Billing Fronts - Visa/MC 3rd Party Workaround?
 

Why not setup a mainstream front end and sell subscriptions, and use your adult site as a "reseller"??

Something like "Buy a membership to Weekly Stock Updates, and get FREE ACCESS to our Porn Site!!!"

Any thoughts on this?

Not literally a membership to a Stock site, but, you get the drift.

:winkwink:

A "Mainstream Front"... Sell subscriptions to a mainstream gig, and give FREE ACCESS to your porn surfers.

And which do you promote?

Yep, I agree. Do anything you can to subvert the Visa rules. Make it work.

The Porn of course. Nobody is going to willingly signup for a Weekly Stock update when there's free porn! LOL

Visa/MC never said anything about porn sites promoting mainstream stuff. :)

Why would your stock quote subscriber be convertable to your porn site??

Yeah dude that will be a big hit . . .

:1orglaugh

I do think this concept would work though. MORE FREE PORN... but, ya gotta join my shitty Ezine to get in. :)

Yep, it would work til Visa got wind of it and put you on TMF and you couldnt get a merchant account for a lemonade stand after.

That's what Hefner did to launch Playboy.

They're buying it for the articles and to read about Jazz Festivals.

Sure we did.

O.K. I sum that up ...

1) Create a small dummy mainstream site
2) Get your merchant account with low mainstream fees
3) Bill your porn revenues through this merchant account

How would the fucking CC companies notice?

Maybe through cb ... but IMHO the normal chargeback complaint would be like "I never subscribed to any website" and not "I subscribed to 18yoteensfuckinthebackseatofmycar.com and was not happy about their content, so I want to cb".

So again: How would the fucking CC companies notice?

Of course they would notice, in case you've forgotten Visa has a set of people that do nothing but surf the web, looking for compliance issues.

And given the fact that the MCC would be wrong, once you were caught you'd be TMF'd so fast it will make your head spin.

Well put. :) Does anyone see a problem with this concept? I'm trying to shoot holes in it, and can't see any issues that may arrise.

Hmm. How can they pull your merchant account for someone else promoting it? Do they have regulations for who can and cannot market your mainstream site?

It sounds like there may be a way to get around these issues somehow.

Better yet... KK... Do you have a link to the actual Visa regulations for Merchants? Or something that gives info for Merchants for what they can and cannot do?

If so, that would be great.

LOL no. Visa and Mastercard require that you sign an agreement where you see very little of the rules and regulations that you are agreeing to, and if the banks show you those unseen rules they get in trouble.

Did no one learn anything from the demise of WSB, ACPay and Globill?

If you dont follow the rules it doesnt matter how big or how small you are, they will terminate you.

So, what you're saying is that...

1. Visa/MC make the rules up as they go.
2. They have us all by the balls/ovaries.
3. Nobody can do anything about it.
4. Just bend over and smile.

Does that about sum it up? LOL
:1orglaugh

If you want to take Visa and Mastercard for payment, yes.

They are THE RULES.
You do not ask what they are.
You do not ask to see them for yourself.
You simply follow them, or else.

Visa. It's everywhere you want to be.
It's all around you.
It controls you.
It's the Matrix.
Submit or be flushed.

LOL!!! Ok GREAT! As long as I know the rules, I'm fine with it. LOL!!!

It's a sad state of affairs for sure. The one thing that you have to keep in mind is that what you do now with it can affect your ability to do any future business that might rely on them.

Think about it... you fuck up now, you cant get a merch acct for a restaurant or a retail store or a car wash or a McDonalds down the road...

Hehehe... Unless you can obtain multiple SSNs. :)

Wow, you start talking about willful tax fraud and I'm done with this thread.

LOL... Just jokes.

Trying to think of a workaround for all of this stuff. Maybe something like, people purchase tickets or internet money with their credit cards, and can use it at different places?

Sort of take Visa out of the picture?

Do you see any problems with that?

I don't mean to be asking 20 ?s, I'm just trying to work out a game plan for the next year, and CC Processing is a core part of it. LOL... And with little knowledge out there pertaining to the issues, it's hard to get some of this stuff figured out.

Unfortunately doing an adult 'gift' with a non adult purchase is probably not going to fly.

If you've got your own merchant account then you should really talk to your gateway service provider about how they think you should proceed.

Other than that I don't really see any issue in doing business with the truly compliant IPSPs in the business. They are the ones that aren't having huge issues with the cc's anyway since they aren't trying anything funny or stupid.

Your Kung-Fu is strong!

Do you recommend any?

Ahahaha, it's my jujitu ninja training ;)

In no particular order CCBill, Epoch, Jettis... perhaps IBill but their Mastercard solution blows chunks.