Hulk

Ok, that?s a tech issue, but certainly showing something about the company. A serious and highly professional company would build it?s empire only on 1st class tech solutions. Beside, being a reliable billing company sounds like a fairytale. As someone who had experience with all (and I really mean all) available billing companies, allow me to remind you that there is no such thing as safe and reliable billing company. Even the big ones went down easily (for example, IBill was really big once before). Since the risk is always there, would be wise to go for the proven solutions to reduce the risk. No doubt, nowadays it?s CCBill. Beside, they have absolutely the best affiliation system. If they process for almost all adult websites, they should process for you too. It?s a no brainer really. Second choice would be Epoch. Only if you can?t use CCBill or Epoch for some reason, you may consider other companies, including Verotel, but I would never put them in the first 10.

Recently I?ve heard a couple of good things about Verotel/Verza, plus I like adventures and new experiences, plus I can ?afford? such sport, so I decided to try them out. On the negative side, beside the previous posts, I recall they had a few black spots in career, broke a law here and there, screwed some webmasters, ruined a few businesses, but somehow got over it all and even succeeded in spreading positive words (search the GFY). However, from my point of view, ?being reliable? and ?paying on time? is the only way a billing company can function. Stop paying on time and in a few days you?re gone, but looks like lot?s of people catch on those slogans. This is what I can tell about Verotel:

1. Extremely slow service, no matter what you?re waiting for (approval, tech problem, simple email response). Bring tons of patience before starting business with them (I guess you wouldn?t gamble with already established business). Believe it or not, from the day I applied till the first processed transaction, passed slightly over two months. It?s not a typo - two months!
2. Very amateurish approval system and incompetent Risk Management staff. These guys wasted lots of my time and energy, showed ZERO knowledge about relevant laws, their implementation and scope, about content and domain ownership regulations, privacy subjects, etc. Not to mention their poorly written document named ?Content Compliance Policy?, which actually has nothing to do with actual ?approval procedure?, naive methods for authentication of relevant data and finally breaking the law in many different ways (very disappointing).
3. Tech issues caused me some serious trouble. I usually implement scripts on my own, but this time I wanted to see how Verotel do it. So, I kindly warned their tech guy to be careful, because I already have other billing companies set on the website and lots of existing members. He installed Verotel?s script, but ruined everything else, changed paths, file positions, permissions? Exisiting members were unable to login since he destroyed old htpasswd file, new subscribers were unable to signup and my other billing companies lost communication with their scripts (member management was impossible). Even if I haven?t warned him, it was obvious that website is already set up for billing with other companies and there were existing members. One could tell that only by looking at htaccess and htpasswd files, but he probably was drunk or blind, no other explanation. Oh yes, I waited 24 hours for him to get the scripts, files and permissions in previous state. Guess I was lucky since I waited much longer for everything else.

On the other side, I had wonderful and very kind communication with Verotel managers, especially those on higher instances. Unfortunately, it didn?t improved my experience and I certainly don?t recommend them.

Conclusion? Stick to CCBill, eventually Epoch. Can?t engage them? Well, maybe there is a way, think again! If you?re desperate, look for small, but highly professional company that is properly set up. It?s a plus if they are taking a good care of their customers. There are a few. Then enjoy while it lasts, because only Visa and MC are eternal.

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Hulk