Rand, assuming that we can steer international surfers to epassporte, will there be any payout to us based on the number of accounts referred to you?

I read the thread from start to finish. So I was nice about it.

DIG, That question was raised earlier in the thread. I'm not sure about the answer. We (Epoch) "did" discuss this. Perahps this is a topic we should explore further and release at a later date.

--Rand

Very cool stuff Rand

Kuddos to Epoch :thumbsup

But what about chargebacks? What about the scammers and cheaters? Is Epoch/ePassporte this confident in their fraud control that we as affiliate program operators could pass this confidence on to our webmasters?

I just don't see where the chargebacks/fraud are being limted (yet) any more than how it was before -- and theres plenty fraud now. It seems like it's possible to do a completely 100% online unverified transaction still right? No paypal-style confirmations of their address/bank account or some other ePassporte presignup record to hold them to their purchases.

I mean even if they payments to webmasters are $10 per signup -- people will find a way to exploit it. They will try like hell to anyway.

Just because your giving US the money in real-time, is it really all that wise for us to give it to unknown webmasters in real-time?

I'm just picking at things here because I don't understand yet how this is possible... how you plan to control the next level of fraud attemps that "real time payments" will create.

Rand,

Keep in mind that a good majority of the target users of ePassporte email us (paysite operators) things like:

"Hi please I can you tell me where I can find (some girls name from a gallery) address or telephone number?????"

Dick in hand, these people are NOT going to find the site nearly as functional as you do. Like I suggested -- its probably functional to you, because you've been eating, sleeping & dreaming every aspect of the project for the past xx months :winkwink:

You guys should do a massive contest for the design or something... something to bring designers out of the woodwork to submit MULTIPLE template concepts in hope to snag the epassporte designer position (which you damn well should have with a project this big).

I think if you did a something like a $5000.00 design contest you would be very thrilled and surprised with the results you would get. You would probably get a couple hundred submissions to sort through and choose from :) - not to mention the publicity it would bring the new project.

Don't fuck around. The concept is great, and I'm sure the code is great - but the features and benefits to using ePassporte are NOT being conveyed to the end user properly.

The website has very much a coder/insider feel to it to me. For something like this you want to go for the gold.

To me the colors scheme is bad, its very "blah" and not very inviting. The pictures are all very cliparty (as most e-commerce sites are :() - but the MOST IMPORTANT bit of critique I could give you is this -- the features, benefits and reasons to use ePassport (which is like the HIGHLIGHT of this whole thing right?) aren't even there! I mean you would have to look for them if they are... I (joe surfer) am gone by then, or at least not realizing the POWER of ePassporte. Wtf is a virtual visa? Does joe surfer know? Did you tell him? Fast enough? ;)

It's like you guys have 2 groups of clients here, buyers/consumers and sellers/webmasters. You need to quickly get your most important message to each of them.

For the buyers/consumers I would think it would be something about how they could use it to make discreet purchases & how the can generate a virtual visa card "on the fly" to give to a merchant that they may not know so well.. but you have to do quickly in as few words as possible. (look at me trying to tell epoch about marketing.. silly)

For the sellers/webmasters, its a little easier. We have slightly longer attention spans, and also use word of mouth to share information about the services that may have been unclear to someone who glanced at the page. But I would think to webmasters you would want to hype up the real-time payments, the fact that they will be able to lure more potential customers out of hiding by giving them access to the prepaid virtual visa, that this system has uberfraud protection (though I don't understand how its better just yet) and they will be able to pay their affiliates in real-time as well.

It's like you guys got all caught up in releasing this and busted your load on the community a little prematurely :)... but don't worry, you've got us all excited too.... just wipe off and climb back on :1orglaugh

goBigtime,

I like the ideas and appreciate the input. I "really" like the contest idea.

Your questions reagarding real time payments are good ones. Remember that Epoch is providing the vehicle that makes real time payments possible, but it is actually Flashcash who is offering and making real time affilate payments. You can imagine the kind of capital it would take to do this and the discussions that took place before the decision was made. Of course these affilate transations will be watched very closely.

---Rand





http://www.changethevote.com/e-passp...virtual_sm.jpg

With regard to the instant payout risk with the new FLASHCA$H program:
The system looks for a transaction history. So, we?re not going to pay instantly on the first signup of someone we?ve never heard from before. Because, you?re right, the risk would be huge.
But as soon as the system sees that the transactions you are generating are legit, you are assumed to be trustworthy and the money flows instantly.

http://www.flashcash.com/RealTimePayments

You can bet that they guys at FlashCash have thought this all through very carefully.

Congrats to them to taking "instant gratification" to another level.

---Rand

This could work as a good proxy for european webmasters who don't want to pay taxes.

* How many sponsors have shown interest in payments though epassporte?
* Will there be an option to wire money to my online account?

What if the webmaster does bring in real signups and thorw in a small % of fake ones ?

I think it would be really hard to track.

Hmm no this is just not good for real-time affiliate payments at all then. Not if a first time user can make a purchase instantly. I mean you COULD do it, sure, you could drive your car into oncoming traffic too - but you just don't.

You don't think that the chargeback protection needs to be a bit stronger for real-time affiliate payments to be a realistic feature?
People who use paypal right now for processing could do some basic scripting and offer real-time affiliate payouts like that if they wanted.

Nothing has really changed in the chargeback arena then? It's still a non-swiped transaction and if they want to say "I didn't do it!" - they didn't do it. Of course you can then threaten to shut down their epassporte account.. but a carder isn't going to care about this :1orglaugh .. hes just going to sign up a bunch of people as fast as he can, then take that ATM card and pull the cash over a few days - rinse & repeat.

We should talk though.

I have Big ideas & even bigger contact lists :winkwink:

Rand/Chris/Epoch,

I don't mean to keep picking at this.. I just really want to see it work. I know you guys can be the ones to do it too :)

Anyway that said... (uh oh)

But isn't visa and the feds going to have a problem with this? I mean your sort of bypassing the whole big brother masterplan here no? :1orglaugh

I mean picture that it far exceeds epochs best case projection and the industry just cant live without using epassporte...

You guys know whats going on with Visa, the gov and everything else far more than we do I would think. To me it sure seems like they are trying to keep tabs on the adult industry for whatever reason - most likely for taxation. But ePassporte sort of circumvents that no?

This is GRRRRRRRREAT and all. But I remember that somehow a very similar situation in the gaming industry got shut down.

But yeah.. realizing all that .. ePassporte kicks even more ass.

I just question how long it can last... any thoughts?

It's not as simple as you make it sound. First, the "know your customer" idea comes into play on two levels. First, Flashcash is not going to make instant payments to first time affialtes. They will do this with those that they know and others as they qualify them. That just makes good sense. Second, yes, you can get an epassporte virtual Visa account in seconds and funds can be loaded up on the account, but to retrieve them you also need the physical Electron Visa card. That takes a few days and the card must be sent to a physical address. So you have a few days to qualify that affiliate as sending legit traffic before they can pull out any cash. Not to mention the fact that the card is being sent to a physical address and credit card fraud is a felony. Seems to me like a lot of trouble to go through if your a cheater because the risk of getting caught and jailed would be too great. And we know most of us are way too pretty for prison.

To address your other question, yes, the chargeback issue does change here. The purchase/load of an epassporte Visa is marked as a retail transaction and CB rules are very different here than they are for 5967 transactions. It is very difficult to chargeback an account funding transaction.


--Rand

Ah.. didn't see this before I posted the other message. My sleeping schedule is so messed up right now.. tired =(

I was going to suggest something like this :)

I was thinking that this function was going to be automated somehow within epassporte. Like true thrid party real-time per-signup payments.

Aww don't worry Rand I'll have your back if you ever go to prison.
:1orglaugh

Nice :)

But while we can talk about it and know its potential for the industry.. will it be (is it already?) going to be accepted by Visa as a long term solution to this industry?

Wont all the site urls and per-merchant tracking be able to be thrown out the window here? Woah wait a min.... even the Visa registrations? Is this even still part of the whole IPSP/Visa Registration/high-risk merchant stuff? Will we be required to register and pay the Visa registration fees when using ePassporte?

I don't follow your logic here. Epassporte is a Visa card. Yes you can get a Virtual Visa account instantly online and yes it is integrated to work seemlessly with Epoch's services, but other than that it's really a Visa card, same as any other (with a few extra perks such as peer-to-peer money transfers). I really don't see how any of this changes the equation in terms of Visa regulations, URL registration, etc.. etc..

Epassporte is payment method just like MasterCard, JCB, Discover, or any other Visa card. The difference for the industry is the ability to issue these cards globally to those surfers who's regular credit card's are not accepted by the current billing models. Blocked countries, fraud DB's, ..all those transactions that are currently not-acceptable now have an opportunity to be taken. We've worked on this for 2 years with experts in the transaction field all over the world. It is a well designed prodcut which just happens to address the online entertainment communities needs very well.

What we want is for everyone to send us their denied transactions. If you're already an Epoch client you're covered. If not, you should have us as a back-up and send us every denied credit card order you have. A pre-funded card guarantees a sign-up and the conversions will rock. You'll get paid the same as any other creidt card sign-up, so, a lot of those coutries your using with a dialer should now go to epassporte.

--Rand


http://www.epochsystems.com/sales/revolution1c.gif

Report from the show....

Epassporte has a life of it's own and after disucssing it's potential with many of the webasters at InterneXt, we are very excited about hearing your thoughts and ideas about how you feel you might use it to make your program even better.

If you don't want to throw your ideas out in an open forum, please send your ideas or questions to me at [email protected].

---Rand

i have one question

can i use the epassport with another company such as datahosters or rackshack or another company with normal visa support to pay a monthly server ?

let me know that.

Absoultely. We knew early on that this would be a great tool for paying hosting fees, content providers, affilaites, etc....

You can pay peer-to-peer instantly any time you like by simply logging into you epasporte account and submitting the epassport email addy of the person you'd like to pay and the amount. On another thread earlier today, I sent funds to Kinder by simply knowing his epassporte name. He received them and returend them to me. Fast. Easy.

You could also use the Virtual Visa to pay for anything you would normally tranact online with a Visa card.

There are several benefits to this, not the least of which is that your actual credit cards are never accessible by the person you are paying, and, that epassporte purchases will only be logged in your epassporte online account and never on your credit card statement.



--Rand
:thumbsup

I don't know about the epassporte but I wanted to clear something up.

Someone asked how you can get rebills through paypal and cited sending an email as an example.

I have used paypal billing for non-adult things before. If you set up the paypal button as a subscription it acts just like ccbill or whatever. You bill the trial or give it away free and paypal automatically bills your fee weekly, monthly, yearly, or whatever you specify.

Every paypal account is set up from a checking account or credit card and usually both. When you choose to pay with paypal and have a 0 balance it is debited from your preferred payment method (i.e. checking or credit card). I am not 100% sure this is true on rebills but I would think it is.

Just letting you know.

UPDATE: I just checked my paypal account on a subscription I signed up to. I had a 0 balance when I joined. However because I chose to join paypal deducted the subscription fee from my bank account. I don't know how to show the earlier post I am replying to but hope this clears that up for you. Paypal does rebill and it doesn't matter the balance. It comes directly off credit card or checking account.

The one thing I haven't seen addressed (or maybe it was and I missed the post) what protections does the CONSUMER have with using this card? For example, I'm a surfer and sign up for a site I like using epassporte and the site has a missing/broken members area, not what was promised, etc.? What protections would I have by using this card? While we know most chargebacks are the proverbial wife finding the credit card statement type of thing, there are some legitimate chargebacks for the items mentioned. How do those get resolved?

While I'm sure most of us are looking at this as a great opportunity to cut down on chargebacks, I'm sure the scammmers are already planning how they'll use this system and that is what worries me more than if I'm going to get paid instantly on a signup...

ST,

I'm not quite sure why you are bringing up PayPal on this thread but PayPal has several disadvantages to this market. One, being the time it takes a new user to get set up to use it which is 3-5 days minimum.

Epassporte works globally, instantly. It operates on the Visa network because it is a Visa card. There have been comparisons to paypal I think due to the peer-to-peer capability. But, in the case of peer-to-peer transactions, personal accounts only pay .25 cents to do a transfer of ANY amount wether it's .01 cent or 1 million dollars. PayPal, if I'm not mistaken, charges a minimum of .75 cents or 2.2% which ever is greater. Also, peer-to-peer with PayPal is not instantaneous but with epassporte it is.

Enough about PayPal. They have a decent product but epassporte is a better alternative for many reasons. It's cheaper, faster, and easier... not to mention global.

--Rand

So Rand..

We gotta hook up when you guys get back into town.. I think our PornDollar program could take advantage of this..

-jason

The Visa brand does afford the consumer certain protections. Most of the reasons an adult surfer charges back are non-existent with epassporte because the charges made with it never appear on the customers mailed billing statement. So, none of the wife discovering what the old man's been doing. However in cases where there might be a legitimate reason for someone to ask for their money back, such as the site being down etc...
In a case such as this, the cardholder would call their bank or the processor. Either way, they are either calling the processor who has an incentive to avoid a chargeback, or, they call epassporte. Legitimate complaints can be much easier handled with a credit instead of a chargeback. Everybody's happy.

ok, thanks for clearing that up...

No doubt Jason! For sure.

You want to give me a call next week sometime and we can hook up for lunch or something?

--Rand

Rand....

Wasn't trying to say paypal was better than epassporte. I am planning on using epassporte myself. I was just clearing up something somebody said about it. Your fees are way better and that is a good reason to use it to receive money. I was simply stating that I have had no prob on their subscriptions.

However, I can't let you make an untrue statement. Yes if you go to paypal.com it takes up to a few days to get your account going. However if you click on a paypal button to pay for a subscription it goes through instantly. The account is created. You are then asked to verify the card but you can still use it and it still gets rebilled. It comes off your regular card every time you are rebilled.

Also, its 35 cents plus a percentage.

Again, not badmouthing epassporte and I agree it is a great product. I will use it. But don't badmouth another site when what you are saying isn't true. You get your money immediately also. I have a virtual card and a plastic card with them.

I would also like to hear your response as far as chargebacks go when the chargeback is legitimate. Thanks.

[edited out question Rand already answered -- fast moving thread]

Am also interested in the fee structure for "charging" the Epassporte. A screenshot in this thread showed a $5.00 charge for a $50 load -- if correct, that's a pretty vicious 10% bite, worse even than the credit card companies charge for cash advances. I'm having trouble imagining I would use an Epassporte except to receive funds and spend received funds, with rates like that.

Thanks ST,

I do try to be careful when I talk about PayPal because I'm going by what I've been told. Sounds like I was a little off on the fee but epassporte is still cheaper to use. I've never tested a subscition site using PayPal so what you mentioned above is good to know. I sincerely don't mean to mislead anyone.

As for the chargeback issue.... think about what a chargeback is. It is basically a refund that is issued by the bank because the customer could not resolve a problem with the merchant. The bank reverses the sale and charges the merchant a fee AND takes note of the problem to establish a chargeback ratio against the merchant. Now, how does a chargeback get initiated? If the consumer contacts the merchant and the issue is not resolved, the consumer then calls the bank. In the case of an epasspore transaction, the surfer will probably first call epassporte because that is where there online statement is and there is a handy link to Billing Inquiries on the site. The customer can call or email epasporte to resolve any issue. Epassporte will respond to any legitimate complaint by issuing a refund, not a chargeback. The customer gets what he wants and the merchante is not exposed to the chargeback. If the consumer calls the processor, in most cases that would probably be Paycom. Paycom can issue credits but not chargebacks. If the consumer bought something on Amazon that never arrived, they call Amazon, who, can issue a credit but not a chargeback. If they are not satisfied with Amazon's resolve, their only choice is to call the issuer. Which is, of course, epassporte. That's maybe a lengthy scenario but I hope that answers your consumer protection question.

--Rand

The load fee (not transfer P2P) is $5 per hundred or any portion thereof. So, it costs $5 to load $50 or a $100. It costs $10 to load $101 or $200. And so on... Remember that the person buying epassporte so they can purchase adult entertainment are problaby doing so because they can't use their normal creidt card to purcahse online, or, they are using epassporte for it's anonymity. Load fees are common on Virtual cards as you are paying for a service. Epassporte makes no money on finance charges or late fees as banks do with a revolving credit line.

Moving money from one person to another is only .25 cents a tran (up to 5 per day and $1 per tran thereafter) for a personal account. Rates vary for commercial or corporate accounts. And of course, there's no fee to spend the money on an epassporte card. (a little humor there).

--Rand

Rand, I emailed you about a corporate account yet no reply. I'm in the process of setting up a Virtual corporate VISA with a EU bank, I MIGHT be considering using epassporte instead. Can you tell me what docs you need for corporate accounts and what country requirements?

EU Virtual VISA is 1% per transaction.

thanks

That's cool with me.. Only if Miss Amparo goes with us.. :winkwink:

Rand I also emailed you about a foreign character question.

Rand,

I'm sure you guys have thought this through to no end. But that seems a bit pricey for anything BUT the adult market no? 5% to load money into the account?

I know you don't want to talk about paypal, but techinically paypal is currently offering this same "wife-shield" service as well - but its free to the consumer no? (and its a good thing to know thy competition) :thumbsup

Paypal did used to offer the virtual visa' (create one-time visa accounts on the fly) but then I think they did away with it when they launched their own branded visa & atm/debit cards.

The thing that does suck with Paypal is that the fees never stop... if you keep tossing the same $100's around back and forth from P2P, eventually you'll have nothing (err not from the per trans fee... from the % fees).

You guys could probably process cajillions for the gaming industry, but sports bettors for example might not like
the idea of paying an extra 5% juice on their wagers. Maybe you guys would cut special deals with these merchants or something, or maybe this isn't a market your interested in.

You also price yourself out of the Ebays massive market (but again, maybe thats not something you guys aim to get a piece of) by charging a 5% load fee to the consumer. Picture this: you buy a video camera off ebay for say $990, shiping is $30... you need to send the guy $1020 - the epassporte fee brings your total up to $1070.00. Ebay buyers might not like this.

But again, maybe you guys have a very specific market in mind with this.... in which case I spose its a fair deal to consumers looking to purchase adult material discreetly.
But on the consumer end, I don't yet see the advantage over using paypal or the paypal atm/debit card (since its free & wife-friendly - providing she doesnt know about your paypal account.

If the funds go to Epoch, then Epoch is going to make 10%-15% on the merchant end anyway right? I'm not sure how feasible something like this would be, but maybe you could waive load fees for a consumer that is attemping to purchase access to a Epoch processed site? As sort of an incentive for webmasters to process with Epoch. Maybe there are other reasons for keeping those entities seperated though (epoch and epassporte).

As far as paying hosting/content bills with this... I think free to the consumer & 2.5% (or 3.5% international) to the merchant with paypal is probably the better choice no? I mean when your talking hundreds or thousands of dollars?

I don't know.. I just have lots of concerns & questions here.
It's so close to being a perfect solution for everyone :) I think if the fee were 2.5% you would have something so golden you wouldn't be able to count the money fast enough... because it would be able to cross into all of the markets metnioned.

Ah... but maybe 2.5% isnt even doable because of the fees you are charged on the backend for the consumer loading the funds. Hrmf. Or wait... does Paypal charge "Load Fees" for credit cards now too? Damn I think they might.. I'll check and reply when I get back in about an hour :)

Also what about rebills? Will the consumers funding card be automatically debited to pay for his/her rebills if the epassporte account doesn't have enough money in it?

Rand:

You said that with a legitimate complaint epassporte or paycom could be contacted and issue a credit if there was a real problem.

My question is,

If a credit is given to a customer for whatever reason would that be deducted from the sellers account. No matter what you are selling someone will eventually try to get a credit for the heck of it. If you aren't charging the seller for this then that is completely amazing. Of course a seller with a large amount of these would be removed I'm sure.

Please clarify how this affects the seller or webmaster when a credit is given.

Thanks for being cool about it and like I said, I would love to get an account for receiving funds.

Great Idea.

Whew! 5% is still a bit heavy, but it's not out of line compared to other virtual payment systems. Motivated porn buyers will probably pay.

2 questions more.

question 1.: if someone else want to load the funds on the card, is that possible, and how?

question 2.: if i want a Visa Electron for 35$ can i use it as a real visa card in shops or on vacation, does it have 16 numbers with a ccv code ?

So :Graucho
If a person dont´have a creditcard...
Is it possible to still signup anyway and get money to epassporte account from another epassporte customer