My Epoch Visa account is about to expire and I’m considering not renewing it. It doesn’t really seem to be worth to money.
I used to love Epoch, but then my rep changed and the new one is nowhere near as knowledgable. NOWHERE near as knowledgable!
So, is it a big mistake to drop Epoch as my secondary biller? My site is new and CCBill seems to be serving me well.
Also, how does it work if an affiliate, will a CCBill affiliate number, sends a member who gets bumped down to Epoch? Do they lose their commission?
From what I know and from what I see as an affiliate, my ratios with sites that use Epoch compared to CCBill are much better. I’m not taking anything away from CCBill, but Epoch sales do seem to come in more for me and other people tell me the same thing. So personally speaking, I would hang on to Epoch. But…I guess it all comes down to what you feel is best for your program/site.
You could always set up a cascade so that affiliates will still get a commission regardless of the biller. I’m sure there will be other sponsors coming into this thread who can help you with that. I’m not knowledgeable enough on that stuff to help you with it.
I wouldn’t give up my Epoch account ever, Epoch converts way better than CCBill. If you want me to hook you up with my rep, I can make the introductions and maybe he can help sort things out. But I wouldn’t let the account go.
I remember when i was at BlakeMason, a relatively small but still considerable amount sales went through to epoch, after being declined by ccbill (and believe me, CCBILL is declining a lot recently!). So they were in essence ‘saved sales’. Im sure you can access you epoch account and work out how many members have been processed via your epoch cascade, that way you can work out wether it is worth it for your program.
Just a side note: I generally dont promote sites without a secondary (or even tertiary) cascade, as they generally have a lot lower signup ratio.
I’d not drop it, and definately see about having a cascading billing with ccBill. It does help both the sponsor and affiliate, as it does pick up what would otherwise be lost sales.
You know. It’s weird. It seems like when you put Epoch as primary and CCbill as secondary you get more sales than if you have CCbill as primary and Epoch as secondary. I don’t know why. But that is just my experience.
Ccbill lets you run Epoch as primary and CCbill as secondary. (or at least they did.) Epoch requires Epoch to be primary and CCbilll as secondary.
To answer your question about how the cascade works. Assuming you have it setup correctly, the affiliate will get credit. When Epoch does the postback the CCbill’s affiliate number is in there and it gets credited to the ccbill account. So, the affiliate doesn’t lose any sales. I believe at one point, and i could be mistaken, the only “issue” had to do with how the processing fees was handled on cases like this. I believe at the time that the affiliate absorbed all the processing fees. I could be wrong and it could have changed.
If I were you I would put Epoch on top and CCbill as secondary and see if you capture more sales. From my experience that is a better cascade.
I much prefer to market sites that use Epoch. It just seems like more sales go through. Been trying to figure out why for a long time. Maybe surfers like the Epoch join form better?
Wow. That’s all really interesting and helpful information. Looks like I’d do well to keep Epoch. I read a thread on here from a while back and it seemed like everyone hated Epoch. I loved them until I lost my great rep. When I met the owner of Epoch at Phoenix Forum, he said I couldn’t change my rep, but I could call him if I needed anything. That was pretty nice, but not sure why I couldn’t change my rep. Sounded to me like they were a bit inflexible and not eager to help. (Though he was really friendly.) On the other hand, I met Gary from CCBill at Phoenix Forum 2010 and that’s when I decided to switch. I thought I’d get a real personal touch from him, but never even got through to him after signing up. That said, every time I call CCBill or use their chat help, I get everything I need taken care of and they are always very patient with even the dumbest question. It’s not so bad not being able to talk to my rep when everyone at CCBill is so knowledgable and helpful.
I think I’ll stick with CCBill as primary (since all my affiliates are signed up with CCBill) and Epoch as my secondary. My sales aren’t big enough to justify it yet, but Fantastic Foreskin is new and has had a great start these past few weeks thanks to many of you!
People don’t hate Epoch, the problem is that way back Epoch didn’t let affiliate merge accounts so they could get one big cheque. CCBill did allow that, so affiliates just got used to dealing with CCBill. By the time Epoch finally got a merge feature four years or so, affiliates weren’t interested in moving from CCBill.
a relatively small but still considerable amount sales went through to epoch, after being declined by ccbill (and believe me, CCBILL is declining a lot recently!).
A still-newbie question I’ve been meaning to ask: If CCBill (or anybody else) declines someone - I mean, someone’s credit card – isn’t there a good reason for that? And if it’s a valid reason – say, the card has expired, or over the limit – wouldn’t the second processor also want to decline it? I know there’s gotta be something I’m missing here, just can’t figure it out.
From my understanding, some billers actually block whole countries, while some don’t. I think Epoch is more open to accepting cards from countries that CCBill may not be. I believe they call it ‘scrubbing’. But I could be wrong on that.
So while a card might be fine, if it’s from a particular country - i.e. Eastern Bloc perhaps - CCBill might decline it, but Epoch may not.
I’m sure sponsors here will have more and better answers to your question. I’m just replying with something a sponsor told me a while back.
Processors don’t only decline cards based on whether there are funds available.
Declines can be for things like the card holder is a woman and the member is joining a gay site; perhaps the card holder’s address has “street” in the address, but they enter “st”; or the member is in China and the site has declined to accept memberships from that country, the card could be in the fraud database (perhaps they’ve charged back with CCBill but not Epoch).
No one really knows the criteria for the “scrub” because the billers don’t say. When a biller has the scrub on high, it means that pretty much everything on the join application has to be perfect, when the “scrub” is low, they’ll allow a certain amount of stuff to slip through.
I am not a sponsor, but from my own experiences, I can say that there are a lot of factors involved, that contribute to a decline. I had a friend get declined by ccbill because his card was put on a blacklist, as he had asked for a refund, due to the site double billing him. It wasn’t his fault, but he got a black mark on that card, but the card cascaded to epoch, that accepted it.
Whatever the reason for an intitial decline, having a second or even third processor, in the line helps captures lost sales, due to any reason. Like it has been said, for putting st instead of street in, or some other picky thing, you can capture that sale, and so can your affiliate.
side note, on what Lloyd was saying, if its right (he wasn’t sure) you could keep your epoch acct, but have ccbill list it first in their cascade, which supposedly avoids the notorious ccbill scrub days. doesn’t mean ccbill affiliates have to do anything, to get credit. that happens on your end. just thought i’d mention that.