changing 3rd party processors
 

i'm curious to hear from those of you with a substantial membership base that have switched (or are in the process of switching) 3rd party processors.

specifically, to speed up the transfer/effeciency of getting your current members to sign up under the new biller - do you have any tips on which strategies have worked, and which strategies have been a waste of time - for example: emailing your members to let them know of the switch, offering special pricing to switch, bonus content to switch, etc.

i know both glo-bill and ac pay have 'utilities' to help out with membership migration - does anyone have experience using these utilities?

thanks :glugglug

quiet.. you should read my thread.

we tried switching processors 3 years ago on a very sticky amateur webcam site...

even the most loyal members re-think the commitment when you let them know they've been billed.

between the flood of chargebacks, refunds and immediate cancellations you'll be lucky if you get .5% of your membership base to switch.

The global theme on this board seems to be that these other processors are going to help you.

We've had our pisses.. but i guarantee you 100% that you will lose more in the longrun by switching than by selling or just forking out the dough to open a us corp.

One thing I would consider is that if you suddenly experience a great drop in processing, your current processor has every right to hold your money against chargebacks as well.

It's happened before, not by many processors but enough to think about it.

I know SexHit changed from their own processing to third party and they lost 60% of members (info reported in the press here in Australia - not sure entirely how accurate it is). Some of that would have been due to a harder scrub.

yeah, i saw your thread. by switching to acpay tomorrow or the next day, i'll already have around 5000 members built up there by Nov 15th (the ibill cut off date). so it would really be mostly an issue of trying to move as many of the ibill rebills away from ibill (as possible) leading up to the 15th.

of those rebills left, we will have to set up a US corp/etc by that time to hold onto those (obviously).

or I might sell the sites/content/traffic, everything. hard to say exactly what to do, because ibill still isn't saying whether an actual US office and employee (possibly even small %age owner) may be required.

hmm. i'm not sure i understand why this would happen. my cb % has always been very low, and the site isn't going anyway as long as there is still members - so there wouldn't be any cb increases, i'd think?

also, ibill already has a fairly large (almost 200K) reserve - talking to my rep, they say it will be paid out over the 6 months without problem.

I have to comment that if Ibill is not taking any steps to coddle you and retain your account it seems that things are pretty bleak for Canadians.

I am beginning to truly wonder as of today if there is a real probability that Canadians will be out of the business next month. We asked our Ibill rep some serious questions tday, and we were told we would have to wait still for the answers.

i tend to agree (obviously).

Ok.. I'm in a "mellow" mood, (that claret was kinda OK!*s*) and been perusing the posts re webmasters being.. well... fucked. Apart from some lack of info forthcoming to their clients I am sure the US processors are trying very hard to resolve this situation. (I given up popping em a while back! *g*) ...

When you have built a membership base over several years, it comes at no suprise many are more than pissed about having their businesses "wiped" and I do feel for em.

Think the procoessors involved (although this came from oustide their control), have a responsiblity, (a moral one, if nothing else) to rectify this and set up *whatever* is necessary to limit the damage here. It is clearly in their interests as well.

If anyone is interested in "escaping" much of this and being offshore, - fire me an email and would be pleased to point you to possible solutions/contacts - [email protected]. Having said that, it is kinda "awkward" for US folks, and not a "solution" for everyone, but I doubt I'd give a shit in that situation when you got more immediate problems to contend with like surviving or having *any* business left.

Peace!

By the looks of this thread the next few months are going to be very interesting. The number of surfers will not change, but where will they go?

Also Quiet they have no reason to hold onto your money other than it is better for them in their bank than yours. They had no reason to stick an adminstration charge in but they did.

Posted by Quiet:
*also, ibill already has a fairly large (almost 200K) reserve - talking to my rep, they say it will be paid out over the 6 months without problem. *

Shit Quiet! I don't care if it is the Queen of England that is holding that money, - I sure would not be having *any* third party hold that kinda money - but, you did a deal and are sticking to it - the principle is right! I only got doubts about IBill (no disrespect intended!) .. Enron/Worldcom had more and managed to fuck that.... (and in the processed fucked IBill's 900's!)

quiet,

with your volume I *really* cannot understand why you don't just setup a corp and an office in the US? It's not THAT expensive and even the smaller guys can afford it. There are packages that setup a corp for around $500-$1000 and then you pay an ongoing fee of $500-$3000 / month for the office/employee/mail/fax stuff depending on the company you're using.
As far as taxes go I'm positive there's a way to migrate your newly acquired income from US to CANADA. EVEN in the worst case scenario if you have to pay tax TWICE (i DOUBT THIS), you'd still make more money that forfeiting all your rebills.

There's also an option to transfer your ibill account after nov 15th to an already exisit US corp that a friend/friend-of-a-friend might own so that you can keep your rebills. I'm sure some kind of contract can be drawn up so that they don't screw you. My friend at AB knows a really good accountant in Toronto. Let me know if you want to talk to him and I can also get you in touch with a reliable US corp that might be able to do a transfer for you.

well all cc processors have holdbacks/reserves 6 month back.

It's a pretty basic principle that I am talking about quiet -- if you were to attempt to get your rebills to cancel their subs at a processor -- and in the process could or did suggest to them they get refunds or chargeback -- then the picture changes drastically.

I am NOT saying you would do this, or that anyone would. I am saying it's more than likely been done before and that processors, as well as banks, will take steps to protect themselves as they see fit. I am NOT talking about any processor in particular, just making a blanket comment.

As far as numbers go, I'd figure you lose 60% minimum, trying to move them, and if you ask them to wilfully change, I would bet way more than that figure.

I'm not sure why you don't want to set up a US corp -- of course I am still not sure how this whole ruling doesn't violate NAFTA as far as Canadian or Mexican website owners go, but then again I would figure that an actual website owner would have to sue Visa, not the processors.

There are many ways to skin a cat, I am sure you can think of some good ones with a sharp knife ;)

right on kim.

quiet no offense but you'd be insane to drop ~9k rebills. You could BUY a small established corp in the US if you want :)

Myself and I assume many others have registered LLC's in the USA. The issue is that no one understands if even this is the correct solution to meet Visa's requirements.

No one is going to be able to sleep soundly until we have a de facto written statement from the processors as to what is required for foreign webmasters.

I agree with you all, with the money Quiet makes, it should not be too much problem to incorporate in the US. But what about the fact that some people were told that VISA will require a physical presence in the USA by a person that owns at least 1% of the company. I guess it's Quiet's main concern. Money does not buy someone's loyalty. It's quite the opposite. If he does not know anyone that he can trust enough to give him 1% of his company, what can he do? Move to another processor and try to get as many rebills as possible? Sell the whole thing?

I wouldn't count on that any time soon, since they don't know themselves. I have talked to Euro processors and US processors and they are simply not sure. As I also understand it, Visa isn't planning to give out any answers in writing, as far as the clarifications go.

From discussing this situation with different people in processing, they all seem to agree that the target here is a few big companies that constantly fuck over the banks, NOT small web site owners trying to make a living.

Unfortunately it seems that the smaller guys are the ones turning into collateral damage.

For the big programs, I guess we could be jumping up and down for joy -- and I'll be the first to say some of the crap definitely could use a clearing out to make things better. However, there are some smaller sites that really are good, so I guess the best lesson is to be prepared for anything that Visa throws down the tube at us.

Appoint an agent as his receiver of the US corp and give him a 1% ownership stake in lieu of salary???

Yes sure its doable. I was just speculating on the reasons that could make him hesitate. I'm no lawyer but I guess this guy would have some rights even though he would own only 1% and who knows what could happen in the future. I really don't know maybe its more simple that I think...

I would think that a receiver with a 1% non voting ownership holding would be no problem -- AS LONG as you trust them to make sure the money goes where it is supposed to -- and actually a way or two just hit me to make that doable as well, within the limits of the processing agreement.

As for having to actually transfer websites to the US (or other) corporation, no one has said that has to be done -- only that the payouts and reseller stuff if you run that thru a processor, has to be.

Sharpen your knives. :)

Ok let's say I get a US Corp, a bank account, a civic adress and manage to do all the paperwork before the deadline. Now how do I find a "relatively" trustable receiver ?. There is no way a canadian pornlord could get a citizenship in USA in such a short laps of time and especially with the current war situation. So where can we find a trustable american receiver? Once we have found him we also have to do all the paperwork for accounting and with the lawyer to make sure everthing is legit and safe. How can we do it? Just thinking about it gives me an headache...

This requirement would be completely unverifiable in any practical sense. Corporate records are notoriously out of date, and wading through share ownership and nominee directors or what have you is impractical. I doubt that Visa will be taking this route.

don't you have any friends in the states that can act as a 1% partial owner of the corp ?

Quiet:

I don't know which jurisdiction you are in, but either way you are "caught" - yea.. give em *whatever* is needed to salvage your membership (US corp blah) - let it run down and use non US processors for new stuff - then get out of the US altogether. The US situation is not likely to get better.

If you are in Europe.. have a look at Gibraltar offshores - they cost more than some Nevada thing but have some "foundation" behind them in that you then have access to all processors in the EU and no tax payable. That is much more stable than continuing trading/recieving within the US under the accepted VISA US rules.

Peace!

Indeed:

I only know about offshores... can some Nevada corp have bank accounts in *any* other jurisdiction?? If so, set up a bank account out of US and dump the money there. Only you need even know where this bank is (security) and have total control over the account.

Don't know the legalities of this in regard to Nevada corps.. you may have to pay some US taxes on it..

thanks for all the responses.

any mor ideas on usage of ac pay/globill utilities.

thanks :)

the rebills are actually much more than 9K. and i'm no idiot on how to handle them.

But then if income is more than good and will continue to be so even after a move, despite a dip for a while would you want to stay with a company with both iBills reputation and considering the way they've handled (or not) current events? Personally I'd take the drop for a while and move if it wasn't going to bankrupt me.

Like I've said before though I was lucky enough not to choose iBill or the others from the beginning so it fortunately is not an issue.

I wasn't too worried about this talk of residency and ownership requirements until just recently. But, the form posted by WebSiteBilling indicates that information about the merchant's "Principles" is required by Visa; things like address, SSN and so on.

http://www.websitebilling.com/visaregform.doc

Will Visa cut you off if the company's "Principle" is not American? No one can say. This uncertainty is very scary. For the last week I've been thinking the "safe play" is set up a Nevada LLC and do whatever else Visa requires, so I can easily keep my rebills and affiliates. Now I'm not so sure if that is the safe play for international websites. Being cut off without notice by Visa is nearly a worst-case scenario.

Am pretty sure FlashCash did something like this "YEARS" ago. At least on the checks it has agent on them or some shit...

Quiet,

Can you reach me on ICQ please. I have an excellent alternative for you.

ICQ # 117496436

Thank you, Mitch Farber

Quiet,

Here's a thread I saw a few days ago in my email !

http://chat.amateurmasters.com/publi...iew.cgi?T=1513


Carol Cox and others from Canada give some suggestions !