Does your pay site accept prepaid credit cards?
 

I just learned that prepaid credit cards are like a HUGE industry, BUT those types of cards apparently don't allow for automatic re-bills!

Soooo.....there is like a huge amount of people that are using prepaid credit cards that would probably like to join your paysite but they can't because it probably only offers monthly rebill options.

SOLUTION:

Lets say that you have a paysite and you offer 3-day trial for $3.99 that converts to monthly billing @ $19.95. Well, you could also make a one-time (non-recuring) month long subscription for like $39.99 (or whatever price).

These prepaid (gift cards) are a fast growing part of the credit card industry. They're fairly new, but becoming very common these days as you can now just walk into 7-Eleven and buy them in denominations from $25 to $500

I've never bought one myself, but I can see how they would be very popular with people who don't qualify for regular credit cards and/or they want a somewhat anonymous way of buying naughty things so the wife won't find out.

So I thought I would post this to see what others think about this way of getting more sales than you are currently. What do you think?

Doesn't anybody have any thoughts on this?

Ya, I think youve got a credit/debit card fetish.
Drive down to Blaine, WA and open an account. :)

regards


shemp

Can i Buy one for $1 ???

So i can pay my long distance?

Ok you asked for thoughts, here are a couple.

Prepaid cards are a nice idea, the first, and nearly insurmountable problem, you have with them is distribution.

If someone has to actually go somewhere to purchase them, that means a huge investment in these physical cards, and in having enough of them around the country that people see them enough to actually buy one.

The second, and once again nearly insurmountable problem, is getting acceptance for the cards. Someone's got to have a huge backend programming system to be able to take the cards, and they have to be able to convince either aggregated type processors or thousands of individual merchants, to take the cards. Then you have the scripting setup, security concerns, etc that go along with taking any form of payment.

Another issue is how people get more money on their cards. Can they do it online or do they have to go back to the store they bought it from? If they can do it online, do they need an existing cc, can they use a check, what? What if they don't have any of these things? After all this isn't like a cc or a debit card that just arrives in the mailbox.

So you can kind of see where the obstacles come into play.

One recent thread, although I can't find it now, had an idea about phone cards as prepaid debit cards.

I'm not sure about prepaid being a huge industry. My daily junk mail has plenty of credit card offers, but I've yet to be offered a prepaid one. Even if it were, if it has a Visa/MC logo on it it's already ready to go.

Love to hear from anyone who's actually dipped a toe into this pond.

a couple days ago, i saw a prepaid porn site card (also good for phone sex, it claimed) for sale in a local 7-11. i wonder who else would carry them.

What kind of prepaid credit cards are you guys talking about?

I was talking about prepaid visa and prepaid mastercards, not some kind of third party porn cards or something.

Prepaid visa and mastercards are available now. You can walk into RiteAid, 7-Eleven, Key Bank, etc... and get these cards by buying them in denominations from $25 to $500. No credit checks and no applications, you just hand over the cash and get the card back then you phone a 1-800 number to activate the card.

Then you can spend them anywhere Visa or Mastercard is accepted.

Interestingly enough, I haven't seen them.

Unless you mean something like this --

http://www.cashx.com/

But you still have to remember that those cards, if carrying a specific cc logo, still fall under the rules of that cc regarding transactions.

Yeah, thats what I was talking about. Pre-paid Visa cards and Pre-paid Mastercard.

I think some of the pre-paid mastercards don't allow you to buy from "adult" sites, but I think the pre-paid visa does.

These kind of cards are usually called "Gift Cards" because people often buy them and give them to people as a gift (ie: christmas or birthday)

Our company recently launched the prepaid adult internet card which will be available through retail outlets. :girl

Any more info on this. Sounds good.

Spankstrocko

i never heard or seen a pre-paid credit card,,,

i thought you ment a secured credit card