Visa/Master put brakes on signups ?
 

I make sales for a couple of days like in the good ol' days and then BANG. Nothing (almost) like if my servers were down and didn't know about it.

Like if they let go everything (open bar) and then say: "Hummmm ok i think that's enough for this month. Well at least for now.
The only sales i make (since a couple of days) are guys that already bought something (i get rebills too) No really new signups in a way.

Am i watching too much catastrophic movies ?:Oh crap

Has this pattern just started or has it been happening intermittently for some time now?

I notice a little bit of the same thing also...

last time when i wake up i seen few sales in nifty. today only one so far ... all i can say ... :)

Since 3 months.

What about you guys ?

its most likely the sponsor or the 3rd party biller moving their scrub up and down

I see this patterns for 8 years now. But lately they are more often.

No, I have seen this on sponsors with all kind of set ups, billings, banks and gateways.

I knew it damn it ! Thanks for sharing !
So we're all on the same boat i guess (like if i needed that...)

well if it's Visa denying signups, us sponsors with merch account would see a higher decline rate.... which in fact began happening around christmas time this past year, but it has been steady since. but I know it has more to do with people maxing out their cards and credit card companies slashing their customers credit lines, I had one card for 12 years and they cut my credit line from $22,000 to $300 with no warning because chase said "you didn't need the credit", which I didn't, but still.

An up and down pattern, that flip-flops between people and days, is normal across every business in the world. Think of a group of shops on a street, they for sure have slow/dead days then slammed busy days for no reason. On those slow days, always some guy pulling in sales.

Also major natural disasters slow sales down.

The only way to beat the pattern is to off set your traffic sources. And our industry shares a major part of it's traffic source. So unless you're on your own traffic source(s), you feel the heat with the rest of the Industry.

Thats true and I wouldn't think of any other reason, IF my own card wouldn't get declined on bad sales days, too. I can pay just fine with my own cc online. But there are days when sales are almost dead and when I try my cc on such days, it always gets declined. So there has to be more to the story.

Depending on your processor... for sure more to the story. But if your decline ratios overall aren't blown out, then that wasn't the issue.

Internet health can easily, globally or locally change sales. The banks are online too, the host, you... and the surfer. Any connection, hop, anything that is slow - costs you sales.

So if DC is getting hammered from Russian dos attacks, our online sales in America slow down. When cox cable has issues, we all have lower sales. When any major backbone is down, our sales are lower... if your host sucks today, your sales/traffic is lower.

This is a huge reason why we see pulses and sometimes all at once we say... holy shit it's fixed - but I didn't do anything.

Btw... yesterday did suck - the weekend was great, but overall yesterday was down... 15% or so - across the board.

Doc, I'm talking about decline rates for rebills and sales, they are up in general for everyone I talk to that owns a merch account.

Based on merchant account settings, I can make my declines go through the roof or drop to the floor. Anyone with a merchant account that can adjust scrub that is bitching, simply needs to adjust the scrub and stop bitching.

With 3rd party processors statistically the compounding effect of refunds/cb's globally going into a fraud db for the base scrub, will slowly increase decline ratios over time however it will lower cb/refund ratios naturally too - which is what has happened.

that is true, but I'm talking about keeping the same settings as a year or so ago to today, the declines are down keeping the same settings.

My declines are about like they always have been... good today, shit tomorrow. Every now and then I see them blow the ratios - but it's so rare I quit caring long ago.

If we look at mine vs. yours, we're going to see a huge difference month to month/day to day... even on the same processors. It's just one of those stats that does that.

3rd party processor wise, on 'all' of them for sure some funky stuff going on... sales limits, money limits, the list is long that they will not admit to but I have seen/heard more than once.

too much catastrophic films me thinks :pimp

This is also a factor.. it's all factors. When Visa cuts millions of cards because they might or did get stolen, that kills rebills for us in an instant and new sales until those people get new cards.

Same with they went through and cut credit lines... however I have to say for as crazy of a year as it was last year, I thought this year was kicking total ass.

It was a Tuesday AND the mid-point of pay period for a large segment of the population.

Yeah the list is long indeed and i'm now 100% sure it happens. :disgust but like you said, no one will open is mouth of course.

I have talked to lots of people back in the "Andy Dunn" days, (remember his weekly news letter) ? That we should come out with something targeted at porn only. A card that you can fund in many ways and use it online. Teach the surfer to get one of those card and use it. Instead, we showed them that you can get everything for free :mad:

something is going for sure

The thing is, when you add up everything, it really hurts.
Every damn months there's something new to add to the "list".

I should sell "lubs" i'd make a fortune around here...

Thats not true. I have a non-adult merchant account and I NEVER see the trends I see in adult.

things have been very bad the last 3 weeks... ratios down 30%... same traffic

You do a steady amount of sales and a steady ratio every day? That's awesome!

You will see different trends though, but many will be the same - like pay period trends happen to every business in the world. The banks with high risk have to balance things more, and often give out limits - 3rd party processors have them too. With non high risk the limits are often higher than you or the group can reach. So you can buck the trends that high risk can't.

Thanks Doc good info in this thread.

I didn't mean to say trend. I meant scrub. Yes, basically my non-adult sales are steady. Not like the rollercoaster we see in adult.

Hi Ralph... been awhile. Yep, we can't forget those pay periods, that could easily explain this week so far - heck it could be the only factor.

Sweet, who is the gateway and bank? :winkwink:

Scrub wise, on adult gateways - you can steady those out. Not saying everyone has or knows how to though but it is possible.

It's mostly the 3rd party processors that we see the huge jumps.

I think the Cal thing scared the fuck out of the banks and they're screwing everyone to not accidentally take a bad card. That's only conjecture, but it sure makes for some thinkin'.

Gateway is Authorize.net and the bank is HSBC.

Chase has been calling like once a week trying to get me to switch to them (because I bank with them) but they are offering the same 2.% rate. I really don't want to deal with the hassle of switching. But Chase says if I switch to them they can pay me Visa and MC sales next day instead of waiting up to 48 hours like I do now.

I agree with you
Declined rebills suck. It has only been getting worse the last year

Are all your new sign-ups all declined? Or are you just not getting sign-ups? I'm a little confused? How are you tracking them?

Jack

new signups declined like a mofo lately

bleh i feel like i'm wasting my traffic these days... it hurts to look back at things converting just a few weeks ago and the exact same traffic drop to a fraction of that out of nowhere

Happened for years now. Decades.

Yep, whenever stats are down I look at those 2 factors plus near/or around holidays.

Record setting days for denials....