Can you imagine how much $$ we as an industry are losing not using PayPal?
 

Why Why WHY!!

PayPal is a business. Businesses want to make money. So WHY then is PayPal refusing us as an industry access to their millions of users and denying themselves 100s of millions of $$ ?

They could charge an extra high commission for adult transactions such as 20% and they would so easily cover any CB costs, we'd all be happy. Hell they could even charge a $5k application fee for adult merchants. Or do hold back, or whatever!

So why are they refusing? Is it regulation, religion, or just that they (Ebay) have too much money and just want to focus PayPal on Ebay.

Why doesn't someone like CCBill or any of the big processing players fill the void by offering a P2P payment system that gets traction in mainstream as well as Adult.

There is so much money being lost by this industry from our exclusion by PayPal it makes me feel I'll. We get so many customers emailing, putting in support calls etc etc "can I pay with PayPal"

Lots of questions, but this needs to be discussed by us as an industry. I can't take it any longer!

Discuss.

20% ? Even 10% NO THANKS
There are ways to use paypal in adult if you're smart :2 cents:

I agree wholeheartedly.

Was just plucking a high figure out of the air to make a point. 10% would still be ample for them. (We'd still fall over backwards to use them even if they took 20% - There is SO much demand for it from our surfers.)

Because they tried us and decided it was in their best interest to no longer process for adult sites. They did not even super jack their fee's - as they have no reason to (yes we get raped by 3rd party billers willingly). We as an industry were even basically profitable for them and at the time had a lower CB percentage than auctions.

Problem arose that many people were making (at the time) non nude underage tease sites and using them. These sites, even though technically legal (at least at the time) suddenly got mainstream press coverage running from "primetime" style to "oprah" style news coverage. This associated the Paypal logo and company with these sites and they are not of the any news is good news camp. They dropped us - end of story.

Of course there was other sites that were very clean that got ass fucked. Then of course there was a crap load that felt they had the need and right to push the boundary of what others may find tasteful.

I don't buy it. They could have just launched another brand to counter brand damage. Money talks - we are talking lots of money - so where are the "me too" versions of PayPal??? Must be regulation, has to be.

This affects all in the biz, from site owners to content providers to affiliates. I am suggesting total turnover of the online adult biz would be 20-25% higher if we could use them.

You do not need to buy it, I went through it along with many others. Take it as what you wish. Positive it had nothing to do with regulations. Just like American Express kicking our industry to the curb.
Then in monetary reality in the card/processing world, we really are not that big of a segment. Especially when you add in the stigma and risks associated with it.

The customer service created by adult cost them more money than what they were bringing in.

I can tell you that when phone sex used paypal.. the chargeback ratios were thru the roof.

You went trough what? PayPal account closure? Join the club - we had ALOT of cash locked away with them for 6 or 8 months.

So if it's just cause PayPal doesn't want to deal in adult - where are those that DO? Where is the cloned PayPal? Why hasn't one of the big guys in the financial side of the business like CCBill / Netbilling / Epassporte etc introduced a p2p stored value payment that mimics PayPal to cover the demand?

The demand is huge because people:
a) trust PayPal
b) like the Anonymity it provides (the wife can't see it)
c) Don't feel bad about spending the few bucks they have in their PayPal they got when they sold their last sofa
d) Don't mind submitting cc details to PayPal
e) are used to using it and the way it works

They did recently loosen up their policy on adult hard goods.

There is also a difference between adult tangible, and non-tangible via their TOS. Unless it has been changed in the past year or so.

So the answer for an astute businessman would be increase the fees for the adult merchants to cover the extra support as I suggested earlier - not throw the business away.

That's the crux of this whole thread - they are just throwing money away by not servicing us. Am I wrong somewhere here?

Dayum
:Oh crap

Ya know all these message boards that these losers like to frequent to share their porn?

Well they also shared with the world the chargeback policy for PayPal and non tangible goods...

The bank backing the merchant account isn't just banking on the fees or costs... Visa/MC gives each entity a certain level of risk it can carry..

That's why when you reach over 100k/mon with some merchant accounts.. they drop you or refer you to a sister bank that's larger... because once you get over 100k the element of risk increases..

Anyways, back to Paypal...

Paypal's risk versus mainstream would be TOO high.. if they went back to servicing intangible goods...

They didn't want to invest the time, nor effort, into servicing this. There's no amount of fees that would make the 20-30% chargeback ratio worth it for them... They'd have pornographers on the phone screaming daily, "This guys address matched.. this guys this and that matched.."

But until you've played the game disputing chargebacks.. and losing.. and I'm talking 10+ per month.. you don't understand the level of stress that goes along with it.


I see some of you porn site guys complain about 1 or 2 chargebacks and I want to laugh in your face... 1 or 2 is NOTHING....

If you had paypal, you'd have WAY WAY WAY more... It's kinda like with Amex.. I don't take Amex for phone sex.. because some phone sex clients no they can chargeback.. without reprecussion...

There's just too much shit Paypal would have to deal with to do the business.. and it's not worth it for them to deal with the customer service that comes along with it...

PSSuperstars thanks for that detailed reply. So at the root of the problem is the dishonest surfer. Visa and MC can take the blame for harboring this ridiculous "Chargeback" notion. It is totally proposturous that anyone can buy something then simply deny it, and get the money back no questions asked. How oh how did all the merchants of the world find themselves in this situation.

So, the problem is deeper than it seems on the surface, but I still think there is major scope for one of the big processors in adult to build a PayPal.

You find a bank to back it in the eyes of Visa/MC.. and you're good to go :)

But first ya gotta find that bank..

'Building a paypal' - I'll just get some guy on scriptlance to make me a copy ;)

it's simple. They don't want their brand name to be associated with porn!

Nope - that's what it appears. But there is a lot of business at stake, and they could easily deploy another brand, that doesn't mind adult and have the two "compatible" much like Adbrite did with BlackLabelAds. Or United did with Ted, or Qantas did with Jetstar.

So I disagree it's that "simple".

It would be great to not have to speculate on the reasons. Be nice to here from some peeps in the billing arena.

Preypal can lick my balls

Maybe
 

Maybe some of their CEO's have problems with erection or something similar, so he want other people to suffer , too.

Paypal is a publicly traded corporation.

There is your answer as to why they deny adult transactions.

Welcome to gfy new guy... worst... idea...ever

Dude, I feel your frustration. I use a simple script and PayPal to sell music mp3 zip files and concert footage videos every day on my mainstream music site. It would be so simple to set it up for my adult stuff ... but I don't. I don't want to risk my money and piss off the PayPal Gods.

i got a pic of me at the paypal booth at internext fl 10 years ago

ummmmmmmmmmm

Hey man epassporte is an option for that, as are many debit visa cards that work online, there are API's etc. The reason Paypal killed adult and chose to walk away is the same reason American Express did, why be involved in adult? we all think adult is big money and it is, but for ebay (ebay owns paypal) why would they want any association with that when its a form of processing mainly designed to work with their system?

Ahuh. :thumbsup

Adult is a drop in the bucket to the rest of the Internet. Come on, the largest porn company in the world, is small business in the grand scale of things. Our entire Industry value doesn't equal one mainstream corps net profit for a year. It's no different on the Internet.

Why process adult and put up with the bullshit?

Some of us were making a quiet tidy fortune with paypal / zero chargebacks thanks to Andy Dunn's old panhandling suggestion.

Then along came several people in this biz that fucked it up for all of us.
As usual.

I think he was just saying that if you're not an idiot sending Paypal payments from [email protected], then Paypal won't have issue with you. Yeah, you can't use it on a site...but you can use it for "adult" if you're smart about it. :winkwink:

it would create a huge headache for them, but damn the cash would be good

what pissed me off when they pulled the plug was they sat on money from some sites for up to 6 months.

everytime I think about it I wanna strangle the fucker that runs pp. what a self righteous fucker!

No, they do not want the associated high risk that comes with porn transactions. :2 cents: