Joint Statement from IBill, CCBill and Epoch / Paycom
 

Dear Webmasters,

CCBill, EPOCH / Paycom and iBill would like to jointly inform and update you on several new Visa regulation that will affect the way we, as Internet Payment Service Providers (IPSP?s) and our clients conduct business. Visa has mandated that a new, unique set of operating guidelines will be implemented by November 1st. These rules are worldwide, not just in the USA.

Under the new Visa rules, iBill, CCBill, and EPOCH / Paycom along with other providers in our market space will be considered IPSP?s. An IPSP is a company that provides a broad array of services and has financial responsibility and liability for merchant accounts whereby you, our clients (Sponsored Merchants) are allowed to process and settle Internet transactions.

It is our mutual responsibility to ensure that we fully comply with all regulations implemented by the card associations. We are committed to seamlessly implementing the new regulations while retaining a business model that is good for the industry. Below is a summary of the requirements for Visa that we must implement by November 1st:

VISA
· Each Sponsored Merchant must complete a registration form that we will submit to Visa on your behalf. A form will be provided to you by each of us, electronically, as soon as possible. Some of the data elements required are: company name, address, transaction counts, dollar volumes, URL?s, etc.
· An initial registration fee of $750.00 per company (not per url) will be charged to register each Sponsored Merchant. $500.00 of this fee is payable by the Acquiring Banks to Visa, the balance are administrative fees to the banks and processors. These fees are due November 15th.
· An ongoing annual registration fee of $375.00 will be charged. $250.00 of this fee is payable by the Acquiring Banks to Visa, the balance are administrative fees to the banks and processors.
· Sponsored Merchants must be approved by Visa for processing Visa transactions under the new rules, and will be checked against Visa?s TMF list (Terminated Merchant File) and the MATCH File, a joint Visa / MasterCard database. You are obviously processing now, so that service will not be interrupted if you have paid your registration fee and completed your registration form.
· IPSP?s can only register Sponsored Merchants in the country where the Sponsored Merchant has a presence.
· IPSP?s are required to provide Visa with monthly sales, chargeback and credit data for their review, by Sponsored Merchant and down to the URL of each Sponsored Merchant site. Sponsored Merchants who are out of compliance on chargeback and / or credit ratios may be terminated at Visa?s discretion. Please Note: Your ratios at all IPSP?s will be evaluated by Visa.
· The credit card descriptor on the cardholder?s statement must be the IPSP?s name, as well as the Sponsored Merchant?s identifier, such as your company code.
· The IPSP?s Join Form must disclose the IPSP?s name and the fact that the billing descriptor will be the name of the IPSP and the Sponsored Merchant?s identifier.
· IPSP?s will display, on the Join Form, their Privacy Policy along with Terms and Conditions.
MasterCard
· The MasterCard logo cannot be displayed on the client?s sites.
· Several other rules will be changed and we will advise you as soon as these are solidified.

October is the month to implement these changes. We expect the transition should be a relatively smooth process. The following is a timetable for preparing for the November 1st deadline:

· By October 8th, we will begin the Visa registration process. We will email you a form, which must be completed immediately.
· By October 15th, we will have a Privacy Policy up on our Join Pages.
· By October 15th you must have all MasterCard logos removed from your sites.

We will provide you with additional updates on these initiatives throughout the month. Thank you in advance for helping us to ensure the successful implementation of these new regulations. Please be assured that we, as IPSP?s are working together to provide a more robust industry environment and to attempt to have our client?s voices heard at the card associations. We have many common goals and interests. Maintaining the viability of the adult Webmaster business model, by keeping you informed, is our primary focus.

Sincerely,

iBill, CCBill, and EPOCH / Paycom

Holy shit... lol. =)

so, for all the little paysites guys that are talking about going out of biz for this, you guys gonna consider merging into one corporation? seems like that'd be the most efficient/competitive way to go.

Said the capt'n right before the iceberg hit.

<i>IPSP?s can only register Sponsored Merchants in the country where the Sponsored Merchant has a presence.</i>

What exactly does this mean?

What exactly are those ratios and are they being changed?

Guess it just means you can't register yourself as a USA Sponsored Merchant, if the company isn't registered in the USA.

I can only assume they'll be examining other countries more closely.

good question! :(

Took the words right out of my mouth.

so what's up with MasterCard. is MC warring with Visa now? i thought they were pretty solidly in bed with each other.

Visa also launched a 'zero liability' program for online transactions, meaning the will issue preliminary chargebacks much easier than before.

so, in other word. for all of us who had ccbill or ibill or whatever 3rd party payment processor: we will have to fork out $750 to have the privilege to make money for visa!!!
that will certainly weed out the smaller sites out there and bring back the dreaded dialers back in force!!! which means that the people who were supposed to be protected by this move (the poor little man with his visa card) will get fucked even more with $10/minutes phone charges...
they can try but they won't kill us that easily:321GFY

pretty stiff regulations...

i don't see how it could be for all international proccessing though...

thats impossible?

I run a small group of paysites. This move is making me consider shutting down. I know it will *force* a lot of small website owners, similar to myself, out of business.

Visa has just made the market a lot more hospitable to large corporate sites, which ironically will mean more chargebacks, not less. (Don't tell me BangBus doesn't have a much larger chargeback ratio than small personal sites like mine.)

So, between now and the deadline, I apparently have to consider my entire business model. Is it going to be worth staying in business? With these high fees, and the increased risk from chargebacks, it may not be worthwhile to be a small webmaster anymore.

I think CCBill etc. should offer webmasters the possibility of dropping Visa, or even drop it altogether. I don't like the idea that they are rolling over as 90% of their customers get a thorough dicking.

I got my $750 so fuck my competition. I know that this will knock out those little bastards who have been trying to copy my style.

So that means that people who can't come up with the $750 by the middle of next month will be out of business?

gothweb, it sounds like MC is getting out of the business. how would you collect money? drop-charge dialers/900 numbers to get access codes? i think the smaller sites should partner up in their own corporation, as one company, in my opinion. :)

Not all small sites are copycats. My sites are pretty tiny, and I don't know of anyone else doing quite the same thing.

This is totally unreasonable. Here are some questions... You think that thousands of small sites should "band" together? Exactly how would that work? Who would own the corporation? Would it be anything but another provider like CCBill? Why should I trust a bunch of strangers just because their sites are also small?

So this is a $750 fee for Mastercard, $750 Fee for Visa, And A $350 annual fee? so the $1500 covers you for all paysites.. not per url.. it covers you as a company as a whole.. thats not too bad really.. but some people might have issues with this.. they are already fucking you for 15% or whatever now they want a annual and registration fee..

We just got fucked kinda.. but its also good for the people that can afford to pay.. cuz now all the sites that are popping up that are basicly pay/avs sites will be gone.. cuz them places dont have the means to pay this shit.. most of em at least..

Media

Let me check and see if I have $1500 to spare...

Um? Nope. Must be in my other pants.


You know what really bugs me about this, though? I heard about it here. Where's a personal email or call from CCBill?

I've also got my $750 but these rules are crazy...basically, they can do whatever they want. Right now the annual fee is $375 but who's to say in the future it's not gonna be $5,000 (annual fee) It's just the beginning of shit for everyone :2 cents:

What ever happened to grandfathering laws..

Media

AVS sites won't be going anywhere. It's the AVS site, especially the "Premium" AVS sites that will now be the thing for the muthafucks with no money will do.

It's a lot easier to set your shit up with a Recurring AVS sponsor than to shut down. If I didn't have the money to register, I'd sure be making my site a Proadult Quantum or Adult Check Gold site immediately.

By the way, what happened to Adult Check Gold? I tried to find the webmaster program for them and I couldn't.

Can we get an official explanation on this one ?

The way I see it is to avoid all those offshore incorporated owned sites or is it really that you have to have a USA baised company to use IBILL, CCBILL etc. ??

these aren't laws, they are policies

i think that maybe 5 webmasters should band together, per company. i could go get $200 out of an ATM right now and i'm sure 4 others could as well. get another few hundred from each to hire a lawyer to draft up some basic S corp docs. part of getting those other 4 webmasters is deciding how much of the corp you'd offer them.. some maybe 10% some maybe 35%.

it wouldn't be another provider - it'd be just like you had 5 sites instead of just 1 all using the same CCBill setup.

to CCBill/Visa you'd be just like the big boys, which are all multli-person corporations or LLCs.

trust, well, that's something you'd have to work on as well. make sure your by-laws allow for you to kick someone out if they violate certain rules.

hell, you don't have to go with my idea. i'm just throwing it out there as a way for small sites to keep afloat throughout this. i'd wager most will just shut down, but i think the smart ones will see the opportunity and seize it.

You might want to contact GloBill. They have been making some changes lately, and it might be to avoid some of this shit.

And maybe it's time for the industry to start its own credit card operation.

nah Im talking about the AVS style sites that are linked up to ccbill or ibill with 50 pics inside them.. Ive seen hundreds of these sites.. usually linked up on toplists.. they piss off the amateur market.. they are all fake little sites that NEVER get updated..

Media

Overall this looks like good news. I hope it helps to limit the people who should not be running paysites in the first place by charging this fee. If you can not afford the $750, you should go find another line of work.

Tough times ahead.

do you think that a "for profit" business is hatching some conspiracy to lose money, lose customers and destroy themselves and get out of a multi billion dollar business?

there is a reason for everything. Visa in particular has been complaining for several years and anyone that was not under a rock knew big changes were coming.

where is the official press release from visa / mc / etc.

i don't want to hear some third party shit :)

Why wouldn't it be allowed to have a mastercard sign on your site ? If i got the choice to only use mastercard, that will be enough for me. If more people do the same, this will not be a smart step of visa in my opinion and mastercard can take a big advantage of this, but i'am affraid this won't happen.

cya
Dikkechill

In the above quote, they talk about "credit ratios" as well as chargeback ratios. I thought that paysites used credits (returning people's money voluntarily when they complain) to stop chargebacks. Has Visa always looked at credit ratios and what is the acceptable ratio of credits that a paysite can have?

mastercard just dosen't want to be affiliated with the internet adult industry

this has been a known fact for awhile that mc dosen't like their logo on adult pages

fuck it.. i'm a profiteer ;-)

We've spoken with all of the afforementioned ipsps and have confirmed that quickbuck and conversioncash will be in no way affected by these new regulations.

Anybody who will be affected by these new regulations and is looking to either get out of the business, or is worried about sending their traffic to programs not based out of the USA should contact me.

hooper AT clickfeel.com

You are not to decide who "should" and "shouldn't" be running paysites. Any fuck with half a brain can run a paysite that makes money. It's very easy for folks who can afford the fee to look down their noses at the other folks and say that "since they can't afford the 750, they SHOULDN'T be running paysites". Yes....I look at it as a herd thinning measure for my competition but I'm for damn sure not going to get up on my high horse and think just because I CAN AFFORD the 750 means that people who CAN'T afford it "shouldn't be running paysites".

This industry is becoming like the Radio industry. Back in the days before the FCC, any asshole could make a radio station and start broadcasting. Now, you'll need MILLIONS just to get started. There are still fucking idiots who run multi-million radio empires. They just happened to get into the shit back when it was easy. It doesn't make them smarter than any average joe on the street who could probably run the station better.

It's the same thing happening with porn. Y'all better get ready for it.

I'm for damn sure not going back to wearing a shirt and tie to sit up in a cubicle. I'm going to stick with the porn shit.

The sky is falling

start heading over to

www.monster.com

This is gonna be the babyboom of spammers...

You think there are alot of spammers now? wait till this shit happens ...

brad, $750 dosen't prove shit

thats a bad way of looking at it :)

it should be a $200 fee, and a registered company.

that shows you hold solid ground, and still pay a fee to make them happy.

Anyone from ccbill and ibill wanna conrim this too ?

First off, $750 is not a huge sum of money if you are in a real business. Secondly, this sounds like a huge godsend for AVS systems. If this actually went down, that seems like the way to make shit fly...

I am all for the paysite business getting harder to get into. I am only disappointed the fee was not more like $5000.

Paysites should be left up to the professionals with experience. Free site and traffic guys should stick with that, they will probably make more $ long term.

The gold rush is over, stop whining. Leave paysite biz up to the pros.

shaw,

look at oxcash

started out with nothing, now push 1000 - 1500 signups a day

so you tell me, how a business can start up if they have to waste $5,000 on billing

Please list all CC processor options:

Globill
Verotel
Paypal
etc...

I have about 10 paysites, so $1500 is a walk in the park. I could have bought something bad ass with that, but of course, this is all part of business in general. I still dont want to pay that.

OPTIONS?

i am still waiting to hear how this affects offshore third party billers ;)

and where is the press release by visa that this is a new international regulation

how is it a waste? they need to collect money somehow. the alternatives are dialers i guess?

You sir, are an arrogant asshole.

they need to collect money?

taking 15 - 20% isn't enough?

they get about 3.95% of the transaction

take 3.95% out of the 3 leading affiliate programs, and figure out how much that is

more then enough :)

i mean oxcash needs to collect money. there's a cost to do that - always has been. now it's higher. well, big deal, it's still not a "waste" to pay it because if you don't you are either a) not going to make any money or b) not going to go into the biz.

ccbill/ibill/epoch et al are probably not going to make a ton of money off these new regs. in fact they'll probably make less at first.