ibills and others
 

well i have been around for quite some time and i started using lancelot when i first opened my sites.
then i went to ibill. they were great for the first 2 1/2 years. then they went through the change over and all the other shit lossing AE and killed the shopping carts also. i still use them as a billing company on my sites as a secondary back up i use ccbill as my main. what i have noticed is ibill and checks i will end up with about a 3-10 charge back on checking so for every 10 sign ups i get with ibill 3 of them end up being back outs. with ccbill i run about 1 to 2 a year only the other pain in the ass you can not change your prices or anything else with out pulling your theeth out with these people. my checks are sent by mail and in the 3 years i have used them just a few weeks ago my check did not come. they told me that they were going to charge me 30.00 bucks to re-issues that check. i told them to go fuck off sent it . i do a good half way $ amount with them and the basters want to nail me another 30.00 bucks. in the last month i have only gotten 2 sign ups with ibill i always in the past have done at least 4-5 a day with them and arounf 6-7 a day with ccbill. ccbill sign ups are still coming in like normal but ibills have stopped almost dead in the water. i have sent them 8 emails and have not gotten any kind of reply.

if i was a new webmaster i would go with ccbill hell my account is in the singel digets with them and they have never missed a beat.
i have had a few problems with them but all minnor and when i send them a email i do get a reply with in a few mins to a few hours all you that are saying that you do not get a reply maybe you are just emailing the wrong people. get to know you billing person there cause they will step up and take action as soon as they can.

so i would like to know what the rest of you are doing about ibill?
dropping them. or keeping them

Hi,

You must realize that as long as you are using a 3rd party processor, you will never have control of your $$. Whyy settle for weekly or monthly payouts and not know why customers are being declined? Why bot have control over your own fraud settings for YOUR site. Why pay 15% when you can pay 7% total?
We get soooo many webmasters that come to us from other processors, especially 3rd party... they rarely leave us. Do yourselves a favor and check out what we have to offer, the most reliable and flexible payment gateway available. For get email support. Netbilling can assist you in person live 24/7/365.

No setup fee either when switching form another processor. We have a free shopping cart for product sales and of course we handle customer service, password management and rebilling automatically.

Thanks, Mitch

7% total? Hmmm.....

Don't forget to hire a couple of people to do your 24/7 customer service. Another person, maybe two to handle your chargebacks and banking stuff.

You'll almost certainly need to pay a small fortune to open the merchant account and you'll be paying a slightly less smaller fortune maintaining the security reserve.

You'll need to visit your bank a lot, giving them lots of information about your high risk business, that wastes a lot of your time. You'll have to constantly worry about getting 30 days notice that your merchant account, and you, are out of business.
Payroll, taxes, accounts...yawn...

What you really need is a load of adult webmasters to get together and do this, kind of a co-operative. Then they can share all the costs and pass on the savings. It should be a separate company that doesn't directly compete with any of it's members. You could call it a 3rd party processor ... oh wait!

Willow,

We actually handle all of the customer service and chargeback management as well, for you. If you can get past filling out the merchant account application, it really is not too tough from that point. There is a high risk registration fee. However, the $$$ that you will save if you are doing any volume is well worth it. We have thousands of merchants who are extremely happy. Can't say that about yet another 3rd party processor. It does take a certain type to want to have all of this control... the smart type.

Mitch

Willow....excellent.


Before everyone runs out and attempts to obtain their own merchant account for processing high risk adult transactions please consider the following.

First of all, credit card transactions processed for adult sites are (or should be) processed under Merchant Category Code 5967 which is a High Risk Adult Video Text transaction identifier. Failure to process under this specific code will most likely result in a large fine to the merchant.

Processing transactions under MCC code 5967 carries its own set of guidelines which differ from transactions processed under other MCC codes, such as for standard retail transactions. These
guidelines are primarily geared towards chargeback reduction. Specific thresholds have been set by each card association in order to monitor merchants and the number of chargebacks which they are generating.

Below are the current chargeback thresholds for high risk 5967 merchants

VISA

Overall 2.5%
CDC 1% (customer disputed chargebacks)
Foreign 2.5% - Calculated by number of foreign chargebacks/count of foreign sales in one month
*Note on Foreign - this ratio was decreased from 5% to 2.5% on Jan 1 2001, and this is the
the one parameter that typically causes high risk merchants the most problems/fines

Penalty - the penalty for exceeding the any of the above parameters is $100/chargeback in the first month you exceed any threshold. The penalty increases to $200/chargeback if a merchant continues to exceed any of the above thresholds.

MC

Overall 1.0% (yes that is one percent)

Penalty - the penalty is $25/chargeback initially increasing to $50/chargeback PLUS MC can
also fine a merchant on credits as if they were chargebacks if they feel that the
merchants credit percentages are to high.


If a merchant continues to exceed the above thresholds then they will most likely lose
their merchant account and receive a TMF (terminated merchant file), which is a very bad
thing, being given this status may prohibit the merchant from ever obtaining another
merchant account whether it be for adult transactions or for standard non-adult business.

And the rules are changing. Card associations are in the process of approving MANY additional
rules/guidelines which will effect high risk merchants. One of which is that they may not
allow any company who has previously received a TMF for a merchant account to process high
risk transactions, this includes processing with a 3rd party credit card processor! (Epoch,Ibill,CCbill etc..)

3rd party processors assume a lot of responsibility on behalf of your account. Both in terms of financial
risk and staying in compliance with rules set fourth by the card associations. At Epoch, as do others, we have an
extremely strong infrastructure with business processes which are geared specifically towards management
of our master account which is ultimately your account.

As far as scrubbing goes, yes we scrub and we do so for a specific reason...to stay in compliance with
chargeback thresholds which avoids fines and allows us the ability to continue to process on your behalf.
Remember we only make money when our clients make money, so having to "turn up the scrub"
in order to comply means less money for both of us.

There are so many benefits to processing with a 3rd party processor and once you add up all of the fees
of maintaining your own merchant account you will realize that the cost savings between your own
account vs. a 3rd party account is not significant if any.

Clay Andrews

http://www.epochsytems.com

Interesting. I wonder when this new rule might take effect? That could be a pretty big deal, I would think, if anyone with a TMF would NOT be able to do even third party processing.

P.S. I'm not trying to get in a flame war or anything like that.

But, Willow ...

"Don't forget to hire a couple of people to do your 24/7 customer service. Another person, maybe two to handle your chargebacks and banking stuff." ...

That was hilarious!

I use netbilling and have no complaints. All fraud and other issues listed above can be handled very simply.....

Make it clear to your customers exactly what they'll be charged, when they'll be charged, and respond to emails.

Basically, if you give your customers no reason to contact their credit card company, they never will.

Netbilling has a very good virtual terminal and it is extremely easy to mange accounts. We have processed 1,000's of transactions and have had less than 10 chargebacks.

Even if you tell your customer you won't refund their money...as long as you give them a specific reason...chances are they wont go to their cc company.

Ok Florida ... Point Taken ...

But what happens when, despite all of your efforts, you still exceed one percent on chargebacks and such? Adult is high risk, afterall ... no matter how well you run your business.

Your merchant account is terminated, and if this new rule comes down, you can't even get third party processing cause you're TMF?

It may not happen, but these new rules might certainly increase the risk of it happening.

Then my Philipino sex slave that I keep in the basement would be getting an iBill account. She loves me like that.

I too have a number of sex slaves that I can count on for this purpose.

I better start training them now ... LOL

"We have thousands of merchants who are extremely happy. Can't say that about yet another 3rd party processor. It does take a certain type to want to have all of this control... the smart type"
---------------------------

Oh, please Mitch, take that crap out of the barn and dump it somewhere so it doesn't smell so bad.

IBill, Epoch, WSB and ourselves ALL have MANY satisfied customers. I'd venture to say thousands easily.

Clay's right, Mastercard and Visa get tougher all the time -- for each gain we as processors make in fighting frivolous or absolutely bullshit chargebacks, the cc's dump something else on the adult industry to keep things riding the edge every day of the year.

They've been moving for awhile now in the direction of controlling just who can and can't take cards on a site by site basis, regardless of the company name that you use or the individual who signs the agreement.

So those who have high profile domain names that lose their own merchant accounts may end up shit creek without a paddle before too much time passes. If that indeed happens it will be sad for alot of people but alot more site owners may end up thanking their lucky stars that there are third party processors like us.

I'll be the first to grant you that people scream bloody murder at all of us, we never get through enough cards, we're turning down valid cards, we scrub too hard, yada yada yada. Of course, they sure do love cashing those checks and getting those wire confirmations from us each week.

But the bottom line is this: not too many adult merchants, especially of the larger size, have done so well managing their own merchant accounts. Many have lost those accounts due in part to their own greed or the fact that they simply weren't prepared to handle all the headaches that came along with the whole setup. For that matter, there have been a few third party processors who weren't set up to handle things, or maybe it's just that they let their greed rule their minds.

If there was one processing solution for every site out there, then I guess there would only be one processor, no?

Any sense of when this might happen Kimmykim?

Just curious ...

The normal procedure is hint, hint, slam.

They're not much on warning.

Hi Clay,

You are absolutely correct. These rules are the same for 3rd party processors as well as individual merchants. So, now that the 3rd party processors must report individual sites and chargebacks, that also means that if a merchant gets in trouble with chargebacks, you must shut them off as well, correct?
So, what is the difference?

Mitch

Oh Great! LOL. Well, it doesn't affect me for now. But it will effect my decision on whether or not I should get a merchant account in the future.

I must say it's taking me some time to adjust to the subtlety of Kimmy. Correct yes. Subtle and restrained, like a brick in the face. :)

As for netbilling, let's hear it then. How much does it cost to open a merchant account and fund the reserve to say process a half million a month. 15% of a month's gross? 25%? It's around there somewhere.

How much does it take to get setup with WSB/CC|I Bill/Epoch? What was that? Nothing.... How can that be?

You can get everything you need for under a grand

Mitch,

EPOCH has been reporting transaction and chargeback counts by individual URL to
VISA for a long time now. And yes, VISA can request that an individual site or
company be shut down within a 3rd Party Processor?s portfolio, as I stated
earlier.

I believe the difference in what you do vs. what we, CCBill and ibill do is
that we, as 3rd party processors, utilize our experience and risk management
techniques to assist our clients in maintaining compliance with card
association guidelines, FTC guidelines and other areas concerning law
enforcement matters and the like. Our entire business is focused on risk
management and compliance because we have skin in the game, which means we are
ultimately financially responsible if things go wrong.

The way I understand your business is that you are a broker of merchant
accounts. You offer a fee for service features. You also may make money from the bank
where you set up the merchant and from the merchant. The entire financial risk
is up to the Webmaster. Therefore, if something goes wrong, and a lot of times
something does go wrong, with an individual site or Webmaster, your clients are
toast if you burn up your bank with a client that goes wild.

We have forged a strong alliance with the card associations and we deal with
the largest banks in the world. This has taken many years. The trust that we
have developed with Visa is because our entire operation, risk management
policies and end-to-end solution, backed up by our financial risk taking, means
that webmasters may get a bit better than the "hint, hint, slap" that KK so
aptly applied to Visa. We are perfectly aligned with our client?s interests.

So to sum it up, we do everything in our power to ensure that our clients
remain compliant while at the same time make as much money as they can. We at
EPOCH believe that webmasters want to focus on their core competencies;
delivering quality content by marketing to the public. EPOCH, CCBill, iBill
and companies like ours allow the webmasters to do what they do best, with a
minimum amount of risk. And everyone remember... Having your own merchant
account is not a new idea. It proved for many to be a mistake years ago.

Clay
http://www.epochsystems.com

SPAM!:BangBang:

Haa haa he he. OMG. Ha ha ha. Rolling around on the floor....

Some time later.

Here's how it works.
1. You run 1/2 million in Visa/MC on your brand new merchant account using a database that some 12 year old script kiddie just ripped off.
2. Funds get deposited into your account 2-3 days later.
3. You transfer said funds in an offshore account in a country you already own a villa in.
4. You close your merchant account and emigrate.
5. Your poor bank gets 1/2 million in chargebacks plus fines.

So what do you think they do to protect themselves against this. Laaarrrrge deposit required. As the nice man from Epoch said, if it's a high risk account (as is all adult) then forget it.

If netbilling can still do it for a grand, I'll take two :)

Willow,

If you want two million dollar a month accounts with any merchant bank you will need:

GOOD CREDIT

If you want to run to the hills with the money......FAT CHANCE...you'll be caught before you started. Most merchant banks willwithold deposits for 7 days but will still drop ACH transfers every 24 hours...just a seven day delay.

And if your credit sux...they'll simply withold a large% until it reaches a certain ammount. If you want 500k a month on questionable credit...FAT CHANCE. but if you want 30k a month that builds into 500k you can easily do this.

As is life...you must prove you can process on your own before they open up the floodgates.

say you have 30k a month limit but you exceed it. AS soon as you hit anything over 30k, you call your merchant bank tell them whats up and they extend your limit.

Whenever there is a large ammount of money at stake...no one will blindly give it to you. Every single rip off red flag will go up before you see a dime of the money

I started with my own merchant account. Was great at first. Then the new chargeback rules took effect and I was paying out more in fines then than I am paying in ccbill fees at present. I have been with ccbill since march of 2001. All in all I am pleased with their current service and I am counting on them to keep making themselves better.

So my question is what do I do with this merchant acct and gateway that I am not using?

30k is only 750 $40 tickets a month. If that's all you process then once again you're still better off 3rd party because you'll be spending most of it in admin and fees. If you don't then great, but most of the people here who had merchant accounts now use 3rd party because it's just cheaper and easier.

Unfortunately I've had a lot of experience seeing people lose merchant accounts. You don't go over your 30k and ask the bank for more. If you go over and they don't feel like extending you more, they consider you in violation of your limit agreement and hold the whole damn lot for as long as they feel like until they think it's safe. I've seen so many webmasters have their funds held 100% for six months it's damn scary.

You have no flexibility to grow. What do you do stop when you get to 750? Piss of other customers or can't complete your rebilling until the 1st of next month? Nasty.

It's all about being able to sleep at night. Netbilling say they're a dose of NyQuil, I think they're a dose of flu for adult processing.

My :2 cents: You pays yours, you takes your choice.

I hope you just realized you are full of shit......

furthermore

Man...get a clue.....if you are sending bonified transactions they are going to turn down your money? I think....ohhh wait I know...they wont.

If you cant run a business as a professional, covering all bases...then go ahead and use third party.

all I know is Id be pissed if at the end of the year I gave a third party 150,000 for pretty much tossing my salad with fees and admin......I prefer to lick my own asshole and wipe it with the money I could have shit away with 3rd party.

Hers the bottom line.........either go for the gusto....or you can just be average. either nickel and dime........or you can have your bank teller blow you just for walking in the door.

Clay and KimmyKim,

It is never my intention to get into a pissing match with any of you guys. The last time I did that, it was with that guy from OBS (online billing solutions), it lasted for weeks and then 30 days later they went out of business. I respect both of your business models and you as individuals. Third party is great for some, and gateways for others. I must clarify to you that we are absolutely not a broker for merchant accounts. We do work with several offshore and domestic banks to setup the merchants, as you do. The services we provide are identical to what you do except that each of our merchants have their own merchant account. This does take the ultimate risk off of us and on to the merchant to stay under the "radar". We still handle all fraud scrubbing and customer service just as you do. However, If a merchant ever has a problem, it does not effect our viability or any of our other merchants. It is a nice peace of mind for most.

However, I'm not sure where "willow" is getting his information. As Florida kid stated, it is relatively easy to get a high risk account if you have good credit. We help setup dozens of high risk each week. It is actually $600 total, unless it is through Humboldt which charges $250 more. As will all processors (3rd party and not), there is typically a 5 or 10% rolling reserve.
With our system, merchants have acccess to all data including their risk management settting and we (and they) can determine the best scrubbing threshholds for maximum conversion while minimizing fraud. We have less than a 2% loss of merchant each year due to a merchant having excessive chargebacks and have only one time lost a merchant back to third party that came to us from there.... We really keep webmasters happy. Do you ever see posts about, "Netbilling down again", "Did not get my Netbilling deposit today", My transactions are being scrubbed to death by Netbilling and conversions have dropeed to nothing"? I don't think so. Ask some o the merchant that uised to be 3rd party but are Netbilling merchants such as Cyberage, Whitehouse, Wasteland, Tennisex, Fetishcash etc... the list goes on and on. Those merchants know the best since they have been on both sides of the fence. The perception has been for some time now that if you have a merchant account, you must do everything yourself. This is completely false. Merchants are much smarter these days and the ones that stick around take their sites and their $$$ seriously.

Willow, you said above that you would take 2? If you've got good credit, I will take you up on your proposition. Looking forward to your call on Monday to get started. You will love it on this side of the fence, once you get the fact completely straight.... I promise. Want to take all of your data to your new processor? Sorry, you can't, it is not yours as it belongs to the owner of the merchant account. :-) We can easily do a merge for you though.

Have a great weekend everyone... I hope Ibill pulls through.

Mitch

Here is the big picture......say webmaster x wants an afiliate program, wants to process cc's...wants someone to pay his webmasters....and handle fraud.....go with third party then.

Say webmaster y wants to make millions of dollars....wants to innovate...NOT REPLICATE....wants to impliment his/her own fraud control based on their specific needs......wants the abbility to serve his/her own customers based on their specific needs....also wants to customize their site to produce a completely unique signup process....wants to actually pay for a killer affilate program with referring urls and every other bell and whistle to boot....you do things right.

you put up with the merchant bank ripping you and your new business to shreds....this is called CYA....you know what it stands for.....you run your operation tight....I know I want all refunds to be approved by me...no one else....and if visa or MC comes a calling....Im damn sure that I can prove that mr or mrs customer approved that transcation....often times...people are just confused...you set them straight..keyword is YOU....id be way pisseed if some 10 buck an hour employee was making business decisions for me...based on some policy that was felt to be acceptable for everyone.
oh wait thats communism...lol

I know this much and other than that Im a dumbfuck...... I wish to control my business as how I see fit....I have no need for someone else setting standardized ploicies for how I run my biz.....It is up to me....and only me...to make sure that my customers never ever have a probelem...if they do...then I solve it before the report me to their cc comapny.

So, if you want a 18 yr old handling your customer service....and please someone from a third party tell me otherwise......then just go along being average.



ps...im a bit yegerred up

FloridaKid,

WOW! You said it all.....

Mitch:thumbsup

I take it this is for US residents only?

Florida Kid, you said a mouthfull... again! (Can I pay you for 10 sec piggyback on those infomercials? :winkwink: )

Mitch, where were you during the last Credit Card discussion?! A call will be coming your way!

I apologize for the mouthful...but I believe in only a few things...one is which....Its not that difficult to do things and you might as well do things right when making a meager attempt at building a business...ie first impressions to your customers.

Ok Florida. Again, point taken. And I'm not flaming you or anything like that. But you still didn't answer my question.

What happens if you have a bad month, or two, or three. And your merchant account is yanked because of it ....

Then you CAN'T GET PROCESSING .... PERIOD ... ANYWHERE ... not even third party if this new rule is implemented ....

What do you do then?

And how can you do fraud control, really? Personal response to customers is great, and I'm sure it cuts down on the chargebacks quite a bit ...

But there are always assholes who are going to chargeback no matter what. Third party processors have the best fraud scrubbing databases to avoid this, compiled from thousands of sites all over the net.

Do you use a fraud scrubbing database?

Hey, I'm a control freak too ... LOL. And I like to save money as much as the next guy. But I'm NOT going to put myself in a position where I may be put out of business because I may NEVER be able to process cards again. The risks of that happening, even with the best of intentions, are much higher now.

Adult is high risk ... even if you run a very tight ship. So I was wondering if you would respond to this issue.

P.S. Florida

I'm sure KimmyKim or someone else can answer this better than I can, but I'm not sure VISA or MC is going to be that forgiving if they "come calling" as you put it ...

I doubt they'll care about the explanation or justification for the charges. They'll probably only care about the losses.

Afterall, that's why the fraud databases were setup to begin with. So that people with chargebacks will be avoided, and webmasters can't take charges from them again.

Obviously, that's what VISA and MC want. So I'm not sure your justifications, after the fact, will be effective.

Hi,

We actually process for several out of US merchants. However, the setup is different and merchant accounts offshore are typically for those with monthly volume over 100k.

Mitch

Pornwolf, We will take great care of you and your business.
Looking forward to hearng from you.

Mitch :thumbsup

p.s. I just got turned on to this board at Internext... that is why I was never here before this past week. Lot's of fun too!

Now that's what my momma calls a left handed compliment.

No one from IBill's here, Mitch, why on earth even say something like that???? Further, MANY of the webmasters here get checks on time and in full from IBill, the same way they always have, so there's absolutely NO indication that IBill needs to pull through anything.

Everyone with a computer has had technical difficulties at one time or another, and I'd bet my bank account that IBill's busting ass 24/7 to get their issues resolved, since it costs a biller way more than what any individual client loses in downtime or errors.

FloridaKid, I'm not going to argue with you, I see no point in it. Bottom line is that when Visa or MC comes knocking on your door about chargebacks, refunds or anything else, they don't give a damn what you say about it. They have already judged you guilty and are coming for their pound of flesh. This I know for a fact. They might let you keep your account, or they might not. Depends on how much money you can afford to pay in fines and what kind of mood their staff is in when you discuss it with them.

Fortunately for CCBill, we have what we consider to be the best scrubbing available, the levels of customization and control are phenomenal enough that a major merchant bank sells that scrubbing with their new account issues. IBill, Epoch, CCBill, WSB -- the volume that we do enables us to work closely with the cc's -- Clay's statements are right on the money so I won't repeat them.

Hope everyone is having a good weekend.

I was a little worked up last night....but id say everything in this post is true in its own way. It just all depends on the person. I guess the best suggestion for anyone who tries to do it on there own is to work closely with their merchant bank. They can offer a lot of insight....what to do/not do...and how to cover your ass....and if your comfortable assuming some risk.....just be prepared

Yep. That's what I figured.

It sucks, no doubt about it. They control the money flow so they get to make the rules.

On another note, anyone read the AVN online article regarding their no longer having such a control over the merchant banks? I don't have the link right off the top of my head but it should be the current issue, and it's written by Clyde DeWitt.

Ah ... the Golden Rule. He who has the gold, and controls the gold (in this case)... makes the rules ... LOL

Hello Florida Kid,


I disagree with the statement because the major portion of all internet fraud is is not someone confused if they did the charge or not.... its the consumer denying the charge or caliaming I didnt do it.

CDC's (Customer Denies Charge) as they have been referrenced here, are seen on your merchant statement as Code 61 for Visa and Code 37 for Master Card. High risk merchants are kept to a 1% CDC ratio or they are fined $100.

The chargebacks for consumers calling in and claiming they didnt do it are automatic...meaning you do not receive a retrieval request asking for proof. These disputes are charged back automatically without conferring with the merchant.

Often the consumer will still call the merchant after calling bank, unknowingly merchant issues credit and later receives chargeback... ask your customers if they have contacted their bank yet , regardles i would always contact their bank and findout if a chargeback had been initiated before giving a credit. This will save you great deal of $$ and aggrivation.

You may collect AVS/CVV/SS#/Issuing Bank,Email, IP, and a blood sample and Visa will not overturn the charge. Trying to obtain a 1% treshold on something you have limited control over is extremely difficult.

Only 1 in 100 has to say I didnt do it and you have reached your thershold. A reverand would have trouble selling bibles to his congregation and sustain that ratio. Another problem is that chargebacks trail transactions, meaning that a chargeback is not counted in the month it was transacted but against the month when the consumer called in to complain.

So J Jones hasnt been paying attention to his statement and realizes the last 3 months hes been paying for that porn site he never used. Calls bank claims ignorance. Now you are looking at 3 CDC chargebacks in a given month.

Heaven help you if your sales are down that month. Visa/MC wont take into consideration a loss in sales. So if you did half the transactions as last month for whatever reason, you may be seriously at risk of hitting your ratio.

In referrence to your statement "I can prove that mr or mrs customer approved that transaction". When considering CDC's, MC/Visa arent concerned that you can prove J Jones did the charge, they wont bother to ask. You may be able to occasionally correct the confused, but those consumers who know the game know they cant loose if the simply say "I didnt do it".

Uh, let me think. No, they won't. They'll just keep it ALL until they feel like releasing it. Twit.Professional means you do it for money, not that you're a snob about it. When it comes to Visa you can get blasted against the wall for doing nothing wrong.

Say hi to Kimmykin or Maximus for me when you phone them up asking for an account in 6 months. :)

Seriously take a walk at an adult convention some time. Take a look around you. Find out how many process their own merchant account and how many 3rd party. Then find out how many of them lost a merchant account. Might surprise you.

Ahh, what's a good credit discussion without Maximus and Kimmy?!?!

Now there's an interesting question. If this new rule comes down, and people who have TMFs (terminated merchant files) can't process through third party anymore...

Will former TMFs not be able to process either? Even though they have been third party for quite some time?

Or, will they be grandfathered in, and will only recent TMFs will be prohibited from third party processing?

Maximus and willow, excellent summations :)

erotictrance, I don't know the answer. I see the writing on the wall and it's an ugly lot of graffitti.

Hi,

I have spoken to my risk management contact at Visa about this and here is what I have been told, and I quote; "Anyone who was TMF'd in the past probably will not be able to use 3rd party once each URL and merchant is reported and tracked separately if we have the proper data on the merchant. Likewise... if a merchant uses third party and their chargebacks are too high, they will be terminated and will not be able to use another 3rd party processor or qualify for a merchant account. Many people started using 3rd party so they could hide behind the blanket of the 3rd party processor. With the new rules, this will no longer be the case at all."

It was also clarified to me that if a 3rd party processor (aggregator) goes out of business or gets TMF'd, the merchant has absolutely no right to that customers data. So, basically (as what happened to DMR, Webcash, Digiblaze, OBS, etc., the webmaster pays the ultimate price.... no customers and must start all over again.

Mitch