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Jack Sparrow

Well.. its not ALWAYS the best thing. You can have 5 processors, 3 of them being there for a long time and probably not going anywhere anytime soon because the are established. And you can have 2 new ones trying to get some fast money, bad management, and running away with YOUR money.

Competition is only good when the market and companies are 100% equal. Which they arent in this case. So in this example, competition isnt necessarily better. Thats not what the economists meant with that phrase. No offense, just my point of view.

Well although im staying with epoch rand, and for example Henry is one of your better employees (or the best, i would send him a box of chocolates already for all his help and support). There are some things i really didnt like.

1. The email support. I have had some issues we only found out what it was 4 days into beta. Because of my experiences with emailsupport (it seems any and every company thinks is necessary to hire a couple of cheap indonesian guys and girls that hardly get what the question is let alone are able to answer them in english), i LITERALLY spelled out what the problem was, what was done and what was needed. And STILL they asked me the same questions i already answered in my initial email without solving the issue.

Example: Affiliates couldnt login, and didnt receive the confirmation email and password retrieval email. 1st email from me i tell them: "They cannot login, on THIS url www.." "They are SURE they have the right password" , "They have the right master ID because i checked with them and gave it to them" etc. 1st response: Did they have the right url. 2nd email: Did they have the right password. 3d email: Did they enter their master ID.

Im not kidding...

2. The payment page. I would have thought that a company that has been in this biz for so long would at least hired a pro to do the translations. Im from the Netherlands, so im seeing the payment page in "dutch". Believe me, and i already emailed support 1 week ago to offer my FREE help, it looks like a 6yr old wrote the dutch translations. If I would want a subscription and see a page like that i would immidiatly think there was something seriously fishy. You guys should really get that redone asap, urgently, right away. Again, i will offer my free help if you want.

3. Get a better payment page in general Have it support mobile resolutions!

For the rest of it, im pretty happy with epoch and i will probably stay for now. Im not to happy with 15%, but if that is what it takes to earn trust from affiliates (since we have a new program) i will happily pay a bit more. BUT, see a bit more down!

I didnt know that either. I thought the only way to get the fee's down is making a lot of sales. Now im not to concerned because we are already making 50% more sales then i could have expected so our 15% will go down fast. But even then, i want to know if people are really getting a less percentage when they just got started with epoch.

That would be us pretty soon too then. But you arent giving NEW clients a bonus percentage (less) then others because the negotiated better right?

Thats pretty much EXACTLY why i went with epoch. Gain trust from webmasters and affiliates is worth it for me to get more affiliates to promote us (although we are invite only atm and in beta). People will notice that we are having a processor that will take care of their money, and we are not a new paysite program that we launched to make a quick buck and then run with their money.

Same goes for our money. Im still not sure what epoch is offering more or other then zombaio, and i know paying more isnt always better. But in this case, i didnt want to take that risk.

Im not sure if 15% is a ripoff. Its a lot, its high. But a ripoff? People have a choice, so i wouldnt say that to be honest. No offense.

6 developers and 5 (!) management? I know developers are hard to understand and coordinate (J.K.) but that is a weird mix

I wasnt trying to put any of the 2 down btw, not zombaio nor epoch. I just honestly dont get what the big difference is, other then trust. And it seems a lot more people dont get that either

CosmicTang

Hate to burst your bubble but competition is ALWAYS the best thing to develop market efficiency and the allocation of resources. "Yes and no" as a response to the comment that 'the more competition the better' is NOT correct. They do NOT coexist.

Adam Smith wrote about it in The Wealth of Nations, which is still used today. This notion of competition not always being a good thing is ridiculous. In the absence of competition you wind up with monopolies, duopolies and oligopolies who often engage in anti-competitive practices such as the forming of cartels, restrictive trading agreements, predatory pricing and abuse of a dominant position.

Really sir, this is Econ 101.

With all due respect to both you and Rand, who is a great guy, I must point out that this is not a winnable debate from the position of competition is not good.

That said, anyone who thinks Epoch doesn't deliver a stellar service is an idiot. They have the track record to prove it. However, anyone who thinks having only two companies providing such a valuable service is a good idea is equally misguided. Things happen in a market economy that can't be forecast or foreseen. Things much bigger than a billing company have disappeared overnight: Enron, WorldCom, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Washington Mutual, the Berlin Wall, the Roman Empire...

More companies provide the competition that will innovate and bring the goods and services to the market cheaper and more efficiently. The ones that don't keep up or try to take short cuts will falter and will help drive the learning curve to provide better and more plentiful goods and services. Some people will always get hurt to some degree, that is the nature of competition and you can't fix that, only mitigate it by making sure you don't put all your eggs in one (or two) baskets. Not putting all your eggs in one basket is something most of us learned by the time we were 10.

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Holly Lez!

Thomas, why don't you answer emails? And why do you guys not go to any shows? I don't know anything about you guys because I don't have any relationship with you. As a client I prefer to have a relationship with the biller I use. For me it isn't about percentages it is about features, reputation, knowledge and relationship. Both Epoch and CC Bill are out there in the public working hard to get your business. They come to shows sit and meet with you and answer questions.

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Holly Lez!

Maybe this thread explains why they are so cheap
http://www.gfy.com/fucking-around-and-business-discussion/958816-zombaio-rep-contact.html

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Zombaio_Tomas

We were at XBiz Conference LA, Webmaster Access Europe, InterNext Expo Las Vegas so I don't know why you are saying that. Also, I would love to get the ticket id on the email for which you are waiting on reply. Some emails are filtered away by spam filters, thats why there are phone and live chat support.

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Holly Lez!

Hmm must have not went to any of our parties. Please do the next one is in Phoenix would love to meet you in person. I will send you the emails there are a few.

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andrej_NDC

Yes and funny it wasn't mentioned yet. Ibill had high fees, too...so did many others.

WiredGuy

Do you trust new processors in this current economy? If not, then the old guys are more likely to get your business ;)
WG

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Rand

Don't put words in my mouth because you are missing the point. I agreed with you.

My point is this... using a reckless competitor is not good (I'm not talking about anyone specific here). And the history of billing companies competing in this space (as I listed earlier) has shown when a new biller comes along doing whatever it is they do to try to get clients to use them is cutting corners somewhere, and they do not have the experience to understand the trends and pitfalls of this business.

So to make the statement more correct:
Responsible competition is good. Reckless competition is bad for everyone. Even companies who don't use the billers that go under can be affected.

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CosmicTang

Glad you refined your point some, but I really wasn't putting words in your mouth. Nor did I miss anything. I was stating what is an economic certainty: that competition is good. Period. If someone is breaking the law or behaving in an unethical manner they're not competing, they're cheating.

Much respect to you Rand.

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xxweekxx

what makes you think what Zombaio is doing is reckless?

i know tons of companies who came in with way cheaper stuff, cheaper than everyone else, and they are still in biz after many years(not necessarily billing)

my point is just cause someone can offer what you can, at 150% less, doesnt mean they are reckless.. they might have virtual staff, no need for an office, less staff, automated systems, etc..

you guys gotta pay for your huge ass office and hundreds? of staff members..

dont 4get zombaio has been doing billing for many years, you can never tell.. i can bump this thread in 5 years, and zombaio will be here, and ccbill will be gone.. you never know..

higher rate doesnt mean better billing, ibill shoulda taught you guys that.

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xxweekxx

also some companies have different goals.. epoch has goals to make millions in profit a year, some companies are good with $100k profit.. feel me?

lets say theoretically you wanted to reduce rates to say umm 8%, i bet you'd still make profit, just a lot less, well there are companies who are willing to make that little profit at 8% in hopes of becoming a big player later on..

i know for a fact your banks dont charge you guys 8% to process sales, thatd be nuts, so my point is for every % drop you can offer, you lose % profit.. you guys are profitable..

so you could therefore theoretically reduce rates by 90% and decrease profits by an almost equivalent %~, therefore some billers like Zb are willing to work for way lower profits..

i hope this all makes sense

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Rand

Umm.. what part of "(I'm not talking about anyone specific here)" don't you understand?

I was referring to the companies that have already tried and died. Read the thread. See the list.

xxweekxx

u might not say it but you are referring to the present or future time.. i know you are just trying to be all diplomatic but what you are implying has to do with Zm

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lagcam

I was done with this thread but I can't believe Rand is still beating that drum.

"Not talking about anyone specific here". No he is not, he is scare mongering. Trying to scare people away from even trying Zombaio or anyone new to protect his market share and the expensive processing rates of epoch and ccbill.

Dropping in words like "reckless" to imply that Zombaio are being reckless and then hiding behind the words "not talking about anybody specific" to deny that he was talking about them when questioned as to how they are being reckless.

Epoch are clearly sufficiently concerned by Zombaio's pricing model that they need to constantly remind us of the companies who have tried and failed to break into the market just to make us all think that Zombaio will also fail but as previously pointed out companies like ibill were expensive and they still managed to fail due to mismanagement of their resources and having a bloated workforce and expensive cost model.....as it appears epoch do if you read earlier in the thread where Rand was claiming he had done a cost comparison and that nobody could process for less than 10%.

Whilst I kind of admire Rand for coming in here and fighting his corner and not just keeping quiet until it blows over and returns to business as usual like ccbill are doing, using other companies' failures to tarnish a competitor with lower processing rates is not the best way to justify your own high processing rates.


There is a lot of good comments in this thread. "Big companies can fail also", "Don't put all your eggs in one basket", and of course "Competition is good". The only negative comments about Zombaio come from people who haven't actually used them, and "wouldn't because of ibill etc". That is a common theme on any Zombaio thread not just this one.

If it wasn't for competition, we would all be sitting at our $10,000 IBM desktop pcs now.

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longdongsilver

Why not all start moving Zombaio up above these companies charging 15% in your billing options?
15% is completely insane, there is no way they can justify that margin.

Ok, you like being ripped off then stay where you are, but it's not a small difference is it 3x more??

Say you're billing 10k per month thats $1000 dollars extra in your back pocket? Im sure a lot of guys here are billing way more.

You can bet ccbill and epoch suddenly start to be able to afford much better rates as more and more people start to catch on. Even 10% would not seem as much of a rip off but 15%?

Don't forget to split that extra cash with the affilates though..

Jack Sparrow

Nice to see your missing a lot of my points by sticking to the "old" thinking. Other then that please dont put words in my mouth either.

May i give you another example of when competition can be bad for consumers?

In the netherlands we have a couple of banking institutions. Abn Amro, Rabo, DSB, etc.
Abn Amro and Rabo are charging a higher fee. DSB came in years later, and hate fees that couldnt be resisted that low. Low fee, high interest. Everybody cheered and sucked the directors dick because: "Here comes the competition, competition is ALWAYS good, its economics 101!!".

A LOT of people went there, i mean, people that are in what we call the "quote 500", which means they are amongts the richest people here in Holland.

Then last year, it all collapsed. Bad bad management. Low fees high penalties, and the bank collapsed taking away hundreds of millions of dollars of ALL the people that had a bankaccount there. Hundreds of people lost their jobs. Millionairs went broke in a day.

Was it good for the competition? Was it good for consumers? It looked like that from the beginning, but was it really at the end?

Its just how you define competition.

In an equal market, delivering the exact same services (or a little more) for a lower fee would be good for competition. The statement about monopolies i agree with. And im not trying to win a debate either. This debate has been around since someone invented the word economy. Google it, must be something that may interest you.


Furthermore i didnt say i think epoch is the only stellar service. I (capital I), choose 2 of them that i checked out with other people in this biz. I asked for personal opinions, to see what came surfacing about the 2. I (capital I again), didnt pick ccbill because i have been a webmaster myself for many years, and simply HATE the useability of it. Ever tried finding the right links and banners? I never got it right the first time.

THAT is why im comparing the 2 of them, if you think that makes me an idiot so be it.

Im glad to hear you learned not to put your eggs in one basket when you where 10. Good for you. I learned to check what baskets would hold my eggs without breaking them, before putting them anywhere at all. Putting your eggs in 5 baskets, where 3 of them have a bottom with holes in them, doesnt make it smart. But i guess you would say "its good for competition that there are 5 making manufacturers making the baskets"?

And thats why some people (like me) value opinions and experiences, and try to research the market before putting any eggs in any basket at all.

Hope you could catch my point now. Thanks.

dev777

for what its worth... ive signed up on 2 sites in the past via Zombiao, my debit card got locked for 'suspicious activity' both times.

CosmicTang

It's just how you define competition? Really?

Merriam-Webster defines competition in business as "the effort of two or more parties acting independently to secure the business of a third party by offering the most favorable terms".[2]. It was described by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations (1776) and later economists as allocating productive resources to their most highly-valued uses.[2] and encouraging efficiency. Later microeconomics theory distinguished between perfect competition and imperfect competition, concluding that with the no system of resource allocation is more efficient than perfect competition. Competition, according to the theory, causes commercial firms to develop new products, services and technologies, which would give consumers greater selection and better products. The greater selection typically causes lower prices for the products, compared to what the price would be if there was no competition (monopoly) or little competition (oligopoly).

I didn't miss your point. Having a particular company (or competitor) who performs poorly for whatever reason doesn't negate the need for competition nor make competition bad. That's akin to throwing the baby out with the bath water. Or if you prefer: one bad apple doesn't spoil the whole barrel. Pick up an economics text somewhere. Anywhere. Keynes, Friedman, Smith, doesn't matter. There's a reason their views on economics have won Nobel prizes and continue to be taught in universities. Competition is a good thing for the market, always. It doesn't guarantee there won't be poor performers or other mishaps, it guarantees innovation, more customer choices and better services at lower rates. It does NOT guarantee freedom from problems.

Let's take your example about the Dutch bank that went under. What if that was the ONLY bank available and it crashed? How would THAT situation have worked out for people? Are you picking up what I'm putting down yet?

It's not a matter of saying don't do your due diligence inspecting which baskets to put your eggs in. That's a given. Even the strongest basket can break under the right circumstances. That's why you pick as many as make sense.

There are two strong IPSP billing companies out there right now. Having more would be better for the industry, not worse. Having more competition will lower prices for the consumers and provide an even better product. Again, to refute these economic principles is to rewrite the science of economics. If you're able to do that successfully my hat's off to you and congratulations on your forthcoming Nobel Prize.

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Shoplifter

There is no doubt the lack of competition amongst the various billers has hurt the industry.

Since the IPSP shakedown in 2002 left us with just a few players there has been almost no movement whatsoever on the payment front. In some cases we see join pages and technologies that haven't budged an inch since 2002 or even earlier.

The only innovation has been through those who have pursued their own billing solutions, and even in that case there hasn't been the creativity there should have been, largely because they didn't have to move too fast to compete with the IPSP's.

Now fast forward to 2010...The online world has completely changed and there is just no new input on monetizing the industry coming at all from anyone. No new ideas in years. Pretty scary stuff.

lagcam

Nail on head CosmicTang. Great post.

However much everybody loves ccbill and epoch, I guarantee you, you would love them more if their prices were lower. Competition can only help that become a reality.

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Jack Sparrow

And you still didnt get my point.

CosmicTang

Oh I got it alright. In two different posts you said that competition is not always the best thing for the consumer. It was as loud and clear as it was wrong.

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Kimmykim

Haha, anyone can put anything they want to on the internet and people will believe it. I'm not saying it's untrue, but I find it almost laughable that every few months these guys poke their heads up with some skin or ad or whatever and then fail to answer some of the most basic questions about compliance. Or the answers they do provide are ludicrous, imo.

Epoch charges what they charge because of two things --
1. high risk is not cheap to process -- the banks and the card associations see to that.
2. they're in business to make money and no matter how you look at it, if you aren't making money on transactions, then you're not going to stay in business.

And those companies that don't stay in business don't pay on their way out.

There are a lot of rumors about a lot of banks/companies and compliance issues right now. I'd be very careful who I trusted with my money if I were a site owner.

Kimmykim

And last but not least, do the math... your own merchant account is going to cost you well over 4-5% by the time you add up all the other affiliated costs that you have in order to do business and stay compliant with the card association rules.

I've always said that the only difference in cost of a merchant account and IPSP at the end of the day is the ownership of the data.

Zombaio_Tomas

Kimmy, with respect, but what is un-answered? Also, you gave us 6 months when we first skinned GFY, its almost 3 years ago now.

We have been HR processing for 8 years now.... 8 years. We have been asked by Visa to participate in a internal debate about how G2 is doing in the adult for example, with their extremly poor data-mining technology. There are senior relations between us and the card networks you can't imagine. Now what about compliance? What is it you want me to answer?

Maybe its time to bury the axe....

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RaiderCash_Dominik

I think we are going to switch to zombaio sooner or later.

Jack Sparrow

I guess you did get part of it right.

Not going into this argument again, you seem to hang to some economists opinions whilst ignoring a lot of others, so its no use to waste time trying to explain over and over again.

Maybe a nice quote, it could be possible that my lack of english is the reason why you dont get my point:

'Strive towards zero competition, a place where you offer a service / product so different from what your current competitors offer that it is effectively a new offering, ahead of the rest, and something no one can compete with'.

[ Nate ]

He had a HUGE problem with epoch.

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Jack Sparrow

I think he had more of a problem with one of their employees, not with epoch or its services?

lagcam

DWB's problem was nothing to do with epoch's processing abilities or rates. He just took a stand on principle against something that probably wasn't handled as well as it might have been.

Ayway........Bump for saving money.

For people to add Zombaio to their options for new customers and for epoch and ccbill to review their operations and reward the loyalty of their customers by giving some of those huge profits back with some lower rates or quicker payouts.

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CosmicTang

Yeah, some economist's opinions while ignoring a lot of others. That's what I'm putting down. I think you might have that backwards. I'm citing hundreds of years of economic practice and most of the economists worth listening to.

I'm familiar with what you're talking about, Jerry Garcia said don't be the best at what you do, be the only one who does it. And while there is merit in that tell me, what innovation have you seen in the billing industry over the past several years? What decrease in price? You know why? Guess.

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Ladyboy King

15% is rape and robbery.

Ibill was larger than Epoch and they failed. Don't think you are too big to fail, because you're not. Much of the US banking sector just learned this lesson the hard way, yet you learned nothing from it. That is a reckless mindset.

Adult is high risk regardless of who you use. Any one of these companies could be gone in the morning, don't let their slick ads, trade show face and reps fool you. They are ALL high risk. Those who pretend not to be, like Rand does, do not deserve your business.

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Dennis69

Good thread... but whats really funny is years ago when I first started using Vertrol it was the same stuff... not charging the 750 Visa fee etc etc!!!

How many webmasters said they would be gone in no time and in this post I see webmasters saying ccbill, epoch, and VERTROL!!!!

And now it's the same thing with the new guy in town... Zombaio!!!!

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Jack Sparrow

whats vertrol?

PastorSinAlot

Dennis69

Sorry after using them for 5 or 6 years I still can't spell it

verotel

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Boobgirl

Zambio Fees -

1)4.9% if you use their limited partnership agreement and say that your headquarters are in Sweden on your site & 2257 AND have Zombaio as your MAIN first Cascade processor. Both are fine if Zambio is your ONLY processor. Doesn't work when you have multiple or merchant accounts or other issues.

2) 9% if you use you do not use them as your main processor in a cascade.

3) 7.9% if you do not use their limited partnership agreement and use US/Canada address instead. I do not know if this changes if you do not use them as primary cascade biller.

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candyflip

Everytime I open this thread I get a Malware warning regarding AdultGruntWork.com

Fix your shit dude.

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candyflip

Good luck securing affiliates to promote anything with Verotel Ticket Club.

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PastorSinAlot

I seen a few sites use verortel, but i am going with Zombaio to keep the $750 visa charge in my pocket.

fatfoo

Is there a difference? I don't know. You say it's the same thing.

Well, if you can't see the difference, you should probably go with the lower 4% rate.

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candyflip

I'm sure people are using it. But those people aren't relying on affiliate sales to drive their business.

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Klen

Add nats and problem solved with affiliates

webgurl

i would like more comments and feedback on this "Zombaio" company so
bumping thread .