One chargeback and your done?

[Boys4Porn]

Someone wanting to sign up at our website yesterday send me a pretty in-depth email on his issues regarding CCBill. Long story short, he signed up at another CCBill site and requested a refund because he felt he was defrauded and was denied. Well he charged it back, end of story. Now he tried to sign up at our site and was denied, and through contacts with CCBill, they told him he was banned from using CCBill and is pretty irritated about the situation even though he has been a good paying customer for the most part, according to him.

Good for us? I clearly feel his pain since I have personally signed up at others paysites and felt defrauded, but not enough to contact the bank. Its just not worth it. Can you be given a second chance in this situation or is there a period of time that they forget your strikes?

[AlexManifestMan]

CCBill can clarify this but I was told by the Fraud department that if a customer charges back once to a site, he can be banned from joining it ever again. However, if the customer claims that the card was fraudulently used, then the card can be banned forever.

We have dealt with serial chargeback customers claiming one child then another used their cards to join our site. With that kind of story, I don't think any paysite would want this guy.

[q1sites]

Excessive chargebacks can result in a merchant's Visa status being withdrawn. Understandably CCBill don't want that! I have had very few chargebacks, but the ones I have had have been from customers who I have not heard from or been given a chance to put any complaints right with. I understand that that the credit card compnies treat chargebacks and suspected fraud differently. So I wonder if your guy really was defrauded, or just unhappy? A few customers with genuine grievances might be locked out like this, but I can see why CCBill might do it. I'd rather loose a few sales than have freeloaders.

[Seth]

Chances are that he only asked the site for a refund and was denied. If he went directly to CCBill he more than likely would have been given the refund. This is probably the type of customer that will CB for any tiny reason.

[HunkMoneyLuke]

it sounds like this surfer is not telling you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Honestly, I would rather skip having this guy signup than risk him doing another chargeback (after all, his history shows he is more than willing to do a chargeback).

[basschick]

i've rarely heard of ccbill denying a refund - well, never - so i'm a bit skeptical here. i did have this happen with a potential member with epoch. i had him contact their customer support and they lifted his ban because of his exact situation. he ended up being one of our best members.

[jorgebianco]

It would be interesting to know which one was the site he didn't like.

If the tour on that site reflects properly the content, then no complaint is acceptable, beyond the contents of the site.

If the tour suggest something and the content is another thing, then refund requests make sense -and in that case ccbill should finally ban the site directly.

My credits for all reasons (including the fucking check payment) are always below 2% of my sales. And chargebacks are well below 0,1%, most months are simply zero.

[dzinerbear]

People have become too cocky with complaining and thinking that they can do whatever they want, citing: the customer is always right. I love that in some of these cases there are consequences.

Michael

[rawTOP]

No, the guy is probably telling the truth - something similar happened to me and I'm pretty sure I'm banned from CCBill as well (which is sorta funny given all the money they send me each month). I had a hookup site that was playing games and had two billers and you couldn't tell how to cancel your membership, so I just called up my credit card company and contested the charge. I forgot about it and then months later I saw the charges continuing and finally figured out they were being billed through CCBill. So I called CCBill and they told me if I got a refund I'd be banned from CCBill. It wasn't my fault - it was a combination of an unhelpful site, a credit card bill that didn't give enough info, and a credit card company that permitted CCBill to continue to charge my card month after month after I contested one of the charges. On top of that CCBill wanted me to jump through all these hoops to get my money back, which was completely infuriating. I don't use CCBill for anything else, my bf hates it, so I hung up on them, called my credit card company and contested nearly a year's worth of charges and got every penny back. But then again I've had a credit card with them since '89 and my credit score is above 800 so the credit card company trusts me completely. So things can happen and CCBill is not particularly nice with customers.

[AlexManifestMan]

Porn is not a right. It is a product. Customers seldom have valid reasons for charging back. I do not want any customers that do. Our charge back ratio is 0.02% (yes 2/10ths of one percent). Most of the chargebacks are the result of customer fraud. Seldom are they ever for any valid reason. Certainly there is the occasional case of the janitor using the school credit card but more often then not it is the result of customers who don't want to bother canceling or were pissed that we don't have the fisting videos that an affiliate indicated that we did.

I don't want anybody else's problem children. There is zero excuse for a customer to charge back more than one month even for reasons of fraud. If someone doesn't bother to reconcile their credit card statements each month, then they have zero grounds to complain.

If I lose one good potential customer to avoid having 9 bad ones, I am happy to pay that price.

[TropixxxMichael]

People have become too cocky with complaining and thinking that they can do whatever they want, citing: the customer is always right. I love that in some of these cases there are consequences.

Michael

Karma? 666

[abostonboy]

Porn is not a right. It is a product. Customers seldom have valid reasons for charging back.

I totally disagree with this. You should see some of the paysites that are out there and the poor customer support that webmasters provide.

This is a classic example of why having your own merchant account or a cascade to another biller in place is in the best interest of the program owner.

[AlexManifestMan]

I am at the end of my tether having to make allowances for the stupid, immoral or illegal behavior of others and the impact that it has on my life and my business.

For the tiny number of chargebacks that we have to deal with, there is no way on earth I would trade the benefits of CCBill for a merchant account. If you LLoyd had a decent site and processed with CCBill and somebody fucked you over, why on earth would I want them as a customer?

Fuck the bastards and the horses they rode in on.

[rawTOP]

There is zero excuse for a customer to charge back more than one month even for reasons of fraud. If someone doesn't bother to reconcile their credit card statements each month, then they have zero grounds to complain.

There are lots of urban professionals with big incomes who would laugh at that statement (as well as quite a few lower income people working hard at multiple jobs). Modern life is crazy and reconciling the credit card isn't at the top of many people's priority list. Do you really want to lose those people as customers?


If you LLoyd had a decent site and processed with CCBill and somebody fucked you over, why on earth would I want them as a customer?

Fuck the bastards and the horses they rode in on.

The problem in cases like mine is some unscrupulous CCBill merchants who ruin it for perfectly good customers and CCBill not taking a hard line with bad merchants. Thank god we've got credit card companies whose first allegiance is to good customers.

If all the CCBill merchants were as good as you, I'd be the first one to agree with you, but that's just not the case.

[abostonboy]

I am at the end of my tether having to make allowances for the stupid, immoral or illegal behavior of others and the impact that it has on my life and my business.

For the tiny number of chargebacks that we have to deal with, there is no way on earth I would trade the benefits of CCBill for a merchant account. If you LLoyd had a decent site and processed with CCBill and somebody fucked you over, why on earth would I want them as a customer?

Fuck the bastards and the horses they rode in on.

Alex,

I joined a CCbill site and when I went to watch the videos they all had lines through them. It was hard to explain, but I believe it was an encoding error. The webmaster of the site plain out refused to give me a refund. It got charged back.

The fact is not every webmaster that runs a paysite has a good quality product and offers good support. In fact they usually go hand and hand - bad product and horrible support.

I have had many customers that were on a CCbill black list join through Epoch and be some of my best customers.

It was much more easier to get on the black lists in the past than it is now. And if you read some of the old threads on other message boards you will realize that if the site owner spent just a little time on customer service then these blacklists wouldn't be so damn huge.

I will gladly take many of the customers that are on a CCbill/Epoch blacklist as I truly believe that many are on there for no other reason than getting a crappy product and shit support from the program owner.

Even with our own merchant account and all those CCbill/Epoch blacklisted members our CB ratio is pretty close to yours.

[Boys4Porn]

I emailed the guy back yesterday letting him know his issue is with CCBill, not us. I didn't take the time to find out the site in question. I somewhat believe if he signed up with us, it wouldn't result in a chargeback and yes a secondary billing processor in place would have been helpfull here. I understand the system, and its for the better good for all of us. CCBill can only ban you based on the information that you give them, IP address, cookies, name, phone number, card number, and billing address. There are still ways around it if your clever.

[abostonboy]

If all the CCBill merchants were as good as you, I'd be the first one to agree with you, but that's just not the case.

I agree with you as well.

[AlexManifestMan]

Well we are just going to have to agree to disagree on this one. I think if someone is too busy to even look at their credit card statements then they shouldn't spend time online looking at porn. Frankly there is zero rational excuse for someone to be able to charge back six months of subscription charges indicating that the charge was fraud. If a parent wants to claim that a kid took the credit card and joined some porn site, kick the kids ass all the way to the park and make him/her pick up used condoms and old crack pipes till they work it off.

But we as an industry seem to be willing to tolerate almost anything. Besides, the whole thing is a bit of a paper tiger. There are easy ways around the chargeback blacklist so it is little enough protection as it is.

[Squirt]

But we as an industry seem to be willing to tolerate almost anything.

I agree.

The people at CCBill do a great job. It would be nice if they could chime in here and let us know their policy. I'm glad they're blacklisting people who buy something, then charge it back. Credit card companies should blacklist people that habitually charge back.

People who charge back multiple sites or ask for credit the majority of time should be blacklisted by all processors.

Luckily, as a business owner, chargebacks/credits/voids are all tax deductible. Every penny counts :clown:

[abostonboy]

Well we are just going to have to agree to disagree on this one. I think if someone is too busy to even look at their credit card statements then they shouldn't spend time online looking at porn. Frankly there is zero rational excuse for someone to be able to charge back six months of subscription charges indicating that the charge was fraud.

I agree with you on this one...

But, if a surfer joins for a month and basically gets to a site where he can't get the videos to play, asks for and refund, and is told to gfy. Does he have a right to chargeback? I think he does.

[CCBill Paul]

i've rarely heard of ccbill denying a refund - well, never - so i'm a bit skeptical here. i did have this happen with a potential member with epoch. i had him contact their customer support and they lifted his ban because of his exact situation. he ended up being one of our best members.

We do deny refunds all the time, if we refunded everyone who asked we would certainly not be in business anymore :)

Sometimes a customer will inadvertently issue a chargeback through their bank. I have seen a few cases where they will just talk to their bank about a charge and the bank will initiate the chargeback.

Because we pay fees on each chargeback it makes sense to black list each one that we receive however, mistakes happen and that is why we have the ability to remove a block on a customer.

If you think the customer is telling the truth and is not a future liability we could certainly unblock them for you, just simply email fraud @ ccbill.com.

[ccjax]

Okay - to add to Paul's post – a more accurate title to this thread is 'One chargeback and your card is done'. :)

A couple of clarifications:
CCBill Consumer Support tries to resolve the consumer issues fairly, and prevent a chargeback to the webmaster's account – which also means preventing it from hitting our account. You need to remember that we are essentially a big merchant account - we are subject to the same banking rules on chargeback ratios.

So, all credit card statements have our consumer phone number listed in order to provide a place for a questioning consumer to go. When a concerned consumer calls/emails, we try to determine which are the real issues and filter out the lies. If we do not think a refund is warranted, we direct them to the webmaster or site contact. If the site owner then chooses not to refund, that is their business choice, yes? ;)
But of course, our clients must stay under specific chargeback and refund ratios, as they would with a merchant account – or we will work with the client to fix the issue. The occasional justified chargeback usually does not result in high chargeback ratios.

The consumer does have the right to chargeback, but we also have a right to not accept that particular card number anymore. The consumer can use another card if they choose.

To reiterate a couple other points:
1) Remember that CCBill also eats all the chargeback fees charged to us by the banks for our client’s chargebacks – whereas other processors usually pass this charge along to the webmaster. Someone has to pick up the cost.

2) Simply - Fraud is still one of the biggest reasons for chargebacks, and if that card number has been stolen or compromised, we protect your business from fraud by blocking that card number from being used again.

[AlexManifestMan]

Thanks for stating it so clearly Gary. This is exactly why I am a big fan of the blacklist.

[rawTOP]

So, all credit card statements have our consumer phone number listed in order to provide a place for a questioning consumer to go.

Sorry, but it's not that simple. In my case I called the 800 number and was told my charge couldn't be found. I was looking at a credit card statement with it and had a rep telling me you guys weren't charging my card. Since you couldn't/wouldn't cancel the charges I called my credit card company and contested the charge.

I didn't look at the credit card statement for months (I thought the issue was resolved) but then I realized the charges were continuing. So I called again and was once again told my credit card wasn't being charged. When it was escalated I think they they did finally find the charges but then wanted me to jump through a bunch of hoops to cancel things and they refused to do more than a month or two of refunds even though I had called to cancel a long time before. When I called back my credit card company they saw that I had called months earlier on the same issue and charged back everything since that point.

Customers shouldn't have to go through that.. And at least some of the people on your blacklist are people like me.

[ccjax]

Sorry that you had that experience - that is not the norm.
It should be that simple - yours sounds like an unusual situation.

I agree with you - consumers should justify their disputes, but not have to jump through hoops.

[Adam Mason]

I've just got to jump in here and say that CCBill have always looked after me and my customers. They have refunded some even though some of those customers have never contacted me direct - and they have dealt with chargebacks and never hassled me - but the ratio is very low.

Other times I get an email from CCBill saying "Customer X is experiencing problem Y - please can you investigate / advise" even though customer X never contacted me for help - which pisses me off as I worry CCBill will think I am a dodgey client!

I guess it all comes with the territory. I have had reasons in the past to contact the CCBill fraud department when I have found a "customer" who managed to purchase a memberhship who had previously used another card and charged back. Same name and address - different card number. This will never be a perfect world - that's why I use cascading billing via CCBill to Epoch - but I don't want to get ripped off or have my status as a worthy online site questioned simply because there are fraudsters out there who will time and time again try to take advantage.

[Squirt]

- that is not the norm. - yours sounds like an unusual situation.

I wouldn't sweat it and I'd take that scenario "cum grano salis".

I agree with Adam Mason, we live in an imperfect world. However in the world of adult billing CCBill is pretty much the gold standard and keeps evolving to become even better.

I hope you keep diligently weeding out people who charge back and ask for constant voids/credits. There is nothing more frustrating as a site owner then having a "customer" sign up, use your service for 6 months, then get credit for six months. Even worse is when they sign up again, and six months later get another 6 months credit! I haven't had this happen with CCBill. :)

[rawTOP]

<rant>

I'm not generally the conspiracy type, but this is mighty suspicious... I speak my mind on CCBill and chargebacks (above) and the same day I get hit with 3 chargebacks for CCBill. Prior to yesterday I've only ever had 3 chargebacks total (in about 1000 transactions), and then all of a sudden I get three in one day. And on top of it, it's unlikely it was a single customer since there were two for Jake Cruise / Cocksure Men and 1 for Raw Rods (Flava Gold). I doubt the same customer would be into both white jocks and black thugs. However, those two programs are my top two CCBill-based programs (which someone would know if they were looking at my stats).

While I can't prove anything, I gotta say this really looks like someone messing with my stats and I don't like it one bit. That's not how you deal with a business partner with a good track record who's had a bad customer service experience in the past. The proper response would have been to contact me, find out the particulars, and research what happened.

This isn't the first time I've had issues with CCBill. Last year I found there were sales I was making where I wasn't getting the commission (http://www.gaydemon.biz/showthread.php?t=3154). And just to reiterate what I said back then, the whole affiliate program concept is based on trust. As affiliates we really don't know whether we're getting credit for all the sales we make - we have to trust our sponsors. Lose that trust and you'll have a hard time finding affiliates who want to work with you.

Needless to say, when I start a pay site I won't use CCBill. Getting fucked isn't my thing - I'm a top...

</rant>

I will add, there is one person at CCBill I trust completely - Paul. He's always done right by me. If he says those chargebacks were just an unfortunate co-incidence, I'll believe him and the matter will be settled.

[dzinerbear]

<rant>Needless to say, when I start a pay site I won't use CCBill. Getting fucked isn't my thing - I'm a top...</rant>

You'll probably rethink that when you find next to no affiliates signing up for your Epoch program. Affiliates like CCBill.

Your chargeback situation isn't that uncommon. My biggest sponsor is Mancheck. I can go for months without a chargeback, and then, suddenly I'll end up with three or four in one week. It's just the way things go. I hardly doubt anyone at CCBill decided to chargeback $80 worth of memberships to teach you a lesson. I'm sure they have better things to do. And frankly, a couple of webmasters going off on a board somewhere really doesn't affect CCBill one way or another.

Michael

[BBD]

CCbill makes money processing sales not declining them.
They have a job to manage the risk. They are doing the best job they can.
Hats off to them

[xenigo]

Our charge back ratio is 0.02% (yes 2/10ths of one percent).

2/10ths of one percent is .2%. .02% is 2/100ths of one percent.

So your CB ratio is 2:10,000?

[AlexManifestMan]

You are absolutely correct. It is 2/10ths of one percent (rounded up). I should have noted it as .02 percent rather than .02% or most accurately as 0.17477443573052845%

I don't know the best way to do the math but out of 10446 joins 18 of them charged back. I would also note that of the 18 we were able to get 5 to ultimately pay us anyway.

Another note of interest 50% of all our chargebacks are related to telephone billing. German customers are the biggest source of card chargebacks.