end of rebills - what would happen...
 

or if the rumors are true - what will happen ?

end of rebills = end of trials, that's for sure

paysites offering quality service end support to mainatin customers = would happen too

but the general revenue of the industry would probably fall from
$4 billion to $1.5 billion ( or from 3.5 to 1, not sure what are the numbers now )...

many program owners would go out of business and only the strongest ( smartest ) would survive

but do you think that the invisible market hand would take action and since many independent webmasters would't be able to life with such an income drop, they would leave the biz thus leaving more money for those who would be left...

so basically if there're 50 000 webmasters competing for $4 billion, if after the shakeout there will be 20 000 webmasters competing for $1.5, it will mean approx. the same revenue for them as before

any thought on this ?

I think end of rebills won't happen. Many companys who process billing won't take it. Even VISA and/or mastercard won't take it.... they'll loose to much money. :2 cents:

^agreed

I hope so !

I think it's time to get drunk :glugglug

... aol will get out of buiz within a month time.

is that another prophecy?

listen to funkmaster - he knows his shoit!

So early ??

OK, I will wait a few hours if you wish.

... without reccurings, that is !

isnt recurring another term for a payment plan... like on cars.
199/month for 36 month

something like.. this website can be urs for 3 easy payments of x dollars?

:thumbsup

... we could also give then credit for it, like no deposit, no interest for the first 12 month ?

I can see it now.
Small font, hidden in the terms of service -
"if you default on your agreed payment terms of $29.95 per month we have the right to come to your home or place of business and reposess your computer."

My question is this, how much do you really think VISA makes off the Adult internet Industry??? Rebilling and all that.

4 billion X 1% profit?
(remember processors take most of the cut and so do the banks not visa.)

40 million profit a year for visa? And then they have expenses on top of that with having to hire people to deal with chargebacks and other bullshit.

Am I missing something here? (maybe I am please enlighten me)

Oh and remember that 4 billion a year isn't all going to visa, split off 35% for master card and checking + dialers.

What does visa really make out of this industry and all the processing? Do they really give a rats ass if they one day just pull the plug? Do they really care if they limit the adult industry to no rebills just cause we have so many programs abusing the rebill with cross sells and other bullshit?

I wouldn't be too worried. My old business model, before I started to do what I could to make my sites more affiliate-friendly, mostly consisted of non-rebilling memberships. I was making fine money that way.

I think the sites, that offer quality and high customer service will do well. We have very exclusive content(we produce it ourselves) our members are very loyal. With no recurring I would see a 25% drop off in business. Most of my customers would resign up every month because they are very attached to my wife. Also with all this crap happening ,thats why we got a non high risk merchant account(Mitch from netbilling did a great job for us) to start selling dvd's and videos we will produce. Its time to diversify.

I agree and very few people are really adressing this... what happens if they say no more... does anyone have a backup plan in place? I'm sorry folks but this is fuckin serious :2 cents:

The whole adult biz is built on CC rebills, so there will be no end to rebills.

It doesn't matter what the adult biz is built on, Visa and MC can do whatever they want. They are a law unto themselfs.

there is a difference between "rebills" and "recurring"

I wouldn't be surprised if we see the end of rebills in 2004 and maybe the end of recurring as well for high-risk transactions

The October 1st deadline of 1% CBs will be a real shake down, so maybe that will be enough of a sacrifice to please the Visa gods? Who knows?

I can't be the only idiot here who's thinking "what's the difference?"

it wouldn't affect aol, only high risk merchants like adult

I'm not sure too...

perhaps rebilling is also from a trial to a full membership, whereas recurring is only recurring a monthly subscription...

An interesting email from UniversalPass:

"As you may have heard Visa/Mastercard have tightened the chargeback restrictions, making reoccurring processing an impossibility. It is for this reason that we are changing our business model as of 8/1/03 and will no longer be rebilling Customers."

I'm not sure how relevant that is across the board, but it makes interesting reading.

Crock of shit excuse.

Sounds like Universal pass has a high charge back rate and wants to start fresh so they can keep processing, if they don't there bad rebilling of customers for the last few months will keep following them.

here's what i was thinking the other day when considering what would happen if VISA ended recurring billing for adult websites.

many items are sold where you are billed by VISA in installments.
It's not recurring billing, it's a one time charge split into monthly installment. So adult site memberships could be sold for 3 months and 6 months with customers paying 3 or 6 installments of 29.95, as long as you are upfront about it, you can still market the site as 29.95 a month.

of course the scammers would fuck this up too and hide the information about the 3 month or 6 month memberships in a - 2 font, then of course VISA would a year later end installment payments for adult Internet sites.

and so it goes............

One thing I'd imagine will happen which of an in itself will have pretty much the same effect as pulling the process completely will be having recurring customers have to validate by e-mail that another month's billing is fine and thus authorized by them.

why to leave the pub if you can still get a beer ....

two possibilities here - one, you have said something very profound and two, you are an imbecile.

I highly doubt that would work out well, firstly the high chargeback rate is a big concern and billers really don't like doing 6 month memberships or at least rebilling them as they know the chargeback % for those big transactions are to high. And selling a membership to someone is hard enough let along selling them a membership that is in fact a multi month membership.

No real easy solution to it all, but it will be interesting if it does happen what other billing options are setup by our very inovative industry. It will level the playing field a bit thats for sure.

that's an AVS, right ?

but can you survive with 1 beer when you got used to drink at least 4 each time ?

A rebill is when the users card is automatically charged for the second month.. what if the customer clicks on something to request the second charge to his credit card, is that still considered a rebill? They're ordering something with their own money.

Seems like the only ones that lose out are the companies that try to trick people into billing them a second time, when the customer has no intrest to continue his membership. my :2 cents:

= the majority of todays big programs

but there're still checks...
if there way only a way to reduce chack-fraud...

I a customer wants something badly enough, (i.e. continued access to a site) they will pay for it again and again until they no longer want the service.

I don't see why it is not possible for when the membership expires to have the member taken to a page that tells him that his month is up and to "Click Here" to renew their membership for one month.

I terms of a revenue share program, this could work much the same way it currently does. When that person renews, the affiliate gets their chunk of it. The best part of this type of program is there would be no reason to chargeback the purchase other than if the website sucks and does not offer what is promised on the tour. I see this as a way of greatly reducing the number of chargebacks in the industry.

The bad things I see happening if rebills where to go away is pay per signup will probably be a thing of the past, but it what people say is true, they make just about the same amount of money with a revenue share program so it would not be that big of a deal. Also, all the "Free" AVS systems would be screwed and probably have to go to a paid membership. Trials that turn into full memberships would probably be gone too unless you programed it the same ways as I said before, where they were told their trial was done and to renew it here.

Of course the real reason behind all of this rebill problem is the terms of service for trials IMO. I mean if you read most of them, you have to cancel your membership 24 hours before then end of the trial or you will be charged the full amount. I know it is the consumers fault for not reading the TOS, but that is kinda fishy if you ask me. That's kinda like a car dealer selling you an extended warrenty on a used car and telling you that everything is covered and then you get home and read the terms and find out that you just spent an extra couple of $1000 to make sure your car won't rust.

Flow
:2 cents:

if Visa and Mastercard stop rebills, there is still check payment that rebills automatically...maybe checks are the future? who know...