be told in 2 months time that acpay can no longer process Visa for an Australian webmaster.

In saying that, I don't expect acpay to have a crystal ball and know what Visa is going to spring on us in the future; I guess I'm just looking for some sort of reassurance about what is happening, specifically in my region.

Incorporating in EU looks better every day...

I would think so myself.

It gets easier, not smoking, but it is a bitch for the first few months. Hang in there.

As for lunch, our treat, anytime.

As for Canadians, they are in Visa Canada, which is a separate region from USA. There are no high risk acquirers that any of us have been able to find.

The $750 goes to the bank; the $350 is to ensure webmaster seriousness.

We have processors all over the world including the US and are fully compliant. We would never risk AC with AC Pay; I assure you of that.

I don't think you are at all. Legit questions. You met me in Phoenix, you know you can say anything that is on your mind to me.

I will have this looked into pronto. I was told something different. If we are wrong, we will make that change asap.

Thanks for the support. It is appreciated by everyone over here.

Cory - Just to clarify, my post wasn't intended to say that AC Pay was in violation of Visa in any way. Rather that AC Pay has finally decided to go the IPSP route pushed by Visa.

Your statement still leaves several questions...

Will US webmasters be in Visa compliance if they pay the $750. fee with AC Pay? Since AC Pay was under Visa International regs., I think this needs clarification. The other importance of this is if a webmaster uses other IPSPs in the US region, they must use all Visa compliant processors or risk being cancelled by the other IPSPs.

People have mentioned in the past that AC Pay doesn't provide all customer information to the webmaster, and that the customer is in fact AC Pay's customer - not the webmaster's. Will this be changing now that AC Pay is an IPSP?

I agree that charging a fee weeds out the time wasters and people that aren't serious. I wouldn't worry too much about people bitching about the fee. But serious webmasters want to be sure that they're paying the fee for a reason, and that the reason makes them 100% compliant.

Sorry Cory. I do agree that you need to weed out the non-serious webmasters by charging the fees.

But you can't complain about webmasters "jumping down your throat" and being "irresponsible" when, your company misrepresented the Visa fee situation as a marketing ploy, creating a ton of confusion .... Not to mention, mistrust.

THAT is "completely irresponsible."

I totally understand.

If you pay the fee with us, we will pay your Visa compliance so yes, you will be compliant.

As far as Canadians are concerned, our Merchant division has confirmed that he is correct. For now, it is appearing that we will not be able to process them.

We have a meeting in the morning regarding this very subject. I will give you further detail at which time.

Except that by definition the small webmasters have little impact on the market one way or another. They may run up paperwork or occupy space in a database somewhere and depending on the nature of your business with them, that may mean actual expense and not just irritation. The webmasters who have a big enough presence to harm our industry's reputation are not going to be thinned out by a $750 fee.

I like how he dodges the hard questions. Very slick.

I also love the $350 charge "because we can."

As for you pissing off Visa - no, I'm sure you didn't do that. After all, you only did an end run around all their attempts to regulate the IPSP industry. I'm sure that didn't bother them in the least.

Good luck with the IPSP biz. Maybe try answering some hard questions soon.

I have to agree. Even if he is right, I can't believe he would complain about webmasters screaming bloody murder after his company actively marketed "No Visa Fees" to webmasters.

Of course people will speculate because ... duh ... you lied to them! How can anyone trust anything they say?

Now that their ploy backfired and they're probably losing their shirts, everyone is suddenly "irresponsible" for questioning their claims about Visa compliance.

Whining about how their reputation has been damaged. For crying out loud! It's their own fault!

I am so sick of all of the bullshit coming from these processors. I don't have a problem with the fees but, none of these companies seems to know what the hell they are doing.

I am citizen of Canada and Taiwan. If I have presence in both countries but I mainly stay in Canada, will I be able to process from Visa asian region and get paid to my Canada bank??

You expect an answer for that from somebody who didn't know the difference between the US and Canada regarding processing?

Cory, can you answer Kimmy's question?

-------
"Where is ACPay settling their transactions? Are they using a US merchant account? A European one? One somewhere else? They have them all over the world and will be properly acquiring within the regions for the merchants in those regions and will be breaking them down on a region by region basis when they settle?

Because if not, registration fee or not, it seems to me that they would still be in violation of the cross border acquisition policies and would be in danger of having Visa compliance shut them down."
-------

I currently use AC Pay. The fee is no big deal but I might be worried about this issue Kimmy brought up. I am not sure how any of this works so when Kimmy questions anything regarding VISA compliances I listen.

Canada SUCKS! :BangBang:

Boy, here we go again, since now I am even more confused.

Have you been settling US transactions for ACPay clients without registering them in the US? That seems to be what you are implying and I just don't see how that could be possible.

I could understand if you are setting outside the US and therefore didn't feel the need to be compliant with the US, so are you now adding to your portfolio the option of US settlement for US clients?

If so, then I am not understanding how you can 'waive' the $750 fee for site owners that have already paid it elsewhere, since it's my understanding that EACH processor has to collect and remit to their own banks, regardless of other processors the client may be registered with previously. So will your US clients be properly registered with Visa if they do not remit the fee to you?

I'm trying to get my head around all this so I can have a clear and proper understanding of what is going on here and while I hate to keep after you with questions, I do want to understand how this process is working.

The other issue at stake here for site owners is the fact that they are not allowed to acquire in multiple regions for the same web site. So if they are using Ibill for a primary, for instance, and ACPay for backup, do you guarantee that they are being settled in the US, and do you accept the liability of potential Visa sanctions on these clients if it were to turn out that they were in violation of a basic tenet of Visa's, and were to incur any financial or punitive damage from Visa's actions as a result of their improper acquisition and settlement of payments to their sites?

See what happens when you try to cut conners!! That is why there will only be a few good companies standing!!

masturbaiton man

OUEEEE!!!!!

SARS!!!!

:NopeNope

Yea screw ACPAY in the goats ass, When I signed up they promised there would be no fee's and now this shit, Now after going with epoch/ccbill/ibill I WILL HAVE TO PAY acpay MORE MONEY? NO farking way!! lawyer stated to me do nothing till they steal the Rebills so its a wait and see game, as I don't use them for my main cc *shrugs*

Wonder what Glo-bill is going to do, only thing sucks is I dont use them for primary anymore so will prolly loose a few grand in re-bills, should of just said screw it and paid the 750.00 fee's upfront with ccbill when this first started, so guess its really my fault but I wont go down without a fight lol

TOM

soooooooooooo.... you sent me a 750$ bill when you can't even process for me? that's what I understand? How about you gfy?

You clearly have no clue of what you're doing.

I really though AC was a respectable company... big mistake.

This is really interesting. I wonder if he will answer Kimmy's specific questions.

On the one hand, they're claiming total Visa compliance. They just made a "mistake" marketing to "non-serious" webmasters --- whom they lied to about the fees.

Yet, even if webmasters pay the fees, there's no specific answers assuring webmasters that they won't experience problems with Visa.

Hmmmmmm ....

This is getting to the point that webmasters will have to call the acquiring bank for references and information to see which end is up. Assuming, of course, that the processor will tell you which bank it is ... LOL

:Graucho

Its Visa, rules may change per hour.

I am asking them the same specific questions I would ask ANY processor who chose an alternate route to the one that Visa US asked for last fall. If Globill were to announce their fee structure, I would question them as well, since the situation is very similar.

I don't care what kind of business you are in, if you cannot accept payment, then you have no business. My clients are in the business of getting paid for their work, and for those that I advise, especially those who take my advice, I like to be very certain of my suggestions.

I work for Pro Defence Billing. If you are looking for a third party biller, Here's some good news.

Set up fees $0
Reserve: 7.5%
Processing Fees: 10%
Visa Fees: $0

I can arrange discounts.
Contact me on [email protected]

Or sign up today at www.prodefencebilling.com

ACPay was "good news" when I went to them many months ago. How can prodefencebilling.com get away without complying with Visa regs?

Wow, I love how she came back and answered you after her drive by spam...

I got my questions answered. I think.

Why in GOD'S name would anyone do processing with ACPAYS when they don't even know Visa Regs for the United States and Canada?

This is really fucking sad. You are trying to put the responsability on the webmasters who chose the alternative option instead of going through the incorporation headache??

...then you call them not serious? WTF? You lied to them. You said everything will be fine with ACPay. Why the fuck would a serious webmaster incorporate in US and pay more tax if he can use ACPay without all the headaches? He's still a serious webmaster, as serious as the other one who prefered the first option.

Point is, you lied. Stand up like a man now, don't fucking try to put the responsability on serious webmasters. (Anyone who start a paysite is serious, it takes time, work, content, feeds, designs , hosting and marketing efforts)

Completely stupid. I used AC Pay at first and I'm a dead serious webmaster that would sue your ass if I had more money in your irresponsable system.

:feels-hot


GREAT! All rebills are lost and you keep asking for $750 on top of that.

You lied, took our money and cheated many webmasters simply because you did not take your responsabilities. :321GFY

Like anyone can take this seriously. LOL.

This is the last thing we need. Another fly-by-night processor with bullshit promises that will probably screw webmasters or go under in six months.

:1orglaugh

I don't think small webmasters joining them cos there was no VISA fees involved but for god's sakes they don't even provide hit stats keeping you in total darkness about how you are converting. No comprehensive admin stats. No ACH and VISA / Mastercard processing only not even Discover card. Basically they are no CCBill, iBill, epoch or GloBill. I would use them only as a secondary processor. Don't think they are going to be left with too many webmasters now..

Hmmm,

maybe I did not really read the email correctly at first... the fees described say nothing about registering with visa, filling out forms etc etc rather it looks like a fee to the processor

does it or doesn't it?