XBiz Reports: Visa Puts Clamp On Cross Sales

SAN FRANCISCO — Visa on Tuesday tightened the screws on companies involved in cross sales.

Online companies will no longer be able to allow third parties to charge a customer’s card without the card owner re-entering credit card information, Visa said Tuesday.

Visa says that such marketing can result in “high levels of consumer disputes and degrades the efficiency, reliability and security of the payment system.” It said that 35 million consumers have paid $1.4 billion for such marketing offers.

Visa’s new requirement is designed to send a “clear signal to cardholders that a second purchase is being initiated and protects them from questionable marketing practices,” the company said in a statement.

A source close to Visa told XBIZ that the new policy goes into effect May 1. The source said Visa could impose fines against merchant banks that continue to work with sites that flout the new policy. The merchant banks also could face a loss in the ability to accept Visa payments. San Francisco-based Visa’s decision to ban the practice is in the wake of a probe last year by the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, which investigated the issue and merchants who use this practice.

“The Senate Commerce Committee’s investigation showed that this aggressive marketing practice enabled unscrupulous e-commerce companies to scam millions of American consumers out of more than a billion dollars,” said Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, a panel member of the committee.

Visa released a press release Tuesday on the new policy. It is available here.

Christa Pizzolanti

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Australian man arrested in Vegas for online gaming payments in USD.

Daniel Tzvetkoff was arrested Friday in Las Vegas on charges that he helped offshore online casino companies process online casino payment transactions worth more than $543 million for US players. A 27-year old Australian man who was arrested in Las Vegas while attending a conference, has been charged with illegal gambling conspiracy, bank fraud conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy and money laundering.
“Daniel went to the U.S. and got into the country no problems (sic),I think him wandering around that conference sort of thumbing his nose at some of the people he owed large amounts of cash to caused them to get in touch with the FBI.” A former coworker of Daniel Tzvetkoff told the Courier-Mail.
Daniel Tzvetkoff faces up to 75 years in prison, and at least $543 million in fines, “in that such sum in aggregate is property representing the amount of proceeds obtains as a result of the gambling conspiracy offense,” according to the indictment against him. According to the Queensland Courier-Mail, US authorities may have been tipped off to Daniel Tzvetkoff’s activities and presence inside the United States by online casino companies who allege that he stole $100 million of U.S. player deposits.

According to the indictment obtained by the U.S. Attorney from the Southern District of New York, Tzvetkoff laundered money from February, 2008, until March, 2009, when online casino companies stopped working with him as a result of the alleged theft. Daniel Tzvetkoff’s company, Instabill, Inc., used Automated Clearing House transactions to move money from the checking accounts of online casino players to several offshore shell companies. He then moved those funds to online casino accounts. He also used those companies to move player winnings from online casinos back into U.S. bank accounts.
“In an e-mail dated March 12, 2009, Daniel Tzvetkoff instructed the Instabill Representative to e-mail banks from a non-Instabill e-mail address, to tell the banks that the Instabill Representative ‘was referred to them by another processor or bank or something along those lines, and to claim that the Instabill Representative ‘work(s) for a large processor of general e-commerce.” The indictment reads.
Daniel Tzvetkoff is the second man to be arrested in the last year for processing online casino deposits and withdrawals.
Christa Pizzolanti
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Visa and MasterCard Changing Rules on Card Association Compliance in the Adult Space.

The Card Associations has been paying closer attention to different content niches. Both VISA and MasterCard no longer want their brands associated with “non-consensual” content.
This includes sleeping content, excessive force or violence, drinking sites in which models are intoxicated and “peek-a-boo” content. And while the disclaimer of the content being “fantasy and role play” worked in the past, the card associations are no longer accepting this as a work-around.

It’s important to look through your website and make sure you do not have this type of content on your site. Having this on your website can cause your site to be forced to be shut down by Visa and MasterCard. I do not want to see that happen.

Christa Pizzolanti

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Meet Me At The Phoenix Forum April 08 – 10, 2010

The Phoenix Forum provides a great opportunities geared specifically toward businesses operating and networking in the adult industry.

Feel free to contact me to set up an appointment to learn more about Merchant Services and Consulting or payment processing in general.

I look forward to hearing from you!

Christa Pizzolanti

http://thephoenixforum.com/

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What is a Merchant Account?

A merchant account is a type of bank account that allows businesses to accept payments by debit or credit cards. A merchant account also serves as an agreement between a retailer, a merchant bank and payment processor for the settlement of credit card and/or debit card transactions.

What is a Payment Gateway?

A payment gateway is an e-commerce application service provider service that authorizes payments for e-businesses, online retailers, bricks and clicks, or traditional brick and mortar. It is the equivalent of a physical point of sale terminal located in most retail outlets. Payment gateway protects credit cards details encrypting sensitive information, such as credit card numbers, to ensure that information passes securely between the customer and the merchant and also between merchant and payment processor.

What is an IPSP Provder?

IPSP stands for Internet Payment Service Provider. An IPSP is a company that enters into an agreement with a bank and is approved by Visa to process and settle transactions on behalf of online merchants.

Christa Pizzolanti


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ACH can also mean Automatic Clearinghouse. ACH is a form of epayment or electronic payment. There are two ways payments can be transferred: (1) by wire transfer, or (2) through an automated clearinghouse. Wire transfer is an e-payment system that is designed to handle high-dollar, time-crucial payments, usually between large banks. ACH is designed to be an e-check or electronic check. Unlike the wire transfer, it is usually used to process higher volumes or small-dollar payments for settlement issues within 1 to 2 business days. All ACH transactions are settled pretty much the same way checks are. The clearinghouse takes all of the ACH files received daily from member banks, it then divides them by the originating bank (where the check was either cashed or deposited) and the paying bank (the bank where the check was drawn), then it totals the accounts, and credits or deducts the accounts accordingly.

Why you should have ACH on your websites:

Even though a majority of your payments will come from credit cards, with the economy taking a down turn these days consumers are going back to writing checks. They simply might have maxed out their credit cards and have no other alternative but pay by check. You also always want to give your customers extra choices when it comes to payment.

Christa Pizzolanti

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How To Prevent Chargebacks

Fully describe your refund and return policies on your website.
This may not prevent a chargeback, but it will help you fight a chargeback.
With a clear refund and return policy on a website, it makes it hard for a
customer to win a chargeback if they are going around your stated policies.

If you offer recurring billing for paid membership sites make sure to update you content. When offering a monthly service to your members you must provide them with new updates or new content monthly. If they are paying for a subscription monthly and nothing changes this could result in a chargeback.

Provide accurate descriptions and images of your products on your
website. By providing accurate descriptions and images on your website,
you can help prevent a chargebacks.

Always use the AVS and CVV system code for your online orders. AVS is absolutely necessary for online orders. These two methods combined greatly reduce the chance fraudulent transaction.

Always Investigate abnormally large orders and large orders
requesting overnight shipping before shipping the product out. Call the customer to verify their information. Don’t ship any product until you have
spoken to the card holder, and verified their address and personal information. This is a must!

If you see that a card had declined several times, verify the order
by calling the purchaser before shipping any product. Call the customer to verify their information. Don’t ship the product until you reached the card holder.

If your business name does not exactly match the name that appears on credit card transaction statements, make sure your customers are aware of this. When a customer reads a credit card statement, if the name of a business does not sound familiar, then they may do a chargeback for an unauthorized charge.

Be cautious of any order with a foreign shipping address. If it
is a domestic order with a foreign shipping address, it is very likely to be a
fraudulent transaction.

Do not process any order where a customer is willing to pay more for the item for no apparent reason, or for an expedited order process. This is another very common sign of fraud and the latest trend.

If your sites does cross sales or up sales on your make sure the consumer is aware of the charges. When a customers are unaware their credit card had been charged additionally from what they already purchased from your site they are more then likely going to charge everything back. additionally  you just lost a customer and received a chargeback fee from merchant. This does not happen all the time, but be careful how you up sale your service or product.

Christa Pizzolanti

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The story about ICC- Cal Bank

Visa Cal has been involved in a number of problematic affairs over the past few months, including receiving a $10 million fine from Mastercard – which ICC Cal is appealing – and demands from the Bank of Israel for changes in the firm’s procedures. Visa international also fined ICC Cal 9 million euros last November, for problems with its clearing transactions for health and nutritional supplements, among other products. In January, ICC Cal announced it would stop clearing transactions for pornographic sites.

Mastercard’s complaints were related to ICC Cal’s alleged clearing services for Internet gambling sites, which it is accused of hiding by using false transaction code numbers.

The story about ICC-Cal is far from over… I am afraid this is just the beginning for Visa and Mastercard, they are going after more banks and want to straighten up the high risk credit card industry as much as they can.

It’s important to make sure you have cascade billing in place for this reason, you never know when a bank can go down. Keep in mind ICC-Cal did not want to just stop processing for these merchants. They were forced too and fined. All ways have a back up merchant account in place for reasons like this and to maximums your successful transactions. Most importantly be compliant with Visa and Mastercard.

Christa Pizzolanti

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Rapidly expanding online companies need to have enough payment processing to power growth and volume.

Create your self a Domestic account with low fees. Run most of your volume with an Offshore merchant accounts with unlimited payment processing volumes this is very helpful.

Many high risk merchants online merchants establish more than one merchant account to diversify payment processing and mitigate risk. This allows you to have more successful transactions. Also adding more merchant accounts can load balance on a single payment processing gateway, which simplifies account management and reconciliation.

Christa Pizzolanti

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Allied Wallet is a payment processor and eWallet which allows your company to accept credit cards on your web site. Allied Wallet’s merchant accounts are free to sign up for and our rates are the most competitive in the merchant service industry.

Allied Wallet offers the fastest way to set up online payment on your website and accept credit cards, debit cards, bank transfers, and e wallet.

  • They offer 24/hr application approval.
  • PCI Compliance for customer data.
  • Automatic fraud screening per transaction.
  • View a secure and detailed record of your Allied Wallet transactions
  • Integrate Allied Wallet data with your back-office systems, using a secure FTP server connection
  • 4 Types of payment buttons: Shopping cart, Membership (re-bill), Virtual Terminal and E-Wallet.

Contact me for more Information about setting up an account with Allied Wallet.

Christa@alliedwallet.com or Cluvnow@gmail.com

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GTBill is a great solution for your Adult billing needs named Best Billing Company Of The Year 2010- IPSP by XBIZ.com.

GTBill offers one of the lowest rates in the industry, They do not charge any setup fees and they pay out weekly. In addition they offer 24/hour support, white label gateways, Nat’s integration, white label payment pages (example www.hotspoon.com), Easy Integration, Flawless Security, 24/7 Customer Service and much more.

Contact me to get your account set up today.

Christa@gtbill.com or Cluvnow@gmail.com