Steve, you don't look at the yearly picture? Or quarterly? You're not going down man, not with your portfolio.

you like all these "lets say" games, allot of noobs like to play that, but lets just say you have no idea who or what was affected if any, and neither do I.
its obvious your still confused and do not know how the net works. I was not talking about a few people losing power, you should read what I wrote and not want you want to believe.

Now to go way back to my first post that you had to be an asshole about, you should read that also because that also seemed to confuse you.

That's not correct, nor is it logical. :)

If there were a chargeback issue with a processor, or with a merchant account, reducing the number of transactions coming through the gate would actually make the chargeback situation worse.

For instance if someone gets 1000 sales and 3 months later there are 100 chargebacks from those sales, that would be a 10% cb ratio in the month the chargebacks came in - NOT referred back to the month the charges were made.

So if you then decided to scrub so hard that the number of transactions the next month was only 500, you would still have the same chargebacks coming in from 3 months prior -- when there was a problem under your theory of scrub -- and with the same 100 chargebacks you would have a 20% ratio, or double the ratio.

HOWEVER, if you doubled the transaction volume to 2000 transactions, that same 100 chargebacks would end up being a 5% ratio, a drop by half.

Neither 5, 10 nor 20% is allowed, I chose the numbers to make the math easy for the example. Chargebacks are allowed in percentages under 1 or 2, depending on the region, and getting more volume is the name of the game.

So this theory of scrubbing is yet again proven false.

Who knows why some days suck and some days are great. There is no real logic for it, and the law of averages isn't formulated on one days worth of numbers.

LOL... you should apply this to yourself.
:1orglaugh :1orglaugh

Good post Kimmy. Most people don't realise that more is better.

Will, post some stats up for inspiration :)

It is rare for me to add to a thread like this but I will. We have 10 years of processing on our own merchant account and this has been a bad week cross the board, today being a real bummer.

I agree with Will that trends cycle up and down and I also agree that we had normal sales on 9/11/2001. It is odd when so many people see a dip at the same time.

We are seeing excellent, high traffic and much lower than normal closing rates. Declines are not any higher than average so procssing is not the issue.

Sales do cycle and might shift around to different programs unless there are Internet problems. I have no explanation that makes any sense for this particular cycle but unless men have stopped masterbating things will cycle back.

It's a horrible week and so far unexplainable by anyone. I just hope it ends soon.

This is most sponsors list of excuses as well. I am going to put my foot up the next sponsors ass that trys telling me any of these things ever again.

Overall maybe but some individual programs definately get scrubbed harder at times.

Your assuming that it takes 3 months for people to chargeback their credit card. If they chargeback within a couple weeks then scrubbing will most certainly be effective in lowering chargeback ratio for the month. Heavy scrub + rebills will dramatically lower chargeback ratio. The other major flaw in your logic is that you say by increasing transactions you will decrease the chargeback ratio. This obviously isn't correct if the chargebacks take less than a month to occurr. The other major problem with this is that even if you assume that chargebacks take an average of 3 months to occur, by increasing transactions you will increase the chargeback ratio dramatically in 3 months. So if they increased transactions they would destroy themselves in 3 months unless they dramatically increased transactions processed every single month. This would be basically a ponzi scheme where at one point the bubble would burst. Since ccbill/paycom have been around a long time I find it highly unlikely they would do this. So logically if chargebacks are high this month they would scrub immediately to prevent more chargebacks. And assuming a long term chargeback ratio they would still scrub to avoid a bubble bursting scenario.

I think that sums it up.

We had a record day yesterday, but average day so far today.

Why do so many people reply to someone and type their response above the person's quote, instead of below it, like a normal homosapien would do? This is not a preference thing, it's just incorrect.

I know. I hate when people do that.

Today has been HORRIBLE! No rebills, very very very low signups.....This is pretty fucked up. We're down at least 75% today.

I saw that one coming since even before I was born man :glugglug

I dont know why people are jumping all over Wil,l his points are largely valid. I have always believed the summer slowdown to be caused by a webmaster slowdown as webmasters work less hard in th eheat, take time off, go on vacation etc. In some years I have encountered a drop in sales but if im honest with myself it was because I stopped working so hard. When ive worked hard ive had some of the best periods of growth during the summer months. However I think that he also is naive to believe that there are never random problems which can drastically impact sales for people on a given day. He is talking longterm and his points are valid but there can be short term problems.

For example when CCbill changed their affiliate admin recently and people complained of problems I noticed that for a few days our net% jumped from its usual 60%~ level to 80%~ before returning to normal. Anybody would be hard pressed to convince me that those were not related. I know for sure I did no extra promo work of my own that would result in the increase in unreferred sales and traffic etc looked normal.

But yeah, dont stress about a single days sales, work hard and only analyse your stats in minute detail once a week. Or once a month. As your sales volume increases things become more stable and patterns appear more clear.

Did you see the original poster Will was talking shit about to start off? I think he has enough experience to know when a day is shit or not. :2 cents:

Fucking slow down for everything now !
Xmas, after Xmas, spring break, summer, holidays, olympics, bin laden
arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
What's left ?
42 days in a year ?

I hear that. A lot of sponsors really believe this shit as well. I believe that from a sponsors position their over all sals may drop at different times of the year, like summer for example. But this is not from a lack of customers signing up, but from a lack of work by their affiliates. What happens over the summer, kids out of school, people take vacations, so do webmasters. Webmasters take more time off, so they work less, therefore make less money. There are still plenty of customers out there, so people like me, who continue to work 24/7 continue to make good money.

I believe processor problems can affect people. Sure that is possible. If you processing through company A and company A has processing problems, sure you will be affected. But beyond that, everything else is an excuse IMO.

So why does someone's sale tank one day. If you go from 1:50 to 1:5000 from the same traffic, sure you have a problem. If you check EVERYTHING on your end, maybe it is the sponsor, i am sure they are not 100% problem free. So it is you or the sponsor causing the drop, nothing else. Not the weather, or time of the year, or current events, or anything like that.

The problem most people have is that they don't understand, with all things being equal) some days you will just get more paying customers then the next. 100 people walk into a sex shop, 25 buy. The next day different 100 people walk into sex shop, 43 might buy. That just happens, and it has nothing to do with anything else other then the law averages. You have to average your sales over time, day to day they will vary under exact same conditions. Week to week, or month to month depending upong your traffic volume, they will be very consistant.

This is my last post regarding this issue or even trying to help people for that matter. 95% of the time sales drop (not just the normal up and down t hat averages out, but really decline over time), it is the webmasters fault. 98% of these people blame it on something else and make excuses. Excuses = not trying to fix the problem but accepting that it is out of your hands, not your fault. So they will never be more productive. So here I am trying to help educate people, so they can compete with me. I don't mind helping TCC people which also helps me, but why am i trying to help educate all of the clueless here who are in the dark about slow downs. So i concluded I am the idiot for trying to help these people, I just assume let them keep t hinking what they are thinking and keep making what they are making.

The other thing people don't realize this thread was titiled, very slow sales today. Ofcourse you are going to get more people who had lower sales reading this then people who were having a good day. just the same if i started a " I had great sales today" thread, more people who had good sales day would post there then people who did not.

So i am not going to debate this with you people, you are right I am wrong, I am a legend in my own mind, i am nothing, don;t listen to me. However, if you want to work with me, or have intelligent conversation I will never turn anyone down. But I am drawing a line in the sound here and now, if you believe the pope dieing, war with iraq, the summer, kids back in school, bad storms in the us, etc.. please do not signup to TCC, and do not work with me. I refuse to work with negative people who rather make up bullshit excuses then go out there and bust their ass and make their own results.

i actually just made a post addressing the issues you mentioned, you and me are 100% on the same page and you are the type of person I would like to work with / associate with. I can't even be friends with people who are negative, muchless work with the complainers, excuse makers, it is never my fault, etc.. there are few legit situations like you mentioned and i posted after. but very few situations.

You are one of the most negative people here Will. Read back over your posts for a year if you don't think so. :1orglaugh

it is for me

:thumbsup :thumbsup This sums it up

i don't think anything on here could be more cut and dry. there are either people who believe in excuses (err these *reasons* why they do bad) or there are people who believe that they control how much they make and this shit does not affect them. You are either or.

I can see how some people might think I am negative. I am actually the opposite. you can get confused easily. I don't have a negative out look on life, business, anything, except for negative unproductive excuse making people. Find me one post where i make excusess for why i am not doing good a certain day, or complaining about something (other then people who complain, lie, cheat, steal, etc..)

Slow here as well. We need another christmas to get new surfers online.

Posting mile long sermons on GFY doesnt count as work.

you aint lyin

http://www.gordonbrush.com/images/ill/ilblock.gif

the damn skin off our backs.

march madness won't help anyone out either or that fact that spring break grows longer every year.

And Will you're flat out wrong. Certain world events do impact sales. Yes sales will all eventually even out. You'll have good days and bad days. But you can utylize your stats to determine what days are better than others and use your marketing resources to better capitalize on those days.

A major snow storm blanketing the East coast is going to make sales rise. More people indoors, home from work and sitting in front of their computer.

Summer months, more people outside doing outdoor things and less time in front of their computer.

Christmas, credit cards maxed out for presents and events, less expendable income.

1st and the 16th of the month, people are being direct deposited their paychecks and bank accounts and debit cards have larger balances.

Etc etc, etc.

The global economy fluxuates on this premise all the time. Retail sales in September will drop if an Indian Summer occurs as less people are purchasing winter clothing and it sits on the shelves.

To sit back and say "shit happens, look at it over a month or year and it will avg out" is a idiotic and lazy way of conducting business.

While it's nice that you have have listed your theory above, I'm not wrong. I spent 2 years as a VP at CCBill (00-02), worked with ePassporte for 2 years, and currently underwrite merchant accounts for some very successful accounts. :)

The majority of chargebacks do not occur within the month that the charges were incurred. They occur in months 2 and 3 after the charges. Also, the majority of accounts that would incur chargeback problems are normally high volume accounts with affiliate programs. The average single girl site, run by the girl or her other half, does not run into chargeback issues. The volume isn't there and the personal touch/support they offer pretty much precludes problems with the account.

The goal in processing is to continually grow the volume, while minimizing the chargebacks. There is such a thing as good volume, as well as such a thing as bad volume. Alot of this can and most often does, have to do with affiliate traffic, especially in a pay per signup environment.

Identifying this troublesome traffic and eliminating it is the nature and purpose of fraud scrubbing. No one, including the processor, makes more money by choking the transaction level down, unless there are other factors involved that create an unusual situation. I've seen very few unusual situations in the last 7 years.

The balance of adding good transactions to the mix and removing the bad ones is not an easy calculation sometimes. To further compound the problem, once an account is in trouble, the amount of time before fines or termination occur is generally less than 90 days. Month 1 of chargeback problems is over and done with before most account holders realize they have issues. Month 2 is the halfway point where the situation has to be taken in hand and improved, with Month 3 being the make or break point.

No one is exempt from this cycle, it's part of every merchant account agreement that's issued, since the 3 months is a card association rule, not an arbitrary bank rule that some banks issue and some do not.

I'll also add that February is the worst month for chargebacks, for multiple reasons.

It's 2-3 days short of a full months transaction cycle for new signups.

It's the month where everyone sees the last of the holiday charges come through and people do get the "holiday hangover" where they start to look for everything they can find to reduce their card debt.

It's also the first month in which most people work on their income taxes in the US. W-2s and 1099s must be mailed by January 31, and most employers wait until the last possible minute to send them out. Getting all the receipts etc together for taxes causes people to all the sudden realize they've been billed for this or that, and when they call their banks for chargebacks, multiple months end up being charged back more than usual.

Kimmykim, don't they update filters and try new twists? This could account for peaks and valleys in what we call scrubbing.

Will, you are crazy. You sound like you want to be positve and force for good etc but you come off as a pompous dope. Of course world events hurt sales. Christmas Eve is a bad day. Look it up. If there is one there is others.

Don't listen to KimmyKim, she is new in to billing, do not worry about chargebacks. You are on stealth mode, made by teflon. You won't be affected ever. :Graucho

OK so i guess the real question would be why do they SCRUB everyone like a bitch all at once instead of the problem accounts that Kimmy is talking about. When sales go to shit it happens to everyone at once and most of the time there is no external causes. Great sales sat, sun, mon, and then universally terrible sales tuesday is not explainable by spring break nor is it explainable by random sales variation since its happening to everyone.

Does ccbill scrub december hard because they anticipate chargebacks in february? This would make sense according to what you say kimmykim.

I'm having a RECORD DAY!!!!!!!!!






(fucking lowest day/week record)

Bad day here. Two solid days before - will still make more this month than i did last month so i don't care.

so you still positive that clickcash shaves, Man you have said some assine things in the past.

thanks i have now added " the indian summer" to my list. :thumbsup