Scrubbing..... ther surfer's side...
 

I understand the need for scrubbing on the part of the processors.. With tight new Visa regs, it's a tool to ensure chargebacks are kept to a minimum...


But when a surfer gets scrubbed, isn't he pissed off? If it happens to enough people long enough, will they stop trying to sign up? Are we shooting ourselves in the foot? Creating the next generation of jaded porn consumer?

I'm not trying to single anyone out, I'm honestly curious as to what people think on this.

I agree.

They are also scared of dialers (for good reason).

So what will get fucked up next? :(

Wasn't cascading billing created to solve this problem?

But all processors scrub... they HAVE to to maintain their ratios... It seems though that many processors scrub hardest on the same days, so cascading billing isn't always as effective as it could be.

Ah. I know they all scrub, but I thought some would scrub less. Wonder why they seem to do it all during the same time period (scrub)?

Cascading billing works because it's seemless and invisible to surfers, and I believe the last option is it sends you to a checking option or other form of payment. I'm not sure how much of an effect it would have on surfers as I believe it's all transparent?

Cheers,
Matt

Having been scrubbed out the door on a couple MPA2 programs, I can tell you it isn't transparent at all.

"scrubbed out the door"

Funniest thing I've read all day... :1orglaugh

In the past 2 years I've ran several different cards (twice they were brand new) through CCBill and have been declined everytime. I have never been able to process my cards through CCBill. The secondary processor (often 2 Check Out) got my business instead.

My experience with polish cc:

ibill = 95% decline, 5% acceptance
epoch = 100% declines
ccbill = 100% declines
other ( european, offshore and 1 US processor - Jettis ) = mostly acceptance

Isn't it frustrating?

I've experience similar, corvett assured me that the only way a card is automatically scrubbed is if it's been flagged for fraud.

Funny, I tried my card the same day I activated it.

if they have stopped signing up it means they have stopped consuming...albeit by force since they the processors arent letting them in.

Im canadian and I have more than enough credit, i still cant signup with many of my own valid cc's to many many sites.

wtf is surfer supposed to do?

Yeh, about a year and a half ago I was going to pay for paysite access for the first time at brianabanks.com. I couldn't join. Tried 2 different cards and I've still never seen the inside of that site, hehe.

Perfect example of why any paysite should use cascade billing. Yeh, legitimate purchases will still slip by, but it's better than nothing.

say "fuck it, those fuckers don't want my money, so i will go to Kazza" :(

Well that's my point. These surfers are kind of forced to leech because they can't buy memberships... So not only are the actual sales scrubbed, but that person will be less likely to even TRY to buy in the future. Once bitten twice shy. Only problem is I doubt there's anything we can do as an industry to change that.. is there?

maybe just offer better content in members areas and lots of extras and better customer support, so that surfers charge back less.
When they charge back less, then processors may also scrubb a little less, assuming there will be no further, stricter cb rules from VISA / MC.

this is dead-on accurate. just from past experience i have had multiple gold and platinum VISA's and MC's denied by the big US processors over the years, some of them sites i actually saw here on GFY and wanted to check out. i can use my CC's anywhere else online, why scrub just these sort of transactions so hard for no reason? as its been pointed out before, scrubbing perfectly good transactions for no reason wouldn't help lower chargeback ratio's in the first place, it would make them higher since the pool of good transactions is shrinking... i don't understand the point of scrubbing when it isn't cardholders from obscure locales, i'm not ashamed to admiit..

from what i can tell, at least w/ the big US-based processors, your current chargeback ratio has absolutely *nothing* to do w/ the scrub level applied; i have accounts w/ two of the "big three" that sit at .05-.1 for months and months on end and the scrubbing doesn't subside..

Sick thing is, the industry brought this upon themselves, with sub-standard member's areas, lying tours, false advertising, etc. Cheaters and frauds have also contributed to this. I wonder though, would measures like you've listed here actually help put the situation into a reversal?

Cascading billing does work worth a crap it my opinion, from my logs most bail out after the first decline, and I should know I have had three mpa2 programs and I have a new one that cascades, it is not the answer.

Today we are running at about a 70% decline rate, yep 70% and before you say its cheaters most of these are from non-Webmaster traffic.

The number one issue with adult is the credit card situation, something has to change and change soon.

on a related side note, does anyone think that perhaps the multitude of denials many of us wake up to every morning these days are not the result of traditional scrubbing, but more from the backend acquiring banks themselves denying many transactions right off the bat, based on a transparent set of variables we know nothing about?

my biggest gripe lately, is why so many of my *rebills* are declined in recent weeks, many of them long-time customers w/ a history of rebills behind them. i've had customers email me clueless as to why their password pair has stopped working, becuase they assume they've been rebilled and should have access. those are good transactions getting shitcanned, so thats definitely not helping any chargeback ratio's..

Isn't a big part of scrubbing exactly that? Denying based upon certain criteria even before attempting a transaction?

well, as far as the rebills go, it doesn't make any sense that a long-time subscriber business is suddenly undesirable, after months and months of good rebills w/ no chargebacks or refund requests. just what is the criteria for an approval these days? it doesn't seem to be based on anything like locale of potential subscriber, which is evident from all the reports here from webmasters whose cards are perpetually declined as well (like mine)..

i should add...

"You have submitted too many times today."

i'm sure many here are all too familiar w/ that phrase..

Good point, perhaps they need to work on their scrubbing logic for rebills to take situtations like that into account, if scrubbing even applies to rebills..

What cards exactly are they scrubbing? Someone said their Canadian cards weren't being accepted, I've never had that problem. Isn't their scrub list only high risk countries and people who have charged back before?

defiintely not. i'm located within the US and have had on multiple occasions both VISA's and MC's issued by BoA and WellsFargo declined by both ccBill and iBill, and these are cards w/ proper CVV2 presented, proper US billing address supplied, and no history of disputes whatsoever. i cant think of any reason why they would be scrubbed out, but it has happened many times... i've come to suspect that scrubbing is set off something as simple as a random seed..

They also scrub by bank or bank bin, so say they have a high CB ratio from "bank of whateverville" they will decline any sales from that bank period.

Expand your thought here, forget what your account looks like for a moment.
What if everyone else is way past the 1% bullshit.

At the end of the day the processor is accoutable for all its merchants not just you.
So while you are sitting pretty at .5% the others may not.
At the same time trying to put transactions thru as a whole would be down wouldnt it?

Wouldnt that be just plain dumb if they did that?
User signups and has passed the initial scrub, jumped thru three hoops on one leg and sucked off a midget tranny while in the air.
Now they are gonna go scrub this guy?
This is *After* he gets thru initially and they have already billed him?


If this is the case, its just plain fucking stupid and the whole premise on which they process needs to be revised

i would be surprised if any processors scrubbed on rebills...


i posted this in a thread on a different board about signups/chargebacks:

"the scrubbing takes out the obvious trash, but many people don?t realize or believe that?some seem to think that it changes on a daily basis for chargebacks that might come in anywhere from a few days to 4 months or more later


imho, the thing that causes chargebacks is #1 affiliate fraud, and #2 misleading billing practices; ie prechecked double hidden retroactive cross sales, 3 day tour when in the terms and conditions say you need to cancel within 72 hours, people hiding their cancel button or making it a 8 pages, searching process to find it?."


there is a good reason for every decline, and although tempted, it would be silly of me to post some of the more common reasons...

why would it be silly? don't you want to educate your affiliates to make you the most money and not make too many mistakes that can be avoided?

Yeah, i did a test with mine a while back... first day i tried it it was declined, next day it went through. And the info was entered exactly the same each time... so the scrub must vary day by day.

no disrespect, but thats bullshit
not every decline should have been declined to begin with

:thumbsup

What he said. I'd be interested to hear about it. But really, the point of the thread was more about things from the surfer's side. The processors do what they have to do to continue their business. That makes sense.

But you are someone I'd like to hear ideas on this from as well. What do you think we, as an industry can do to make things better? For you, the processor. For us, the webmaster, and for the surfer. There's NEVER going to be a perfect solution, but how about a happy comprimise? Advice for webmasters in general?

those fuckin prechecked bullshit crossells suck, BUT all the ones in favor of them will reply with the old "you should watch what your buying and its the money baby" reply and then they come into threads like these and complain about scrubbing :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

I am so very happy I don't have your job.

if rebills are not scrubbed (and i believe Corvett implicitely if he says they are not) then i wonder if we are talking about something other than actual scrubbing after all as i mentioned in a previous post in this thread... maybe more a symptom of the acquiring banks themselves on the backend blocking some online transactions wholesale for certain customers?

i find the whole concept of the brutal scrub that is so often bitched about hard to come to terms w/, as i don't see how it could possibly help a processor do business or make money... w/ all the complaining about scrubbing here on the boards perhaps we should be looking past the processors here, and more at the banks themselves limiting the amount of online "no card present" transactions for their customers on their own volition.

now this scenario i would find easier to believe than the processors themselves limiting their own profits, and could also be way more worrisome for all of us if true..

I think #2 should be surfer fraud . Surfers know that banks and billing companies have a knee jerk reaction to the word charge back so they get away with fraud almost every time. Stop this practice and i think you would see a difference in sales.

:2 cents:

first off if the person is being scrubbed, there should be a good reason! do you want this guy not to be scrubbed. Because the guy might be a chargeback freak! I'd rather have the guys scrubbed than not to. Because then you've given away free bandwidth, free access to the site, and it goes against you with visa!

jDoG

So are you saying billers scrub on the individual or the bank level? We don?t do trials, or click or un-clicked up sells, and we have 7 day phone support, our CB ratio is low, but most of our declines are from non webmaster traffic. I have a hard time joining my own sites with some of my own cards, leading me to believe the bank is blocked.

Many people scrubbed are ditched for something as simple as a p.o. box address. How is that good critirea? And if you were that surfer, would you want to go through the bullshit again? It's hard enough to convince them to whip out plastic, let alone make them jump through hoops to do it, with good potential that the will not be allowed to do so! If it was me as a surfer, no fucking way! This has to leave something of a bad taste in the mouth of the surfer. What could this mean for the future of our industry, and sales/billing in particular? Is there a solution?

I feel it will only get worse before it takes a turn for the better. The fuckin declines I get kill me every fuckin day. :(

Sorry for the delay?

I was referring to the reasons that risky transactions get declined by ccbill. I am not going to risk the chance of posting something that might facilitate the circumventing of our fraud prevention methods.


there are companies out there that run exceptional businesses and have very low chargeback rates

it IS the banks.. there are several aussie bank issued cards that plainly will not work. I can't sign up to ANY paysite with my card..

But i've got to disagree with the cascading thing, sure it's not seamless and transparent like people think it is but it literally nets 33% more profit. I've got one newish site with only 162 members but shows neatly in the figures what cascading means to me:

101 ccbill
v

55 epoch

(6 check)

thats a pretty massive.. can't ignore a third using 3rd party only.

third party billers dont allow this. user has to enter CC info on every single processor. so its not invisible at all.
it can be done only maybe if you have merchant accounts at each processor.

:glugglug :glugglug :glugglug

I just want to add that i know it's 50% more profit, or 150% times the profit not 33% more, i meant it accounts for roughly 33% of the profit of the site, in case there are any people like me that get bugged when people use bad maths.