EPOCH, what's the status of the Mastercard Lawsuit?
 

Curious how things are going ...

me too

Do local court systems publish online the status of complaints and moving papers or tentative trial dates?

I'm curious to know if they will inform us if they settle.

Doubt it.

... how many lawsuits have been announced here, and how many have actually made it to court ???

It's true. That's why I'm bringing it up ... this is something I want to be kept informed of. Someone should keep a tally of lawsuits and the status of them. Then pound GFY every few months to get some answers. They always making fucking announcements and no follow-ups. Drives me crazy.

... mait until march2004 when epoch will hit the shitbin and follow globill&friends ... noone will mention that "announced" lawsuit again ....

whats equally as sad is how mainstream merchants can operate at 6% CB ratios and all is cool

What's up with March 2004?

What mainstream merchants are getting 6% CB ratios? I think the majority of mainstream merchants don't get anywhere that amount considering they do a swipe or are selling an actual product.

You been living under a rock? 03/2004 will be the end of the world.

The "fraud rate" (not sure if this translates 1:1 into CB rate) for Visa USA in 2003 is 0.05% across the board according to their own publications.

plenty... and at top 3 banks. Yout think the video professor is under 1%?

not mainstream

... just the end of this world, a new world will start at the same time.

Go to the processing seminar at WA in LA this weekend and find out.

It's on the list ....

Where did you get 6% from? All the mainstream merchants I know online get 1%. Maybe alittle higher, depending on the bank.

show me the link

i have read 0.6% for american transactions and 0.8% for european ones with certain countries having 0% cb level.

im not pulling it out of my ass... Porn is treated much differently than mainstream as mainstream is perceived differently. Visa/MC are putting the screws to the adult industry which IMO is most prone to exceed the 1% threshold. A chargeback is chargeback and no matter what evidence you present to the bank a card not present transaction is almost always in favor of the consumer. Not only that, but you actually pay a slightly higher discount rate to process such transactions.

Visa/MC REQUIRE in order to properly dispute a chargeback you have 1 of 2 things. A positive AVS match OR a postive CVV2 match for each transaction. Unfortunately, many Intl cards do not support these features so even accepting a trans. from outside the country your left with little recourse.

The sad, very sad, fact is that if a consumer decides he doesnt want to pay the merchant is pretty much fucked. Visa/MC doesn't really care about server logs or any other evidence you can produce that the charge was legit. And even if you dispute the transaction successfully it still COUNTS as a CB which is why IMO the big 3rd party billers issue credits on demand. I can almost guarantee that the "joe schmoe" portion of a big processors portfolio is treated much differently than its bigger clients, regardless of the stance that everyone is now operating under its own ratio as opposed to the ratio of the whole portfolio.

So as VISA/MC screw the adult industry by forcing unfair restrictions upon them.... just remember there are large, and I mean huge companies operating well above the 1% CB rate. For someone reason this is OK, but porn is not.

for smaller companies 6% is about right.. but for the bigger companies like microsoft ( the one's visa probably bases their whole ratio shit on) , will bring you to collections and if you charge back they will try to sue you for the money back, they will continue to bill you for 3 months even without a valid credit card and send you to collections for the money.. if adult sites could send people to collections for charging back there would be alot less charge backs.. but they make it so we can't becuase "we are adult we are bad people"

wait maybe that's how you do it.. use verified by visa for the first month membership.. don't rebill them but continue to charge them (because they didn't cancel their membership) then after 3 - 6 months send them to collections.. 90% will pay and there won't be any charge backs.. that is exactually what microsoft did to me

Nobody from Epoch on tonight?

Guess I'll bump tomorrow morning ...

We sell an honest $24.95 membership to a kickass Movie network and our chargeback ratio currently is 0.12 %. Its the dishonest programs from the past who rebilled customers through the ass that has caused this crack down. The industry as a whole is guilty and we are treated as such.

1% sucked but a honest business can stay under no problems. The only thing that gets to me is if you get an affilate who uses lots of credit cards to create lots of signups for himself and then you get hit with the chargebacks. That hurts and can put you out of business, which is bad news and very unfair.

I guess we are reaping the shit from people doing bad stuff in the past. Fair enough from Visa & Mastercards point of view.

I'll go ahead and bump this thread because I'm interested as well.

Forgot to bump it this morning ... maybe somebody from Epoch around tonight? News, Updates, Speak Epoch.

http://www.usa.visa.com/media/global/Q22003.pdf

Again, I do not know if their "fraud rate" translates into what we know as "chargebacks".

Strange that the Epoch people aren't around to reply to this one.

You do notice the time on this thread?


I think they might be sleeping but maybe it is a new concept that sleep is necessary for some of us :1orglaugh



Seriously just wait till people get up.

Whats the 03/2004 thing about? End of rebills? Crazy fines for CB's? What??

Damn now I have to search.

Ok I've come to the conclusion that its about the "Verified by visa" system & they will require all rebills from high-risk merchants to be verified/approved by the cardholder before going through?



Using the 'Verified by Visa' system, the trans process would go to a Visa site during some stage of the transaction and request the users secret 'online pincode' or something right?

You might notice that this thread has been bumped for over two days with no answer from the Epoch people.

That's what I was referring to.

maybe they don't want 2 answer you. I would like 2 know myself

I would also be interested in knowing how things are going.

I don't disagree that the adult industry is treated differently and unfairly compared to mainstream. I just don't see many mainstream companies that are allowed 6% chargeback. Like I said, most of the people I know in mainstream are only allowed 1%, but the bank will let them go over that some.

So where are you getting this information that mainstream companies are allowed 6% c/b's?

First of all, sorry for the late reply. We are really busy here getting ready for the Webmaster Access conference in Santa Monica this weekend. People are really interested in attending and the list of clients that want to tour Epoch?s offices is growing, as are the calls and our plans for the weekend.

As to the case: Federal Court is a slow process, but we are moving ahead with the process. We will not comment on ?where we are?. We will post all press releases and anything that is public information here first. And we will post news if it is good or bad when there is news. We have shown that we would do this on many occasions and this will be no different.

Thanks for your interest and hopefully your support.

C