Bastards! (CCBILL) - Part 2
 

I've just received this email from CCBILL:

Important Announcement for CCBill Account #: ****** 29 March 2024

RE: Upcoming Increase in Your Annual VISA Sponsored Merchant Registration Fee


Hello Mr Marlowe, we hope you are having a wonderful day. We're so sorry to bring you some bad news:

As the processor for your website’s online VISA transactions, we wanted to inform you of the upcoming VISA Sponsored Merchant Registration Fee increase, instituted by VISA Inc.

Beginning on April 1, 2024, VISA, Inc. will increase the high risk merchant registration fee from $500 to $950 annually for all accounts that are registered with the following Merchant Category Codes (MCCs):

MCC CODE

CLASSIFICATION

5967:

Adult Content

At least they wished you a wonderful day. I didn't even get that. Just that the fees are doubled. This is on Visa though. Not CCBill. It's really the credit card companies and puritan politicians that are trying to kill porn.

But the ultimate culprit is the availability of free porn on the Internet. Just about every kid has seen porn by now and that's why they are doing this. And as usual, they are going after the wrong people. They should get rid of all the file sharing sites. Not porn producers. This will just make everything worse. Only big companies who also run tube sites, like PornHub, will remain.

Actually the bastards didn't wish me a wonderful day. I added that for comic effect. Well, it amused me!

Yes, you're right, it's not CCBILL's fault. It did list a lot of other types of businesses that also had this increase:

5967:

Adult Content

7273:

Dating and Escort Services

7995:

Gambling

5122, 5912:

Pharmacies

6051, 6012:

Crypto Merchants: exchanges, wallet providers, on-ramp providers (card absent)

4816:

Cyberlockers and similar remote digital file sharing services (card absent)

5816:

Games of Skill (card absent)

6211:

High Integrity Risk Financial Trading Platform (card absent)

5968:

Subscription “Negative Option” Merchants (card absent)

5993:

Tobacco Sales (cross-border card absent)

5966:

Outbound Telemarketing (card absent)

They say it's to do with risk. I assume that adult and all these other categories are considered by the banks as being high risk.
Maybe the reason for the increase is that there is just more online fraud these days. So I'm not sure if it's got anything to do with
the availability of free porn.

Businesses don't have a choice, they need to use VISA, and will probably start increasing the transaction fee to the consumer.

We can all bitch and moan but the reality is their total adult business is a rounding error on their P&L. Be glad they don't cut us off as AMEX did.

Well, I mean, YouTube has tons of super inappropriate shit for kids on it too...

Yeah, I think this is where porn just goes behind some sort of online ID. How will it work?

If I want to run a Wordpress-based preview site, will I just be pressured to pay a huge fee in order to participate? I wonder... that's how they could kill off all the little guys... each "porn site" needs its own SSL-like digital cert to sell porn, and it will cost like $1000+ a year.

Yeah, it sucks... But $450 a year?

I have many credit cards that cost more and pay me a lot less.

Does that mean less poor quality paysites now?

Yes, it's a big increase. But not CCBILL's fault so apologies to them for calling them bastards. I meant it to be funny. It says that that it's a high risk fee because my business is adult. There are other categories listed as well that also have to pay the high risk fee like gambling, pharmacies. Surely the high risk must mean there's more chance of fraud or chargebacks for the adult businesses and this is getting worse each year.

all billing companies will probably find the same if it´s a VISA transaction :(

I thought when you brits call someone a cunt or a bastard it's basically like saying "oh hey old friend", was I taught wrong?

Exactly. CCBILL to me are like an old friend. They're proper cunts!

Only joking. The words bastard and cunt don't mean old friend in the UK. But a friend could call another friend a bastard as long as the friend knew he was joking. We have
a phrase "you jammy bastard" which we might say to someone who has had a bit of luck where they don't really deserve it. The person we call a jammy bastard will know that we are joking. Or if you don't like saying bastard you could say you jammy bugger! I think we could only call someone a cunt (and not mean it) if they knew us and knew we were joking. Otherwise it would be very offensive.

When I wrote Bastards! CCBILL I meant it to be taken and understood that I was overreacting and trying to be funny, and didn't really mean that they were bastards and that I hated them.

100% :thumbsup

i'm also happy the annual fee isn't a percentage :1orglaugh

i've received some unhappy emails this week from site owners asking for alternatives. open a bar? taco truck?

#porncms

Same thing with your own merchant accounts, Bend over, take the VISA dick in your butt and be sure to lick it clean when they're done.

Always has been like this, always will be.

Wait till next month after they take the money and then go on anther round of mid closures..

Any update on when 'Bastards! (CCBILL) - Part 3' will be out?

That's was already out . . .

Yes. Part 4 is coming soon. There are 8 parts to it.

I posted about this a couple of days ago.

They claim its because of high risk. But my ratios a re WAY under the average site for mainstream or porn . Yet I have to pay as well.

Unfortunately there are a lot of scammers in the online porn industry. Like sites that are deceitful and misleading in their billings. They ask for your credit card info and promise this is only for age verification but you end up getting billed for memberships. They also share your credit card info with other sites they own and just when you ask for a cancellation and a refund, you end up getting billed from a different site. Sometimes the only way out is to close your account and open a new one. Chargebacks and closures cost the credit card companies a lot of time and money and they pass it on. The problem is governments don't go after the porn scammers because they just want the porn industry to fail and they let the bad guys do the damage for them.

it was deleted :jerkoff

https://gfy.com/fucking-around-and-b...cbill-3-a.html

Yes the part-3 (bastards-CCBILL) has been deleted by the Admin of this forum. The bastards! Only joking: the Admin of this forum kindly deleted that post at my request. I asked them if they could delete it because I was worried some members of this forum who read it (quickly) might believe it was true. It was just a silly joke of mine after I'd had too much wine. I wouldn't want anyone to think badly of CCBILL so that's why I asked the Admin if they could delete that post. As most people here know: I love CCBILL. I've been with them for over 20 years now from when I first started in this business. They've always been very helpful and have always paid on time. They're 100% reliable and a trustworthy company.