Payments Payments Payments Problems.....and SOLUTIONS
 

As I've joined GFY, I've noticed a small buzz regarding the dissatisfaction of Payment Processing side of your guys' business.

Let's not call any names, but PLEASE do voice your opinion on what sort of issues you are currently having and what could you SUGGEST be done differently. Please be realistic.

This is a thread for the benefit of YOU - owners of paysites, dating sites, webcam sites. Since YOU are the guys that will receive better service after this thread.

Payment Processing companies like the one I work for would take all your suggestions into account and hopefully we'll raise the bar in the PAYMENT PROCESSING Industry.

Please follow the format...or don't.. making my life harder by !@#$ing up the thread :321GFY :

1. Issue(s) (e.g. Late Payouts, shittier service for lil guys)
2. Suggested Solution (e.g. Payment Processors should keep us informed and tell us what is happening, why the payments are late, we're all human here, we do understand if it's beyond your control and that the banks are resolving some internal issues holding back our money. Lil things like constant communication could go long way...just keeping us informed gives us a sense of some sort of control over the situation)

We would looooooove to hear your current 1) problems and 2) constructive feedback.

Thank you :thumbsup with love from Sentry Payments :winkwink:

By the way, Sentry Payments has huuuuge plans in process for the end of this beautiful summer including contests, promotions and other perks. So your input to your issues/problems will benefit our current clients directly...and future ones as well. Hopefully other Payment Processors will listen to you guys as well and make some positive changes!

- Stas
Sentry Payments

be careful what you ask for...

first and foremost - REAL TIME LIVE STATS, JOIN FORM HITS, JOIN FORM SUBMISSIONS, SALES CREDITS, DECLINES,

All need to be reported in real time....if a login and password can be generated,databased, and delivered to customer in real time then so can a sales approval or decline be reported in real time....NO ANDS IFS OR BUTS

2. Do not hold the funds beyond 48 hours, if merchant account settle in 48 hours, so can payment processing companies....this reduces tom foolery, and temptation while holding other peoples monies

3. Fork over the photo id's addresses, back grounds of every one in your company with access to our sales data, payouts, stats, profile info. In this manner you have achieved some mutual transparency and offered and incentive for your risk analysts and fraud department to not play cutsie.

These realistic common sense concerns that I feel would greatly improve the relationship between payment processors A.K.A as middle men and restore some trust, integrity, and industry morale back to a damaged and a fragmented industry.

Hope that helps

Hey SwirlsGirl, thank you for you reply, it definitely helps us what your demands are so we could work towards raising a bar in this industry which has been gradually falling over the years
Yes, Sentry Payments definitely reports all stats in real-time because we are all stats hungry and loooove to check 'em every minute like lil addicts we are. This feature is simply located in our web admin. I know other payment processors have shitty stats page...that dont load accurate info. :eyecrazyHow the !@#$ are you suppose to analyze that kinda of transaction data so you could increase your sales??

We are partnered with banks in EU and US that have been settling funds always on time for the past 5 years we have been working with them....once they don't meet those standards...guess what??.. we don't send them any more merchants, ultimately they lose out on lots and lots of $$$, so when it comes to $$$ they know people are very sensitive about them - hence they payout ALWAYS on time. We never had such problems.

With Sentry Payments + bank combo, your funds are settled every two weeks in the first 6 months. Once you establish a solid relationship with them (the bank), you funds become available much sooner. Soon enough they will be available on daily basis. Standard procedure.

On a side note, I wanna add that with our payment gateway + bank combo, you have complete control over your merchant account. The advantage is that with our programmers help (since we've created our own payment gateway from scratch) and our limitless amount of features you can "experiment" with your transactions (upsell, cross sales, scattering transactions to different MIDs lowering you CB rates, etc.) This sort of flexibility and working with us one-on-one on daily basis getting your success-to-decline ratios up will raise your sales.

I don't want to get into much detail. But just want to give you a taste of what a payment gateway + bank combo could do for you rather than a one-stop-shop merchant providers. Once you get to a certain transaction/month its time to expand and move up taking full control of your merchant accounts like they big players do in this game (multiple merchant accounts + multiple corporations + custom features = more sales) (we work with our merchants one-on-one to create custom features at no extra cost)...

If you have more specific questions regarding how to get your sales up through payment gateway + bank combo add me to skype: sentrypayments I'll be happy to have a chat with you and grow your business. Since we work with some of the biggest players in adult industry, as well as, other industries, we got the insight on how these big players are banking it using payments gateway + bank combo

This goes back to payment gateway + bank combo model. You'll deal with us by customizing your request for features, while having full control over your merchant account with one of the reputable banks that we've been dealing with in the past 5 years.

They provide you with all the payout stats and sales data. And never ever are late with payments. I'm guessing this is the downside working with one-stop-shops... not that much transparency and I could see why...they're in complete control of your processing side and are able to !@#$ around with your money...basically having you by the balls knowing it will be hard for you to just leave them for another merchant provider. It takes effort to move, knowing that they at times slack... With payment gateway + bank combo you could say "hey Sentry Payments :mad:....you f'up i don't like your service im moving all my transactions to my secondary processor :321GFY" With this is mind we work our butts off to satisfy your needs knowing you could just leave us for another payment processor USING exact same MERCHANT account we gave you (since you got full control of it)


Hope this helps. :thumbsup

Any other issues and solutions pls use the following format.
1. Issue
2. Suggested Solution

Examples of adult sites using this. Lets see that join page.

This.



Also what are you setup fee's like for visa/mastercard

Flawless forum spam technique here - start a thread asking for general feedback on a topic that is conveniently also your company's specialty, then wait for a reply, then answer that with your ready-to-go sales pitch. Nice job!

But... it *is* a topic of interest to any paysite owner, so yeah, let's hear about the sites you guys do process for. Maybe get some viewpoints & observations directly from those happy Sentry Payments clients. Never heard of you guys so far, I doubt many of us would migrate over to a new payment processor unless they've been highly highly vetted by other webmasters.

Due to non-disclosure agreement, I'm not allowed to publicize our list of clients. However, one of our clients agreed to it for the sole purpose of showing you guys that a regular join page could be easily tracked by hits and joins/submissions
Here's one of our clients that gave me permission to post their join page ( replace all 3 (dot) )

access(dot)housewifehookups(dot)com/signup2(dot)php

Since this client uses their own Hosted Payment Page, they are tracking hits and submissions through their own tracking software.
However, if you decide to use our own Hosted Payment Page (its completely customizable to your desired needs, so it represents your brand - add banners, background, whatever you need) we'll be able to set up a custom tracking tool on that.. that would show up in our web admin that you'll have access too once you become a client of ours.

So this tracking goes beyond Google Analytics (its no doubt a good tracking tool, but you can only do so much)


Visa/MC fees ranges from $1,000 - $1500/year... This is standard fee that you pay not to us but to your merchant provider that we'll happily connect you with on your behalf. Since we've been dealing with 8-10 banks around the world for the past 5 years, we've created solid relationships with them, in return we get amazing customer service + rates (lower than everywhere else...for every merchant its different since every merchant does different amounts of transactions + dollar volume + level of risk) I would say even lil guys who do 1000 transaction per month get as low as 6.75%....pretty low eh??


I would like to make this educational thread as well (not only promotional).
So one thing I want to point out is this process if you go down the route of Payment Gateway + Bank/Merchant Provider Combo rather than one-stop-shop:
1. We process CC transactions for you
2. Money goes to your merchant account
3. It then settles into your preffered bank account (in 2 wks for the 1st 6 months, then as trust builds (with no shadiness) they release your funds within few days and eventually daily
4. We then invoice you at the end of each month and you pay us.

So it's in our own best interest to deal with banks/merchant providers that PAYOUT on time. :thumbsup

Any other issues and solutions pls use the following format.

1. Issue
2. Suggested Solution

Let's raise the bar in the Payment Processing Industry.

I could see your concern moving to a Payment Processing company you haven't heard of - I mean I would be a lil skeptical too!

We've been around for 5 years, just not online, especially, on this Forum. For the past 5 years, we've been very successful in getting business just by word-of-mouth!

Please feel free to PM me asking for one of our clients' skype. He or she'll be happy to show their site (that it's all legit) and tell you how much they save monthly with us VS your current payment processor

AND why our customized payment platform gives them an opportunity to play around with features or add their own ultimately increasing sales and dropping the chargeback levels.

Added you to ICQ, after you posted this message. Have yet to get a reply.

Here are my issues with this thread:
Please stop using what you consider interesting uses of grammar, fonts and colors.

Thank you.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

.

Simply having another choice of middle man does not reshape, reform, or restructure the antiquated concept of internet middlemenry.

I do not mean any disrespect whatsoever....

The only logical way to balance the playing field and have mutual accountability and restoration of billing integrity is for one brave middle man to step up to the plate and implement the following....

1.real time live sales stats, visits,rebills,etc. If login and pass can be databased logged, delivered in real time upon approval then so can my stats...no ands ifs or buts.

2. 24 -48 hour payouts period no 2 weeks in the hole waiting for my funds to arrive that you collected from my customers 2 weeks ago....that is total horse shit and it gets middlemen in trouble...the less time you have to hold monies that are not yours the better your chances of keeping your company out of late payout threads!

3. Fork over id's telephone numbers, brick and mortar locations of all employees in your company who have access to merchant profile info, payment/payout info and access to stats data.

4.Much lower processing rates- simply if you are going to convert my sales into short term loans and sell them back to me....then you need not do it at an ass rupturing 15% plus holdback.

I am looking at holdback on one of my processing accounts for the past 4 months and it is a fucking mortgage payment just sitting in somebodys interest bearing account.

You got to be fucking kidding me....many of us are fighting tooth and nail to stay in business and holdback which is nothing but a skim there are funds enough to pay a mortgage...that is insane.

If your company is ready to implement any 2 of these 4 stipulations then I am going out on a limb and would wager that you could put many of your billing competitors out of biz in a heartbeat.

Weird....I haven`t received your request. You sure you got the right ICQ 660620918 ?
Readd me or send me yours, please.

All good, found your ICQ in your sig.

You're first reply to your first thread is to the person who is ultimately going to try to destroy your company.


Awesome.

Funny stuff.

Thanks for the signup page link :thumbsup Always nice to see other signup pages.

Regarding 2 and 3 above, why is that? Why does money, from the bank, go into a merchant account (I assume this is an admin area within SentryPayments), then get held, then go into bank account of the owner?

Shouldn't it just go direct from processing bank to owners personal/business bank? It sounds like you are simply acting like an IPSP now that is somehow allowed to host the join forms on the sites itself.

If you are ripping people off you deserve to have your company destroyed, if you are operating fairly and squarely you deserve to prosper.

I am interested in seeing everyone do well even you squealer. I understand middlemenry better than most middlemen understand middlemenry.

I know what I am talking about. We don't need another middle man offering more of the same, we need new approach, with more transparency and accountability otherwise middle men will run rough shod all up in this piece.

I don't enjoy seeing colleagues and newbies get into this biz and make the same mistakes and have to close down their site 6 months later because they trusted some payment company rep.

I recall having a rep over at Ibill promise us pie in the sky when we got our ibill account approved and processing back in september or october 2004....memberships were selling, tangibles were selling like hot cakes and we were on our way.

thousands of dollars made the first month of having our account, and then WHAM...the hammer dropped and we never received a nickel from our first two months or processing!

Now that was our introduction into the honorable realm of middlemenry.

Rinse and repeat about 6-7 more times over the years by other companies taking the money and running and you have created someone like me who will never talk to a middle man or woman like they are God...

they will be dealt with politely and professionally until the first approval decline finds its way in my inbox...at that point all bets are off.

This is a nice 'Go Fuck Yourself' thread.. :thumbsup

SwirlsGirl, I'm going to try to tackle your concerns the best I can here.

I've mentioned this earlier in the thread. It is feasible to show your stats pretty much in real time (2-3 min delay) and yes we do have that feature because stats motivate webmasters. Hence, some look at them on hourly basis (which is not healthy) but if that's what keeps them making that dollar then let it be.

Yes, I agree, its painful to see banks/merchant providers hold your hard-earned dollars. If it wasn't for a few rotten apples, banks wouldn't have to hold your funds. Payouts do decrease from weekly to daily within approximately a year of doing business with the same bank as you prove to them you're all legit..unlike those rotten apples.

It's insane, couldn't agree more. This goes back to these few rotten apples. It's alot of money that they hold, but they do it for their own security. They don't wanna be scammed like they did back in the day.

My pleasure. I wanted other webmasters to see that we do have clients and that we are legit. But non-disclosure agreement limits me to showing you who are our clients unless if they agree to be used as examples.

My bad, I must've confused on this one. Let me try to clarify this for both of us, it does go through processing bank, like you said (where you have your own merchant account - which we get for you at a cheaper rate than if you'd go directly to them) and then they settle in owners personal/business bank.

As for the 2nd part of your post. We do, sort of act like IPSPs - we provide you with our payment gateway software and hook you up with your own merchant account at one of our partnered banks (we work with many around the world). So you're in complete control of your merchant account :thumbsup - no late payments, no delays, no screwing around with your money...since it's in their own (bank's) best interest to please you so you stay with them.

That is the only service (merchant account) they (banks) provide you with, so they better do the best job they can, and we're providing you with payment gateway, processing credit cards for you...so we better do the best we can.:) There's definitely many advantages to getting Payment Gateway + Merchant Account combo than using one-stop-shops, and this is one of them :winkwink:

Hey Friend I will tell you this much...you have got my attention by simply being in the position you are in as a rep for a payment company and *ACTUALLY* agreeing with me lol on valid points.

Many have misunderstood my motives on the boards but at the end of the day many many small biz merchants be it adult or any small biz accepting internet transactions have most likely experienced the sting of having a payment company cease,intercept,suspend,hold,steal,disappear,fold, or worst of all engage in billing fraud.

That is a reality and banks and middle men are not the only ones trying to leverage risk. Small biz merchants are operating with certain risks each day as well.

I know people attack my persona call me names on the boards but they almost never attack the merits of my points because they are based on pure reason and logic,not pseudo banker logic which is contrary to prudent merchant business sense.

Its a shame that so much damage has been done in the global economy because I think alot of the shady middlemenry that has affected the inudstry is a direct result of the obvious implosion of the world economy and we are just casualties of business war.

I believe that the roots of fraud go much deeper than we would care to know and the powers that be are not stupid. They know very well the lucrative nature of the adult inudstry and they know for sure the sales patterns and trends are steady regardless.

It is in this manner yo/yo ratio swings can be used to nickel and dime small biz merchants in the ultimate deceptive pyramid scheme where our funds spent by customers can be intercepted re routed, used before a merchant is credited with very very low chance of merchants and customers finding out so long as the operation is disclipined and organized.

But I am already over the heads of many with my conspiracy theory butif you were in possession and constant deep analysis of the data I have accrued it is very clear what is going on and how quite possibly much more is rigged then we will ever know publically

I tell you it is the ancient craft of money changing middle men and there is nothing new under the sun.
I appreciate you sincere responses and wish you the very best with your company. You seem like a reasonable human being :)

Well I'm glad we had this discussion and you let everything out. :) Always good to hear constructive feedback from a merchant and see what some major issues are with Payment Processors these days and how we could raise the bar. I've been always taught to add value in whatever you sell. So I'm here to see what sort of value is missing and what Sentry Payments could bring to the GFY table. I'm new to this forum and so far the response has been great. Although there are always people who'd be trolling and hating, but that's just part of any game :winkwink:



SwirlsGirl, I wish you the very best in your business as well. :winkwink: