My two cents about the new Visa policy

[theking]

VISA
· Each Sponsored Merchant must complete a registration form that we will submit to Visa on your behalf. A form will be provided to you by each of us, electronically, as soon as possible. Some of the data elements required are: company name, address, transaction counts, dollar volumes, URL?s, etc.
· An initial registration fee of $750.00 per company (not per url) will be charged to register each Sponsored Merchant. $500.00 of this fee is payable by the Acquiring Banks to Visa, the balance are administrative fees to the banks and processors. These fees are due November 15th.
· An ongoing annual registration fee of $375.00 will be charged. $250.00 of this fee is payable by the Acquiring Banks to Visa, the balance are administrative fees to the banks and processors.
· Sponsored Merchants must be approved by Visa for processing Visa transactions under the new rules, and will be checked against Visa?s TMF list (Terminated Merchant File) and the MATCH File, a joint Visa / MasterCard database. You are obviously processing now, so that service will not be interrupted if you have paid your registration fee and completed your registration form.
· IPSP?s can only register Sponsored Merchants in the country where the Sponsored Merchant has a presence.
· IPSP?s are required to provide Visa with monthly sales, chargeback and credit data for their review, by Sponsored Merchant and down to the URL of each Sponsored Merchant site. Sponsored Merchants who are out of compliance on chargeback and / or credit ratios may be terminated at Visa?s discretion. Please Note: Your ratios at all IPSP?s will be evaluated by Visa.
· The credit card descriptor on the cardholder?s statement must be the IPSP?s name, as well as the Sponsored Merchant?s identifier, such as your company code.
· The IPSP?s Join Form must disclose the IPSP?s name and the fact that the billing descriptor will be the name of the IPSP and the Sponsored Merchant?s identifier.
· IPSP?s will display, on the Join Form, their Privacy Policy along with Terms and Conditions.
MasterCard
· The MasterCard logo cannot be displayed on the client?s sites.
· Several other rules will be changed and we will advise you as soon as these are solidified.

October is the month to implement these changes. We expect the transition should be a relatively smooth process. The following is a timetable for preparing for the November 1st deadline:

· By October 8th, we will begin the Visa registration process. We will email you a form, which must be completed immediately.
· By October 15th, we will have a Privacy Policy up on our Join Pages.
· By October 15th you must have all MasterCard logos removed from your sites.

We will provide you with additional updates on these initiatives throughout the month. Thank you in advance for helping us to ensure the successful implementation of these new regulations. Please be assured that we, as IPSP?s are working together to provide a more robust industry environment and to attempt to have our client?s voices heard at the card associations. We have many common goals and interests. Maintaining the viability of the adult Webmaster business model, by keeping you informed, is our primary focus.

Sincerely,

iBill, CCBill, and EPOCH / Paycom

This will not affect me as I have already made a deal to sell my business and this is not going to alter the deal. I don't really see that it will affect what will soon be my former business. We have our own merchant account and at this point I do not have a clear understanding how this will affect an individual merchant account, though I suspect that it will. We haven't had an affiliate program for quite a long time. It presented too many headaches and though not having an affiliate program has hampered growth, our business did continue to slowly grow and I assume that it will continue to do so. Not because of any genius on my part, but because of my manager (the one who is buying me out). We quit doing trial signups quite a long time ago, as it to presented too many headaches. When we quit doing trial signups and reduced the monthly signup charge we actually made more money than before. We have always been totally honest with the surfer and our members. We have never had a charge back, because we have always refunded a members money upon demand. Though we have had some members ask for a refund the percentage has been low. We have enough content that it is rotated weekly and annually we add as much fresh content as we determine that we need to.

My bottom line point is this. If one is running an honest business and has good content, and does not dispute refunding a customers money, I don't see a problem with this new policy. It has always been the shady webmasters that have caused problems in this business. If this new policy helps to weed them out, I can only think that this will be good for the adult industry over the long haul. My

[Mr.Fiction]

Thanks for starting a new thread. There weren't enough on this issue already.

[L0stMind]

Well, my says that this does not always work.

Here is what we are finding on our sites... a surfer freaks about the charge. Writes us an email saying give me my money back or something. Trying to avoid chargebacks we always refund immediately.

However, from the surfers point of view.. they sent off an email but this isnt satisfying enough yet.. so they call their bank, bank directs them to MC or Visa and the MC/Visa rep says "the safest thing for your to do is put a chargeback on immediately". So, we give out a refund and recieve a chargeback.

Pretty shitty situation.

We gave out 12 refunds last month, had 4 chargebacks and all of the chargebacks had been refunded by us prior to the chargeback coming thru.

Thats what we are seeing a lot of. Our chargeback ratio is way below 1% tho. And yes, the content is fresh and we give our surfers exactly what we promise on the tours. Probably more actually.

[theking]

Originally posted by L0stMind
Well, my says that this does not always work.

Here is what we are finding on our sites... a surfer freaks about the charge. Writes us an email saying give me my money back or something. Trying to avoid chargebacks we always refund immediately.

However, from the surfers point of view.. they sent off an email but this isnt satisfying enough yet.. so they call their bank, bank directs them to MC or Visa and the MC/Visa rep says "the safest thing for your to do is put a chargeback on immediately". So, we give out a refund and recieve a chargeback.

Pretty shitty situation.

We gave out 12 refunds last month, had 4 chargebacks and all of the chargebacks had been refunded by us prior to the chargeback coming thru.

Thats what we are seeing a lot of. Our chargeback ratio is way below 1% tho. And yes, the content is fresh and we give our surfers exactly what we promise on the tours. Probably more actually.

I may have been incorrect when I said we never had a charge back, as we may have. I haven't been involved in the day to day monitoring of the business for well over two years. My manager was, and I had/have implicit trust in him. Off hand I am wondering how, if the money has already been refunded, how do you get a chargeback in addition? I understand that paper work is slow in coming, but how does that count against you when the money has already been refunded? Do you have your own merchant account?

[theking]

Originally posted by Mr.Fiction
Thanks for starting a new thread. There weren't enough on this issue already.

You are welcome.

[FATPad]

Originally posted by Mr.Fiction
Thanks for starting a new thread. There weren't enough on this issue already.

I was gonna say that. *shakes fist*

[theking]

Originally posted by FATPad

I was gonna say that. *shakes fist*

There are about a dozen of them now. You have some more fist shaking to do.