CCBill Scrub yes/no and data.
 

Okay.. so I promote a ton of programs. I've been seeing lots (with my bullshit filters on of course) about CCBill vs. direct programs, which leads me to some questions.

Lately, I've been leaning alot of my traffic to many CCBill sites. Of course, like always there are 2 arguments to everything. I've seen (paraphrasing) the below.

1. I promote ALL CCBill sites. They convert, and rebill. (exaggerated)
or
2. CCBill has the WORST ratios ever. You're a moron for promoting anything that has to do with CCBill.

Now, I'm not a noob... but I'm no fucking "Jedi Master" either. I can obviously see that some sponsors "shave/scrub". I know this because I track outbound hits to hits registered and I even go past that but that's a story for a different day. If they do that shit, I just tank it.

What I'd like to know is why some people say that CCBill shaves/scrubs, and some say they do not. Personally, I do not see how it may be in the best interest of a processor to do so, but enlighten me. Does it mean that the processor frontloads more cash to the site owner and themselves? Does it mean they shave only the affiliate? Or does it mean that CC Bill shaves both the site owner and the affiliate to their own gain? How could they do that? The surfer would't get a password.

(CCBILL - I AM NOT ACCUSING YOU OF ANYTHING, I AM SIMPLY TRYING TO CLARIFY).

So what's the deal? I personally like sending traffic to CCBill sites because I know when I check the join page my refs are there. But many will argue and say that ""scrubs" are on and the like.

So?

Bump for the death of a real business post.

It's my understanding that "Scrubbing" is declining a bunch of credit cards based on a database they have in order to prevent fraud. It has nothing to do with shaving. When sales get bad, some people assume that processors like ccBill are scrubbing harder, i.e. declining more CCs.

The problem with CCBill sites (where you use the ccbill type link) is that they're cookie based, which means that a percentage of potential sales will be lost for affliates. Like anything, it all comes down to how much money you're making. I've got CCBill sponsors that convert 1:2000+ and other that are 1:150.

Thanks Tempest! You're right... they are cookie based too... but what about sponsors that have jack shit on a cookie? I personally would like to see.....

"30 day cookie set!" Instead of "Free X BOX with 10 sales!" Fuck the X boX. I'm not here to play games.....

Also... I can understand fraud... but when does scrubbing become shaving?

Sometimes I think people arrive at CCbill shaving conclusions because they make errors in comparison, like Nats uniques vs CCBILL hits or comparisons like sending xxxx uniques to 1 site on nats vs. sending same amount to a whole range of ccbill sites where you aren't sending enough to each individual site to judge. :2 cents:

no one ever said CCBill shave's...just scrubs real hard...i think your getting confused between the two...

Julian... interesting... So... let's say I had a sponsor that was "pre" NATS 1:456. Post NATS it's 1:3467. What does that mean?

No DS... I'm not "confused"... perfectly alert thanks. Deliniate the difference in your wisdom. Thanks.

Because "scrubbing" indicates that you never made the sale in the first place. Credit card did not go through. Shaving indicates that you made the sale and they didn't count it.

I would say that CCBill scrubs hard sometimes, but honestly do not think that CCBill shaves on behalf of programs.

IMHO I interpret that as pre-nats outpreformed nats either becuase the new nats incarnation is shaving 'ya, or your traffic quality changed over time or the site reached market saturation...

The one major, major, major fuckup in ccbill tracking is for affiliates, i know this first hand having an affiliate program ran on 100% affiliate traffic and TONS of sales were not credited to affiliates, when i wasn't sending traffic of my own.

Of course you can blame this (rightfully so) on surfers URL surfing or plain not clicking on affiliate links and just remembering the sites' name/url and typing it in, bookmarks, whatever. shit happens and there's nothing ccbill can do about that.

Then the hard scrubbing thing... i haven't yet figured it out (as an affiliate) months of 1:300 turned to 1:3000 overnight, and i can't remember a single time i was having shitty sales a lot of people were complaining too (personally, icq or over gfy threads) so it might or might not be scrubbing, (you can blame it on a slow economy/summer/whatever, or plain scrubbing you'll never know :)

But wait! NATS is UNSHAVABLE! :1orglaugh Same traffic - 0 saturation - SE traffic.

:2 cents:

I think DickShoke was right, you are confused. Twice you use the term "shave/scrub" - what is a "shave/scrub"?!? They are two completely different things. A shave is a sale that the affiliate doesn't get credit for due to shenanigans by the program owner. And a scrub is the % of attempted signups declined by the billing company. So what the hell is a "shave/scrub"? They are apples and oranges.

You are the first person I have heard imply that CCBill might shave. It's an insane thought.

You ARE confusing shaving and scrubbing.

This whole post is WICKED advice...

So what about cookie sets?
Does that help? I'm not naieve enough to think someone sees something on my sites and wakes up and types that in.

So, in your opinon CCBill is as stable as sending to a direct sponsor with their own "proprietary" tracking?
BD

No jackass... I use the terms "shave/scrub" in the same phrases because both are important. I used them in the same context to delineate the difference between the possibility that CC Bill could, does not, or does use both.

You in your infinite genius said "program owner" while most CCBill sites run independent and while may have a "program owner", operate with the assistance of CC Bills platform. Thanks for your input and I hope your 78th post is better.

LOL. Okay fine.

You just can't help some people.

Most revshare programs use CCBill and all the ones I've checked typically set a cookie for several days at least. In this way, even though you might lose some sales due to the surfer blocking cookies, you might gain some if the surfer comes back later, even as a type-in.. In "most" cases, PPS programs dont' set a cookie but track your affliate ID thru their pages. This way, you're pretty much quarenteed the signup if it occurs right away. But any traffic that goes back days later will be pure profit for that company. That's one of the ways they can afford to do PPS.

It doesn't. Shaving is a sale that doesn't get credited to the affiliate. Scrubbing, no one gets an money, not even the processing company. Well.. Other than whatever fees they might have in place.

My first thought is that the old system was tracking uniques or "qualified" and in Nats you're seeing Raw. Would need more info to really know.

I would say yes, CCBill isn't going to be the problem. Every program/site owner can screw you out of sales, even with CCBill.. For example, one of my sponsors had links to more of their sites using their own code. So I would lose those sales as their cookie would overwrite mine (they've redone their tours since I bitched to them). A CCBill program could have some pages that do a redirect thru CCBill to overwrite your cookie as well.

Exactly.. You really need to understand the numbers, the types, how much your sending etc. etc. etc..... A CCBill program recently changed all their FHGs to do a redirect thru CCBill... I had to write them and explain that this was going to make the clicks in the stats skyrocket which would make their conversion rates go in the toilet and would drive affiliates away. They're reviewing their decision.. :1orglaugh

Does CCBILL not show your declines? If so, why not? They should show the actual scrub in your stats. It could result in alot more sales even.

Not for affiliates.

That would be cool if they did it on the affiliate side too. :2 cents:

Hi,

I totally agree with Bling Daddy on the fact that it would be of no use for a billing company to shave transactions.
Suppose a billing company was shaving then webmasters would always find out, because one the following things would then happen:
1) They shave the whole transaction --> collect the money but no codes are given to the user. Which get the billing company nothing as it turns into complaints and refunds / chargebacks.
2) They shave the affiliate. Which also is not in the interest of the company as they then have to pay the full amount to the sponsor. A billing company basically doesn't care who he pays,100% to the sponsor or 50% to the sponsor and 50% to the affiliate.
3) They shave only the sponsor, which is easy to track if an affiliate has a sign up but there's no transaction in the sponsors database.

If someone has other shaving options let me know , becauseI'm quite curious.
As bling daddy mentioned what would billing companies gain by shaving?

Or NATS tracking uniques more effectively, perhaps?

If someone comes to a CCBill link, bookmarks, deletes cookies and comes back at a later date, you wont see those hits.

If someone comes to a NATS link, bookmarks, deletes cookies and comes back at a later date through bookmark, you will see those uniques (or raws depending on how the program is using NATS to track).

Right?

Interesting. How can they delete cookies and still have NATS track it? :2 cents:

Good point. Re: the tracking in his scenario. Why his sales dropped off that's another one...

That was my thought too. The problem is... the old system was CCBill direct. The only change was the NATS installlation....:2 cents:

You guys are certainly correct in your description of the differences between shaving and scrubbing. One point of clarification that I'd like to make is a misconception of how the scrubbing works and whether it's ever turned "up" or "down". There is a profile that all ccbill clients are on that we call our scrub system. This has been tweaked over time in order to make it more efficient and effective. We last moved everyone to the newest scrub profile less than a year ago. This latest profile has allowed the highest percentage of acceptance while still maintaining very low chargebacks.

We do not turn it UP or DOWN at all - it's not even possible to do that. Just to migrate our client database to a new scrub profile takes months. It's not a "lets turn it way up today to keep our chargebacks low" kind of thing. Believe me when I say we want to allow as many transactions through as we can, but doing so by mitigating risk and avoiding transactions with a high probability of chargeback or fraud.

The shaving issue - I don't feel like I really need to comment on that. But suffice it to say that just about everyone has more to lose than to gain by doing that. I would find it hard to believe that there are really many programs that even attempt to do that anymore, although that may be naive.

Andy
CCBill Sales

Thanks Andy :thumbsup That's the most intelligible response I've seen yet.

Every once in a while you gotta let them know that the scrub-o-meter isn't on tilt... :winkwink:

Andy

thanks for responding, andy.. :thumbsup