Gammae / Fame Dollars Went Down Same Path as CCBill

Keep voting liberal. 😂
This is about government overreach by leftists.

It is surely related to that:
https://mikesouth.com/adult-news/adu...-byborg-80867/
https://avn.com/news/video/byborg-en...ainment-178838
https://www.xbiz.com/news/286708/byb...-entertainment

Gamma's KYC requests date back to Feb 2024.

KYC for businesses have been in place in a variety of industries dating back to the Obama area. It's only now being enforced in our sector.

I may not like it but it's a banking regulation that they can't just ignore. It's not their fault. They have to do it to do it to comply with banking regulations. They can't stay in business without complying.

Does it suck dick? For sure. But it's also not going away.

Communist-style demands on documentation are often an attempt at avoiding payouts on a large scale.

BTW, receiving wires from CCBill without any issues. There were never any KYC demands from their side. All they need is my account number.

Albeit, affiliates aren't customers. CCBill doesn't need to know anything about me other than how to send me a payment in order to pay me. Otherwise, do you have to check names, DOBs, SSNs, addresses of people you buy things from off of Craigslist? Do you need to verify company documentation and paperwork every time you go shop somewhere? If anybody would need to prove the origin of funds, it would be the PAYOR, not the PAYEE. As an affiliate, you are the PAYEE, and a PARTNER, not a customer.

These draconian measures actually contributing towards identity theft. The more unecessary collection of information, the more readily available that information becomes to criminals. I'm far more concerned about what CCBill, or somebody at CCBill, can do with information it doesn't need than the idea of CCBill paying an affiliate commission to an affiliate they didn't collect that information about. Is the act of being an affiliate and generating affiliate commission illegal? No. What is there for the affiliate to prove here?

This 👆👆👆

But we are. We are who they are doing business with. ie: Thier customer. It may be a b2b customer, but a customer nonetheless.

and the part about how to pay you, that's the actual point of the law. They have to know who they are paying. That way they are on the hook if you turn out to be a shady ass fuck. They can't be like oh we didn't know he was a money laundering pyscho. We thought his name was Jim Smith.

This ignorance is stupefying.

So you are unable to think now?

No. Affiliates are not customers of affiliate programs. On the "hook" for paying somebody who is shady? Apparently, you are too myopic to see the real shadiness, which is the collection of unnecessary personal information. How is any affiliate program/network responsible for the conduct of the people it pays affiliate commissions to? How does collecting information about its affiliates make affiliates less shady? So you are saying that because CCBill collects my home address rather than allowing me to use a PO Box, requiring me to provide a utility bill, somehow makes me an honest person?

Either an affiliate generating traffic and earning affiliate commissions is ipso facto dishonest and criminal and needs to be stopped no matter what, or there's nothing wrong with people joining affiliate programs and earning affiliate commissions. No amount of ID or personal information changes the nature of the act. We don't permit murder because the murderer provides ID. We don't prohibit murder because the murderer fails to provide ID. The act of murder is ipso facto evil. It's bad. No amount of ID or lack of ID makes earning affiliate commissions good or bad. What you write is nonsense. Money laundering? Again. CCBill is the PAYOR. The affiliate webmaster is the PAYEE. No amount of information about the PAYEE tells us about the origin of the funds from the PAYOR.

As far as whether or not you or I are shady people, that's not the responsibility of any affiliate program. CCBill is no more responsible for who I am than my neighbor down the road is.

To the contrary, using KYC regulations on affiliates serves as a pretext for organizations like CCBill to withhold legitimately earned funds, which is the real scandal. Not only that, collecting enough information on affiliate webmasters to satisfy KYC requirements provides CCBill with enough information to do truly dishonest and criminal things - e.g., opening up actual bank/merchant accounts in our names to do things like....launder funds. This reminds me of 2257 laws. You think 2257 laws stop child predators? So why are there child predators? If it weren't so seriously an invasion of everybody's business, it would be laughable. If you take a photo of a woman, you have to collect her ID for your records. The rationale? if you don't collect all of her information and hold onto it, you may be guilty of photographing a minor! Well think of how much more serious of an act actual sex is! Why not require people to collect the ID's of their sex partners and retain such ID to prove they aren't having sex with minors? For the sake of logical consistency, you should have to document the ID of each and every one of your sex partners. After all, you would have to do it for taking photographs of them! Not only do 2257 laws not stop any real crimes, they create new victimless crimes - i.e., failure to follow 2257 requirements.

And now with 2257 laws, everybody who starts an adult website can get the driver's licenses and SSNs of people who pose for the camera. You want to steal identities? Become an adult webmaster! Not only that, pursuant to your own logic, adult webmasters are so dishonest they can't honestly earn affiliate commisisons without affiliate programs collecting all of the information about the webmasters! Yet you support the same system that has made it incredibly easy for those same adult webmasters to get SSNs of adult models! Or start an affiliate network and then tell affiliates you need all of their information to pay them! You don't think there's anybody dishonest at CCBill? You don't think even companies do dishonest things? That was Wells Fargo that opened up fraudulent accounts for people. There's no legal reason CCBill needs to make affiliate webmasters satisfy KYC requirements to payout affiliate commissions. Especially when the payment would be a check or wire that has to clear a bank that already did KYC on the very same affiliate. It's not good enough to send the deposit to my bank account at a US bank that did KYC on me already? And if there were such mandates, those mandates would be wholly dangerous, compromising people's personal information, and should be jettisoned. Do you get this? The very process is facilitating identity theft, and identity theft is more often than not juxtaposed with other crimes. The very policies you defend are attracting dishonest people into the industry.

Quite frankly, there's no constitutional basis for the Social Security system to even exist, and there should be no such thing as a Social Security Number. Having a single, federalized identifier makes people far more vulnerable to identity theft. Different businesses and different entitities would use their own unique identifiers for people. But I see people have been so acclimated to the encroachment on our liberties that they just go along with such nonsense, spewing such things as: CCBill collecting utility bills of affiliate webmasters will make affiliate webmasters good people!

I feel like I'm trying to teach physics to cats.

I'd be happier if the people on this forum who support this encroachment just advocated for a special designated Affiliate Webmaster License. And then an affiliate webmaster can provide all of the KYC information to obtain the Affiliate Webmaster License, and that would work to join any affiliate program without the need to provide the same information to each and every affiliate program. That would be far more preferable to the trend I see going on. CCBill demanded I satisfy KYC regs to be an affiliate. Now it's Gamma. Isn't CCBill good enough? If I can do it for CCBill, why should I have to do this for each and every single affiliate program?

Good luck with all that. I'd personally just terminate you rather than risk my business.

How twisted some of you are. I pose a risk because I support your right to privacy? The cognitive dissonance is breathtaking. Can't let people earn affiliate commissions without disclosing all sorts of personal information. Nobody can be trusted, but simultaneously you trust everybody collecting personal information on eachother. I can't be trusted to earn affiliate commissions, but I can be trusted with your SSN.

You miss the big picture. You don't get it. They have us all collecting personal information on eachother, spying on eachother. That's your risk.

This.


All day long

Well no, I own sites and products and process credit cards with a handful of banks, who every year give me a list of stricter and stricter requirements to keep the whole ship sailing forward. If you aren't immediately replying with the documents my bank asked from me, I am going to bid you goodbye and protect my very real business that feeds my family.

I don't enjoy having to play by these rules, but this is the industry we work in and the reality of doing millions in revenue in adult.

You don't even make sense. If people don't reply to your bank with documents you are bidding people goodbye? Huh? What? So because your bank did KYC on you, that means everybody should have KYC done on them for everything?

My bank did KYC on me, too. What I'm talking about is having to go through KYC for AFFILIATE ACCOUNTS.

Can anybody on here define what money laundering is? Can anybody on here describe the purpose behind KYC? So aside from how right or wrong KYC is on a more abstract basis (once upon a time, we could even bank without KYC), just going by the exact definitions and purposes used to justify KYC.

I quote directly from CCBill's own website:

From another site:

The definition of money laundering:

I make NO deposits of any kind into my CCBill AFFILIATE ACCOUNT, nor my Gamma AFFILIATE ACCOUNT. If cash were to flow, it's flowing unidirectionally from CCBill to me. Being an affiliate webmaster is wholly different than banking, where a person makes deposits. Again. CCBill is the PAYOR. The affiliate webmaster is the PAYEE. If the origin of affiliate commissions is illicit, that's because CCBILL IS ILLICIT! Quite frankly, the more I think about the ABUSE OF KYC by entities like CCBill, the more I start to actually believe CCBill is engaged in criminal activity. The people on this forum going through mental somersaults to excuse KYC'ing AFFILIATE accounts aren't even applying definitions correctly. KYC'ing AFFILIATE accounts is serious mission creep.

KYC is absurd for even a CCBill merchant account, being a merchant account with CCBill is not used for unlimited purposes. In fact, CCBill even screens its merchants, collecting information on what kind of business activity the merchant is involved in. To ensure no illegal activity is occurring (with an ever evolving definition of legal and illegal behaviors) all CCBill needs to do is confirm what activities are triggering payments. Period. As a CCBill merchant, you don't make open ended deposits into the CCBill merchant account. CCBill is a payment processor. So the only information CCBill really needs to know is what goods and services its merchants are selling. To be clear, up to this point, I have been talking about AFFILAITE ACCOUNTS. CCBill is doing KYC on AFFILIATE ACCOUNTS, which is even more absurd.

Think about how retarded some of the people on this forum are. They justify CCBill running KYC on AFFILIATE ACCOUNTS, so that AFFILIATE WEBMASTERS can refer traffic to CCBill's own merchants that CCBill already did KYC on, in order to get paid funds by CCBill that originated with CCBill and would be deposited by the affiliate into a BANK that did KYC on the very same affiliate. And people are just fine with that. And right on CCBill's own website, CCBill even talks about how identity theft goes together with illicit activities, which CCBill even cities as another justification for the very unnecessary KYC that results in the proliferation of personal information, faciliting the very same identity theft they are supposedly trying to curtail. The mental somersaults some of the people on this forum go through to excuse all this is breathtaking!

They pay you. If you want to continue to get paid then you'll comply with their rules. Don't want to, then you don't get to do business with them. It's just that simple. Get over yourself already.

You use big words and long paragraphs in an attempt to look smart but you can't think of how an affiliate account could be used for money laundering?

I know of a single affiliate that cost an affiliate program $100k in fines a couple of years ago and that was the beginning of the KYC for affiliates that you are seeing being implemented now. It's not going away, ever.

Like it or not, you will continue to see more of it on any program that hopes to have a future.

No. I can't. But you are so smart, why don't you explain it. Explain to me how I can launder funds through my CCBill affiliate account? Please. i'm waiting, Mr. Intelligence.

And you accuse me of using big words as if I'm just compensating for lack of cognitive skills. No. I just use my regular lexicon, and quite frankly I made it a point to not use words that would confuse people in here. Breathtaking you would try to imply I've used fancy words but make no sense, when anybody with intelligence would clearly see the ones not making sense are the ones going along with this trend.

One of the most frequent replies goes something like this: I have to do KYC. Companies are doing KYC. You should have to do it, too! Just accept it!

Rape happens. Murder happens. Does something happening make it ipso facto good or something we should accept? Now let's pretend affiliate programs are doing KYC because they truly are legally required to do KYC on affiliate webmasters. Perhaps that would shift the blame away from the affiliate programs and squarely onto the government. But even so, it's still something I would oppose. It's government overreach. Just because something is done mean people should accept what is being done. This attitude of blind obedience to authority is what precipitates hardcore totalitarianism, which is the trajectory we are on. When so many people accept things without question, no wonder.

If believing that governments and people and businesses can do wrong, and that people should oppose bad policy, makes me stupid, then I'm guilty as charged. I'm totally stupid. I'm stupid for believing people should actually evaluate what they are being asked to do.

On this very forum thread, people have actually stated things like affiliate webmasters are customers of affiliate programs. No we aren't. As an affiliate webmaster, I SELL TRAFFIC. CCBill and Gamma buy traffic from affiliate webmasters. That makes CCBill and Gamma customers of the affiliate webmasters. But even so, should cashiers at Wal-Mart demand to see your papers every time you go through the checkout line? After all, you could be a shady person if the cashiers at Wal-Mart don't get to look at your ID and SSN, and it's up to Wal-Mart to make sure they have no shady customers!

And for the ones that support this overreach, you are that incapable of seeing how the very system you are defending is what is creating the biggest risk to all of us? Let's pretend CCBill itself is 100% honest and nobody at CCBill ever does anything wrong. You don't see how the proliferation of personal information, the frequent transmission of sensitive data, creates additional risk? As if there aren't hackers? Not to mention, there's a paradox in the world view. People are so inherently untrustworthy they shouldn't be allowed to do something completely legal and honest such as generating affiliate traffic for customers without being KYC'ed by their very own customers, but simultaneously it's a good idea for everybody to collect sensitive personal information on each other. You don't trust me, but you want me to have access to all of your personal information. Amazing.

And trust me. I'm done selling traffic to customers of mine that want to do KYC on me. In fact, my reply to my customers is that they are my customers, and pursuant to their very own logic, they should be providing me with the documentation they demand from me.

There have been cases in the past where people bought access to CP by being instructed to sign up to a regular porn site via affiliate link. So yes, it is in the interest of the affiliate program to know who they are dealing with.

And I am not an American tax expert and from my dealings with CCBill in the past I know that they don't care about things like that, but as a European company paying affiliates I need to know whether you are an individual or company and where you are located. Because it has implications on whether VAT applies or not.

If someone wants to do business with me but doesn't want to reveal their identity, I would just skip doing business with that person.

Perhaps there's some confusion here. To sign up for the affiliate program one has to provide identifying information. Otherwise, how does somebody even get paid properly? There's a distinction between that and KYC. I'm talking full KYC, which is completely unnecessary. And whatever bad thing somebody did that you cite, it doesn't sound like that would be solved by KYC'ing affiliate webmasters. What am I going to do with an affiliate link that isn't being done by the actual merchant? And CP, by the way, is illegal. It can already be stopped and prosecuted. No need for affiliate programs to KYC affiliate webmasters.

When you send a lot of large affiliate payments, the bank that you use to send them can ask who you are sending to.

When you apply for a merchant account, you need to send 3 months of bank statements and they can ask what these payments are for.

Every rant you post just shows you don't do serious business

Good luck with whatever the fuck it is you are trying to accomplish in this thread.

You are making no sense.

"When you send a lot of large affiliate payments, the bank that you use to send them can ask who you are sending to."

WHat? Perhaps the problem is your own lack of cognition. It's rather hard to carry on any kind of a discussion with somebody whose brain is so scrambled.

That said, I can try my best.

I don't send affiliate payments. AFFILIATE WEBMASTERS don'ts end affiliate payments. The affiliate program (e.g. CCBill) sends them. You mean the affiliate's bank will verify the source of the funds when the affiliate is paid by CCBill? Well you make my point! If you scroll up, you would see I made that same exact point already! The absolutel needlessness of CCBill KYC'ing affiliate webmasters to disburse payments that would go to a bank that already did KYC!

What's even more amazing is how people just put up with this and accept it. As the tyranny has been implemented gradually, people have become acclimated to it. It's akin to the proverbial frog in the boiling pot. How few people seem to mentally process the unrighteousness of the government having turned us all into spies and de facto government agents. We just don't get paid by the government. The government didn't have to create an official stasi with government pay and government benefits. Instead, the government has mandated people spy on each other. As if it should be the bank's duty to determine the origin of funds to begin with.

I don't give a shit about ccbill or affiliate webmasters. I am telling you why this shit exists. I am explaining that as an affiliate program owner, the ranting you are doing in this thread would turn me off and I would send you packing rather than deal with proposals of "Affiliate Webmaster Licenses"

But in this specific case of ccbill, they are a US-based processor and send a lot of payments. Their bank is requiring them to KYC everyone they send to. Even if you are an "affiliate" (this word means nothing in the real world btw).

Nothing you are saying matters. You're beating your head against a wall. Comply with KYC, or don't get paid, or just send your traffic to animalporn.ru. No one gives a shit.

And the programs bank asks who they are sending money to, which is why the require you to complete KYC. They are obligated to by the bank.

I think you are confused on that. But if we have reached THAT level, then the tyranny is even worse. So like most others, you just re-state the problem. I don't believe banks have to verify where somebody is going to spend money. CCBill's bank wouldn't be causing CCBill to KYC affiliate programs. Now banks do a have a practice of verifying the origin of DEPOSITS. But expenditures, that's not something banks routinely insert themselves into.

It's only going to get more strict. For a good reason

Yeah. Because the government is out of control and people are so out of control, they believe it's okay to impose tyranny on their countrymen.

As Reagan once pointedly asked, if we can't be trusted to govern ourselves, then who amongst us is fit to govern over others? And that dovetails exactly with some of what I have written here. We can't be trusted or allowed to do honest things, but simultaneously we can be trusted to collect information and spy on eachother.

So what you are saying is you are only willing to do business with people who aren't willing to be compliant with the law.

That kind of speaks volumes about you and sort of explains why they need KYC in the first place, no?

Yes, I could not think. I could not believe in this day and age someone involved not only in our industry, but any legitimate business, is so paranoid and clueless.

Either understand what it is like to do business with banks these days or slip back into your coma and ask again in 15 years.

Yeah. You are paranoid. It takes an extreme level of paranoia to be afraid of somebody joining an affiliate program without KYC!

Meanwhile, because of 2257 laws, anybody can go buy 2257 compliant content and obtain copies of driver's license and social security cards of adult models.....WITHOUT having to go through KYC!

The mentality on this forum perfectly crystallizes how governments slaughter people. Hey. It happens! So accept it! You have a duty to obey! Don't ask questions! Don't second guess anything our loving politicians do!

Like I wrote previously, we would do better if you all just fucking advocated for a fucking Affiliate Webmaster License. Just KYC me ONE fucking time to get the government issued Affiliate Webmaster License, which I can then present to any affiliate program and that would be sufficient. I mean shit, my real ID driver's license (i.e. a federalized driver's license that required me to go through KYC) isn't good enough to KYC me but it's a real ID driver's license? Fine. Concoct an Affiliate Webmaster License. That way we can cut down on people have to transmit all sorts of personal information to every single affiliate program.

if you read this thread no one likes the situation any more than you do. Fuze summed it up best here


banks (following regulations) need to know where money is being sent. failure to comply with those regulations means the sponsor programs won't have a functioning business bank. no business, no affiliates to pay. see how that works?

that's the reality, it's not a matter of liking it or blindly laying down and taking it. it's simply a choice between being in business or not. govs of all stripes in all jurisdictions have tightened rules over the years under the guise of preventing money laundering, terrorism, trafficking, etc. there's no ally in power on the side of privacy

like it or not, that's the reality of being on any side of online money transfers

From the post, it didn't sound like he was implying it was a bad thing. In fact, the main issue is that it isn't even relevant to the original post. It requires a very wild imagination to suggest that BANKS are requiring CCBill to KYC affiliate webmasters. Rather presumptuous and nonsensical. I think the best source to explain why CCBill is KYC'ing affiliate webmasters would be CCBill itself. And what is CCBill's excuse?

I work in mergers and acquisitions. It's part of my job to dive into what adult companies looking to buy or sell are dealing with in regard to banking compliance.

Part of what I love about my job is that I get to see how so many different companies have evolved and adapted as change has affected the industry.

One of the worst parts of my job is seeing people work for years and then find themselves out of business because they didn't adapt to the times before it was too late. It's also pretty unfortunate to see people try and sell something that they've created and eventually destroyed themselves by assuming that change didn't apply to them.

Trust me when I tell you I'm in no way confused by what you said or the way things are or that it's a pain for people to have to jump through these hoops. I simply wouldn't choose to die on the hill that you are standing on.

Die on the hill? As if I'm suffering by refusing to sell traffic to affiliate programs that do this kind of thing.

The why is not the is central issue. People can spend all day long speculating as to why companies are doing this. Does the government really require CCBill to KYC affiliate webmasters? I doubt it. Complete contortion of rules and regulations. But whatever the reason, the what is the issue. It's not right. Whether it is CCBill's fault or not, it's not right. It isn't innovation. It's authoritarianism.

As one who supports free markets, CCBill certainly has the right to do whatever it wishes to affiliate webmasters. Just like affiliate webmasters - including myself - have the right to refuse to do business with CCBill or Gamma. But let's say it is government law that demands CCBill KYC affiliate webmasters. That shouldn't be the case. In fact, banks shouldn't even be required to KYC. If a bank wants to KYC, they can. If they don't want to, they shouldn't have to. Whose business is it whether or not an affiliate program doesn't KYC me and still buys traffic from me? FYI: Most affiliate programs have not tried to KYC me. Now if I was borrowing money from CCBill, and CCBill was my financier, I'm sure CCBIll would want to know everything it can about me. But why does CCBill need to see a utility bill to buy website traffic from me? If government is driving that, that's a problem. It is nobody else's business what two consenting adults want to do in bed or at the business table. What's discouraging is so many people on this thread believe it is their business to insert themselves into the middle of other people's business. I think the most pointed question here is: how is it right to COMPEL companies through the force of law to KYC affiliate webmasters? Maybe you think it's a good idea for companies to KYC affiliate webmasters. But that doesn't mean you have to favor compelling companies to do that, denying companies the choice. You want to force CCBill to do that?

Literally the bank is requiring ccbill to kyc anyone they transfer funds to. No one cares about the words "affiliate" or "webmaster".

And how do you know it's CCBill's bank requiring this? Either which way, it's still bad. This is only a matter of whose fault it is.

Because I have direct mids with their upstream acquirer Esquire.

OK as a CCBill Program Owner who has sent money to affiliates worldwide over the past fifteen years let me chime in here:

First, it sounds like xxxuniversity just wants to argue. Is he Russian? I have learned in life that when someone complains about IDs and regulations etc it is simply because they cannot comply and are trying to argue/wiggle their way around having to provide documents they don't have or cannot get.

I will not repeat the endless truth posted here about banks and money transfers etc. Suffice it to say that unless xxxuniversity was sending massive traffic and joins to one of my sites I would pass on him as an affiliate. All this drama for two joins a month kind of thing...

Anyway, cheers.

Funny how nobody can deal with arguments on merits. Ad hominems. Am I Russian because I support free markets? Hmmmm. Speaks volumes about how far the United States has fallen.

FYI: I served honorably in the Armed Forces of the UNITED STATES. My intention wasn't to go there, because I would never argue it makes me superior, nor does it have to do with arguments based on merits. You went there. What have you done, Mr. Patriot?

By the way, I'm still waiting for Mr. Intelligence to explain to us how an affiliate webmaster can launder funds through an affiliate account with CCBill or any other affiliate program.

It's the most absurd idea. Like even if there were a way for affiliates to deposit funds into their affiliate account, anybody who would do so would have to be the stupidest motherfucker and deserve to lose everything anyways. I mean there's no means to withdraw funds. In fact, CCBill can just find any pretext to NOT payout EARNED COMMISSIONS. It isn't like CCBill issues affiliate webmasters debit cards attached to their accounts. So the second you deposited funds into the account (IF THAT WERE EVEN A POSSIBILITY), you would completely relinquish control over the funds with no means to use them for anything......until CCBill decided to send the funds into your own bank account! Affiliate accounts aren't bank accounts! Nothing like a bank account!

If anybody that obsessed with supporting every last draconian statute on the books, what makes you believe the entire KYC'ing of affiliate webmasters isn't about something like tax evasion? I'm not accusing CCBill of this, but suppose as CCBill withhols affiliate commissions, those funds get deposited into de jure bank accounts opened up by CCBill in affiliate webmaster names, where CCBill retains control of the funds, but can subtract those funds from its income. To be clear, I'm not saying that is the case. The point here is the ONLY party that can launder funds through an affiliate account is........CCBill.

And I'm sure the big established companies like CCBill love the idea of KYC'ing affiliate webmasters being mandatory because it helps suppress competition. You have to hire attorneys and staff to collect documentation.