Goodbye AVS!

[dropped9]

SexCheck Webmaster Update

Dear Webmaster,

As you are aware, VISA, MasterCard, payment processing companies, together with their respective banks, frequently adjust, or readjust, their policies regarding online payment transactions.

We at SexCheck have been informed that VISA has interpreted its regulations to prohibit AVS programs from accepting transactions originating at sites not owned by the AVS program itself.

This means that SexCheck, as an AVS, can no longer include sites owned by third party webmasters. So not only must SexCheck no longer accept for review any third party site submissions, any third party sites participating in the program must be removed.

Regrettably, we have no choice but to comply with VISA's position, and therefore all SexCheck join panels must be removed from participating sites.

Thank you for your kind support of, and participation in, SexCheck. And thank you for removing the join panels from your sites.

Kind Regards,

SexCheck AVS

[Spunky]

Just got that..Looks like trouble in the AVS market

[Gutterboy]

From FreeNetPass:

As many of you know, there has been increasing pressure on the adult industry by VISA and MasterCard recently. This pressure has prompted everyone in the industry to make some changes to better comply with the new demands placed on us. Contrary to the initial panic seen on many message boards, this is not a catastrophic event for anyone. We simply need to make some minor changes to make things more clear to consumers and to better fit with the new demands.

Who to believe...

[Forest]

ouch

[Carrie]

Don't panic until the big 3 make an announcement.
SexKey, Cyberage, and AdultCheck.

[brand0n]

fuckin visa, i dont know what there prob is, they are makin money! why the fuck would you stop that?

[Gutterboy]

Originally posted by brand0n
fuckin visa, i dont know what there prob is, they are makin money! why the fuck would you stop that?

http://www.gofuckyourself.com/search.php?s=

Suggested search queries: "kimmykim" & "high risk"

The adult industry as a whole accounts for a much smaller piece of Visa's pie than you probably think.

[OneHungLo]

it's coming...ohhhhhhhh its coming

[Carrie]

Adult is such a small percentage of Visa's transactions that they honestly could brush us off and never miss us.

[Lensman]

I thought that was happening a long time ago!

[pamphage]

Yeah Visa seems to have very little interest in processing porn in any capacity. This is bad news for everyone, not just AVS. And don't think that just cuz you forked over your $750 to visa, you are safe either. look up "Hilter appeasement" with regards to WWII history.

[hershie]

I thought Visa had handed down their bottom line already on what needed to be changed to continue processing like removing any language about verifying age and accessing thousands of other sites.. so I thought at first this was an issue specific to SexCheck but, this quote in their email is scary

"We at SexCheck have been informed that VISA has interpreted its regulations to prohibit AVS programs from accepting transactions originating at sites not owned by the AVS program itself."

[cherrylula]

Fuck Visa... here's a recent article on the anti-trust litigation:

http://www.imra.org/public/pages/index.cfm?pageid=2629

If you scroll to the bottom and open the court document it says they have until October 17 to make any objections to the final judgement.

That article is a good read for anyone who hasn't read much on the United States of America vs Visa and Mastercard case.

I hope they lose their fucking asses, those scheming motherfuckers. Maybe their CEOs will jump off their balconies too.

We can only hope that this case will bust their balls enough to make room for other money services.

[Tipsy]

A pain in the ass but no surprise. VISA were never going to fall for the whole 'one big site' thing while it was still obviously not. I'll be very surprised if the others don;t follow closely in the very near future. If you're going to push it as being one site it needs to be seen to be so.

[hershie]

Originally posted by Tipsy
A pain in the ass but no surprise. VISA were never going to fall for the whole 'one big site' thing while it was still obviously not. I'll be very surprised if the others don;t follow closely in the very near future. If you're going to push it as being one site it needs to be seen to be so.

[RockDaddy]

Couldn't webmasters just register a domain and list an avs as the owner?

[Theo]

keep supporting bush administration

and do not tell me it's not related.

[Carrie]

Originally posted by Soul_Rebel
keep supporting bush administration

and do not tell me it's not related.

Okay, I won't tell you.

[Snake Doctor]

Originally posted by Tipsy
A pain in the ass but no surprise. VISA were never going to fall for the whole 'one big site' thing while it was still obviously not. I'll be very surprised if the others don;t follow closely in the very near future. If you're going to push it as being one site it needs to be seen to be so.

SexCheck never made the changes that the other AVS's have recently made. They decided they were better off just getting rid of the affiliates and running the program with all of their house sites.
If you ever went through their links list you'd see that probably 90% of the sites there were their own.

I don't think what Sex Check did is a sign of anything to come from other AVS's.

[Carrie]

I've really gotta laugh when folks equate Visa with Bush and Ash*C*roft.

I mean, do you guys think that if Bush loses the election and a democrat is declared the winner of the vote on Nov. 4th 2004, that Visa will suddenly back off of us and say "Hey guys, guess what! Back to business as usual! Happy times are here again!"

It's got nothing to do with Bush and everything to do with chargebacks and fraud.

[lamrobertson]

Holy shit! So visa isnt' going to allow any AVS sites. Shit there goes a good portion of my income.

I hope you guys are wrong and Visa doens't decided not to process all porn related sites. But then again if they did people are still going to want to access porn no matter what and they would find another way to pay. But how? other credit cards or using soemthing like Epassport or Storm Pay if they only had visa.

[lamrobertson]

Originally posted by Lenny2


SexCheck never made the changes that the other AVS's have recently made. They decided they were better off just getting rid of the affiliates and running the program with all of their house sites.
If you ever went through their links list you'd see that probably 90% of the sites there were their own.

I don't think what Sex Check did is a sign of anything to come from other AVS's.

I really hope you are right!

[PornoDoggy]

Originally posted by Carrie

Okay, I won't tell you.

Denial ... it's not just a river in Egypt.

[PornoDoggy]

Originally posted by Carrie
I've really gotta laugh when folks equate Visa with Bush and Ash*C*roft.

I mean, do you guys think that if Bush loses the election and a democrat is declared the winner of the vote on Nov. 4th 2004, that Visa will suddenly back off of us and say "Hey guys, guess what! Back to business as usual! Happy times are here again!"

It's got nothing to do with Bush and everything to do with chargebacks and fraud.

Oh, please. Your absolution of the mullahs in power in Washington is every bit as illogical as the folks who blame ALL the problems on them.

Trust me, Visa is considering ALL of the aspects of this issue, including the political environment.

Is it all Pat Robertson's lackey in the White House and DoJ? Not at all. I can understand why some reactionaries might want to deny that they have any role in it - but to do so is absolutely as foolish as assuming that Ashitcrap is personally pulling the strings behind Visa's maneuvers.

[AlanM]

I don't see any reasons to panic. In fact VISA just against of using credit card as an age verification instrument with hidden (or not) charges. You will sell an access to an adult network with consist of sites which are property of this network and of sites to which this network will grant an access too, so it will look like standard sponsor's scheme.

[explicite]

Bush and everything to do with chargebacks and fraud.

In france they tried to shut down porn on TV .see article . They failed after a very public spat. Next on the hit list the internet.

The cristian right is in power here in France and.. in the USA. Visa cares about every % point they can make. You believe otherwise ?

[DTK]

Originally posted by Lenny2


SexCheck never made the changes that the other AVS's have recently made. They decided they were better off just getting rid of the affiliates and running the program with all of their house sites.
If you ever went through their links list you'd see that probably 90% of the sites there were their own.

I don't think what Sex Check did is a sign of anything to come from other AVS's.

[Flow]

I think there is a trend here with the type of AVS that SexCheck is (that you get free access to their participating sites as long as you pay for a membership) is under fire . Access For Life made an announcement a couple of days ago and said they will no longer accept new sites.

I think that type of AVS is a thing of the past where they tell you the pass is free and then if you don't read the small print, you are charged for access to their paysite. Always thought that was kinda a huge scam and wondered how they were doing with chargebacks. Now I guess we know - the chargebacks were outlandish.


Flow

[jas1552]

If I remember correctly mrsexkey said before that Visa considers their model to be that of an IPSP and that he thought eventually people who want to have their sites listed on the AVS link list and send sign ups would have to register and pay the $750 fee.

Visa is going to make it impossible to make a site and promote it as you would a paysite without paying the $750 fee and being registered.

[eadweb]

The Bush administration made a deal with Visa.

You make it as difficult as possible for adult sites to operate and we won't ask you why you are charging customers close to 20% while interest rates are at an all time low.

[steffie]

Originally posted by Carrie
Don't panic until the big 3 make an announcement.
SexKey, Cyberage, and AdultCheck.

and than it would really suck for me (and others of course)
I make some decent cash with those ARS's, however we did get notice that we had to change stuff on our sites, which we did and now they are still accepting payment.

So far so good

urgh

[eroswebmaster]

It's just a daily thing now isn't it?

Shit hitting the fan that is.

[twistyneck]

Originally posted by Lenny2


SexCheck never made the changes that the other AVS's have recently made. They decided they were better off just getting rid of the affiliates and running the program with all of their house sites.
If you ever went through their links list you'd see that probably 90% of the sites there were their own.

I don't think what Sex Check did is a sign of anything to come from other AVS's.

Finally, someone with a brain.

[marzzo]

Originally posted by eadweb
You make it as difficult as possible for adult sites to operate and we won't ask you why you are charging customers close to 20% while interest rates are at an all time low.

Some Credit card APRs = 24.99% x 4 (or more) cards = LARGE amounts of cash for the Big Two.

That's a pretty good profit, ontop of the 30 - 50% of your income the banks and the IRS are living the good life. Bitches, boats, and calculators!

[xxxdesign-net]

Originally posted by Carrie
I've really gotta laugh when folks equate Visa with Bush and Ash*C*roft.

I mean, do you guys think that if Bush loses the election and a democrat is declared the winner of the vote on Nov. 4th 2004, that Visa will suddenly back off of us and say "Hey guys, guess what! Back to business as usual! Happy times are here again!"

It's got nothing to do with Bush and everything to do with chargebacks and fraud.

uh, you know, the government can do some lobbying with big companies.. help us and we'll help you.... If the Bush administration think the legal system wont help them achieve what they want... they'll only use other ways....

That being said... is there a relation between republicans and new visa attitude toward the adult industry?... dont know, maybe not...

[Cassie]

this is what i heard through the grapevine and it's fairly old news so please forgive me if i am not exact on the details.

forever and ever more consumers were allowed to include cc debt in their reports when filing bankruptcy. the credit card companies were losing millions (or so i was told) due to the inclusion. at the beginning of this year (or maybe the very latter part of last yr), the cc companies addressed the govt regarding this problem.

now long story short from what i was told, the deal was that consumers were no longer allowed to include cc debt when filing for bankruptcy and as a part of that deal, with the current administration being as high and mighty, in the name of god, as they are, stated that visa/mc had to crack down hard on the adult business.

i could be wrong with this cause my memory of this is foggy but i don't think i am too far off base. this was not a big deal at the time and was basically a deal what was swept under the carpet quickly so that no notice was taken.

i am sure if you search for this information online, you will come up with something about this situation. so yes the current admin has played a large part in this situation and it only makes a whole lot of sense seeing that bush is a bible bopper, he wants to pretty much ban same sex unions and so forth.

it's no wonder his kids drink!

[DonCorleone]

<center></center>

Does this apply only to consumer accounts, or does it apply to merchant accounts as well?

[Strife]

damn visa to hell

[sperbonzo]

The Bush administration made a deal with Visa.

I'm sorry to tell you but there is no conspiracy. I have been dealing with VISA from the point of view of the banks and processors for a number of years now.

The simple fact is is that this industry does not account for all that much money in the overall VISA universe. On the other hand, this industry does account for a HUGE number of chargebacks and fraud. This out of all proportion to the revenues that we generate for VISA, and it ranges from lack of disclosure of the actual fees charged to customers, and selling them memberships that they don't even know they have, to outright theft by webmasters who "bang" customer databases for millions of dollars.


For years, these activities were being screened and hidden by the use of third party processing, (which is why VISA hates IPSPs), and jumping from one offshore shell corp to another to avoid the TMF (terminated merchant file).

As the internet started to mature in the last couple of yearsand the smoke and confusion started to clear, the new head of VISA USA, Martin Elliot, started to take a look at this "problem child" of an industry (us), that was causing so many problems.

They are now taking steps to eliminate those problems.

Sorry, but this is our own fault. The party is over now, and everybody is going to have to run their business like a business.

[Theo]

Originally posted by Carrie
I've really gotta laugh when folks equate Visa with Bush and Ash*C*roft.

I mean, do you guys think that if Bush loses the election and a democrat is declared the winner of the vote on Nov. 4th 2004, that Visa will suddenly back off of us and say "Hey guys, guess what! Back to business as usual! Happy times are here again!"

It's got nothing to do with Bush and everything to do with chargebacks and fraud.

laugh all you want. Bush administration hit the gambling industry by eliminating them their ways of processing. It's not long time ago I posted here a big gambling co., much bigger than most adult sponsors that went out of business because they couldn't follow the pattern of changing processing systems. Now it's our turn.

It's a declared war against online porn. Add all the small pieces and you'll see the whole picture. They still have plenty of time to turn off the switch. For the moment they are shrinking us.

[eroswebmaster]

Originally posted by Soul_Rebel

Add all the small pieces and you'll see the whole picture.

Yeah, it's quite laughable that people still can't see how big gubment works.

You've got lobbiest who day in and day out 7 days a week are whispering into congressmen's ears wanting to get their backs scratched...and we all know that scratching goes both ways.

You gotta give to get something in return.

It's not just ONE thing, it's a bunch of things that add up like you said to one WHOLE picture.

[Carrie]

Originally posted by eadweb
The Bush administration made a deal with Visa.

You make it as difficult as possible for adult sites to operate and we won't ask you why you are charging customers close to 20% while interest rates are at an all time low.

Might I remind you that Visa is not a government entity?
It is a private sector business, and as such, it can charge whatever interest rates it wants to.
If they decided to charge 75% interest they could do it - it's their money that they're lending to customers to buy things with. They determine the amount it's going to cost you when you pay back that loan.

[Cassie]

Originally posted by sperbonzo


The party is over now, and everybody is going to have to run their business like a business.

what about those of us who have ran our business like a business from the get go and still get fucked? what about the fact that one has signed fed ex receipts that match the cc info for a purchase and still receive a chargeback. you know what i was told, sorry to hear that but there's nothing we can do even though you have proof. the truth lies with the cardholder.

at one point the cc companies were for the merchant but i guess they realize that since they will forever make their money, the merchant, who makes them their money every month, can just go suck gas.

very professional way to handle themselves.

[eroswebmaster]

Originally posted by Carrie

Might I remind you that Visa is not a government entity?
It is a private sector business, and as such, it can charge whatever interest rates it wants to.
If they decided to charge 75% interest they could do it - it's their money that they're lending to customers to buy things with. They determine the amount it's going to cost you when you pay back that loan.

You might wanna take a break from sounding as if you know it all for a bit, and open your mind and learn something.

Government and corporations work hand in hand all the time, if you can't see that, or refuse to see that then you don't really understand who's in control of this country.

[Theo]

there's no other online business activities like gambling and porn at the moment with so many unstable factors.

There are scams that have been selling a whole decade from how to cure cancer in a day...to how to become the next bill gates in less than week through reputable processing co.

They offer nothing, they mislead and hurt in plenty of cases, i bet they have as high CB ratios as porn and still everything is great there.

[eroswebmaster]

Originally posted by Soul_Rebel
there's no other online business activities like gambing and porn at the moment with so many unstable factors.

There are scams that have been selling a whole decade from how to cure cancer in a day...to how to become the next bill gates in less than week through reputable processing co.

They offer nothing, they mislead and hurt in plenty of cases, i bet they have as high CB ratios as porn and still everything is great there.

Hey good idea...let's get into the selling cancer cures through email biz.

[sperbonzo]

They offer nothing, they mislead and hurt in plenty of cases, i bet they have as high CB ratios as porn and still everything is great there.

Actually, when they get TMFed, their just as done doing business as anybody else.....and in fact, they are in far worse trouble in the FBI gets on their ass

[Carrie]

Originally posted by Soul_Rebel
laugh all you want.

Soul I know it feels better to have someone else to blame, some big nasty bully that we cannot control and therefore we're just hapless victims caught in the beast's whims...
But that's just not the case.

This is totally our fault.
You don't see Visa doing this to mainstream merchants who focus on giving the customer what they want and keeping the customer for life... not having pre-checked cross-sells with shady terminology explaining how you think you're getting charged $1 but you're actually getting charged $110, etc.

The adult industry did this to itself. You've got to pay the piper sooner or later.

[Gutterboy]

Originally posted by Carrie

Might I remind you that Visa is not a government entity?

That doesn't mean Visa can't be influenced or intimidated by the government. While we can't say that an under the table deal was struck by the A-s-h-c-r-o-f-t DOJ and the CC companies to put porn out of business, you can't discount the fact that Visa has an army of lawyers watching the political situation very closely.

You'd better believe that the CC companies are acutely aware of not only how small a piece of their pie we are, but how hostile the political climate is becoming.

[Theo]

yes,but what's the CB ratio there and what's the new CB ratio for online porn? Two different standards. Porn vs Mainstream.