141–150 of 180 posts
We're what's broken. Our prudish approach to adult entertainment. "Joe" would have a happier life if he and his wife were open about how much money they were each spending on porn. They might learn something about each other. Hiding it in layers of shell billing companies isn't just ridiculous at the technical level described here, it's unhealthy . Also needs to be noted that —as others have said— card processing com…
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Yes, definitely. I barely use Bitcoins or other cryptocurrencies at all (because USD works great for everything I do), but cryptocurrencies are perfect for this industry because they are - fast enough. 15 minutes to validate a transaction is sufficient for a porn site. - as certain as wiring money. There's no chance a customer can force money back from you once paid. - anonymous. Your wife won't find out in a bank st…
> anonymous. Your wife won't find out in a bank statement, so less chance of "fake-angry" customers trying to force money back. Right, she'll think you're buying drugs instead when she sees the charge for cryptocurrency.
> To those of you spreading the "you're admitting to fraud" comments, you're the reason we can't have nice things.
I fail to see how this forced you to remove the post.
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> Porn performers/activists are the kindest, sweetest, most intelligent group of folks I've ever worked with. I'm finding it difficult to believe this given that it's known that pornography is known to be an industry riddled with violence, hard drugs, human trafficking and so on and so forth. Edit: As soon as I posted this I see the other commenter outed you as having an inherent benefit from tricking people into bel…
Should we consider banking a disreputable industry because of actors like Goldman Sachs? Should we consider mining a disreputable industry because of the deaths and cover ups? How about human trafficking for diamond mines? Should we consider the jewelry industry disreputable? How iPhone productions and Foxconn? Seriously the list can go on, every industry has parts of it that are less than reputable. If you think por…
Absolutely yes.
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I wouldn't necessarily hold it against anyone working in porn so much as working in the porn industry. The porn industry is violently against even basic things like condom use (and the list continues). Such resistance tends to mean justifying things with excuses. Since compromising would be to admit to responsibility. So why should I trust that someone working in such an environment isn't going to treat private data,…
> The porn industry is violently against even basic things like condom use THAT is a matter of profitability, whatever else you may think. SMH I have to wonder what's wrong with people who think there's some other motives.
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> Porn performers/activists are the kindest, sweetest, most intelligent group of folks I've ever worked with. I'm finding it difficult to believe this given that it's known that pornography is known to be an industry riddled with violence, hard drugs, human trafficking and so on and so forth. Edit: As soon as I posted this I see the other commenter outed you as having an inherent benefit from tricking people into bel…
Should we consider banking a disreputable industry because of actors like Goldman Sachs? Should we consider mining a disreputable industry because of the deaths and cover ups? How about human trafficking for diamond mines? Should we consider the jewelry industry disreputable? How iPhone productions and Foxconn? Seriously the list can go on, every industry has parts of it that are less than reputable. If you think por…
And Wells Fargo. And Bank of America. And HSBC. But yes, any one of them is enough.
Mining is disreputable because of endemic pollution externalities and worker safety violations. Jewelry is disreputable from cartelization and the FUD regarding synthetics. Foxconn is disreputable because of worker suicides and the Chinese government's apparent political interest in advancing its high-tech manufacturing by any means necessary.
Prurient businesses are disreputable for several reasons, and one of them is the self-reinforcing reason that they are forced into using grey-market payments processors, because their industry is disreputable with respect to customer payments fraud.
So you don't purchase gemstones as investments, you don't let Goldman Sachs handle your IPO without a lot of scrutiny and supervision, and you don't trust the clay lining under the mine's leach pond. And you don't let adult entertainment businesses do card-not-present transactions. The industry attracts bad actors because there's money in it, demand is high, customers have their respectability masks off, and it has less personal accountability than other types of work.
The businesses that have a reputation problem regarding its suppliers getting paid reliably are going to have the worst problems. Everyone else can clean up their problems with lawyers after the fact, with the money they have already been paid, but if your problem can prevent you from getting paid in the first place...
Goldman Sachs never has that problem. Ensuring they always get paid first is apparently part of their culture. That's why they're always the ones making out like bandits while everyone else is dropping like flies. They might stab you in the back, but they won't ever fold up and collapse underneath you. Their office will always be open to accept your civil complaint or welcome the regulator/examiner or government's attorney. And their corporate executives will always be eager to repay your Secretary of the Treasury nomination, or seat on the Fed board of governors, with truckloads of hard money and soft money to support your political campaigns. They might not be reputable, but they are respectable.
Prurient business lacks even that, for the very reasons you mention. If you don't have the respect, you will never get the reputation, no matter how reliable you may be.
Quite often, the AVN Expo had better actual technical content than CES (which was held at the same time).
The porn industry was the first to adopt videodiscs, VHS, DVD, handheld cameras, the web, online payments, etc. Basically, if any new technology was useful for porn, it was going to catch on.
We're what's broken. Our prudish approach to adult entertainment. "Joe" would have a happier life if he and his wife were open about how much money they were each spending on porn. They might learn something about each other. Hiding it in layers of shell billing companies isn't just ridiculous at the technical level described here, it's unhealthy . Also needs to be noted that —as others have said— card processing com…
Your assertion regarding adult CNP risk is incorrect, they do in fact have much higher levels of fraud and chargebacks. The card networks came down on this category because of chargebacks, not because porn is bad. I would also point out Adult CNP is far from the only category to get this treatment, but they are one of the only high risk categories that have four major banks more than happy to take their business. Tra…
"Adult merchants are more likely to have chargebacks" is akin to saying "Blacks are more likely to commit violent crimes". In terms of overall statistics, it's factually true, but there's still something reprehensible about judging individuals this way.
When I was at kink.com (10 years ago), our chargeback rate was tiny - lower than most online businesses, and nowhere near yellow flag territory. Yet despite our long history of good citizenship, we were still lumped into the high-risk category. Visa rules only allow banks to process a certain percentage of their volume as "high-risk", so getting merchant accounts which could handle our payment volume was a major challenge.
We have the tools to judge individuals and businesses by actions, not as members of arbitrary groups. Sure some businesses may deserve some initial extra scrutiny, but at some point your history should speak for itself.
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My point is the issue is not as black and white as you are making it out to be (hence, don't be an alarmist). All things are subject to interpretation and your position attempts to definitively categorize this activity as fraudulent behavior based on a 1000 word essay by a developer.
Cascade billing was literally named by the Backpage prosecution as money laundering.
Or are you saying the psuedo-crypto currency is money laundering?
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Last time I bought a prepaid card (I believe it was Visa), to register it I had to be looked up in the credit card database. As I did not have a credit card at the time (hence buying the prepaid card), I was not in the database, so they would not sell me the card.
What is “the credit card database?” What country is this? In the US we only have credit reports, which are tied to SSN. Do you mean you had to give your SSN to receive a prepaid card? That doesn’t seem right.