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Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

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Re: Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

#61

Post by akanet »

caruana wrote: post #56
akanet wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your mistake is in thinking that the money laundering is achieved by, say, generating a credit card charge for FOO when the item sold was BAR. Not so - the money laundering is in opening many merchant accounts purporting to be for selling FOO, generating profit sanitized as "clean," moving those profits between banks, and essentially deceiving payment processors to generate a profit. This was, in fact, one of the act…

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.

Re: Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

#62

Post by phkahler »

bumholio wrote: post #31
LarryL wrote: post #17

The title of the article is misleading, it's not programming that is the real issue, it's billing (the progamming issues are just a part in the article). Since the Credit Card companies & banks create lots of problems as soon as sex is involved (see FetLife's misadventures in HN previous articles for instance) in addition to the big chargebacks issue, and given that customers lie a lot (because they can), I think tha…

The problem with this approach, and the related proposals like 3D Secure and Bitcoin, is precisely that it puts a low ceiling on what the site is allowed to charge to exactly what the customer is willing to spend on porn. The bread and butter of porn and most other internet subscription models is to get hold of the consumer credit card data and then setup a long run recurring payment stream, on the expectation that w…

If there was a prepaid card that make these payments easy and even anonymous, I'd spend a lot more on the internet. I refuse to get into subscriptions. I pass on a lot of articles that I'd like to read. A prepaid card that not connected to my finances and widely usable? If drop a hundred on it today. How many people like me will it take to have this make sense?

Re: Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

#63

Post by akanet »

bumholio wrote: post #60
akanet wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are being silly - breach of contract to deceive payment processors IS wire fraud and bank fraud, which are specific named federal crimes which cover exactly this use case. If you like, here's an excerpt from the Backpage indictment: "the People now allege that Defendants conspired to orchestrate a bank fraud by misrepresenting to credit payment processors that they were not processing transactions from Backpage,…

I think you should carefully read your quote - it includes the word "Backpage" four times, as in the illegal source of funds that created the laundry opportunity . Breach of contract with payment processors is certainly NOT wire fraud by itself, that's an absurd statement.

You're weirdly stuck on this "breach of contract superseding federal crimes" thing but uh, I don't know what to tell you. This scheme is clearly wire fraud. Defrauding a payment processor out of money, over wires, is wire fraud. It's also bank fraud when you lie to your bank about what your merchant account is for, which is another prerequisite for these schemes usually.

Re: Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

#64

Post by scarface74 »

phkahler wrote: post #62
bumholio wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this approach, and the related proposals like 3D Secure and Bitcoin, is precisely that it puts a low ceiling on what the site is allowed to charge to exactly what the customer is willing to spend on porn. The bread and butter of porn and most other internet subscription models is to get hold of the consumer credit card data and then setup a long run recurring payment stream, on the expectation that w…

If there was a prepaid card that make these payments easy and even anonymous, I'd spend a lot more on the internet. I refuse to get into subscriptions. I pass on a lot of articles that I'd like to read. A prepaid card that not connected to my finances and widely usable? If drop a hundred on it today. How many people like me will it take to have this make sense?

All prepaid cards are anonymous. You pay for the card with cash.

Re: Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

#65

Post by moneylaundering »

caruana wrote: post #56
akanet wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your mistake is in thinking that the money laundering is achieved by, say, generating a credit card charge for FOO when the item sold was BAR. Not so - the money laundering is in opening many merchant accounts purporting to be for selling FOO, generating profit sanitized as "clean," moving those profits between banks, and essentially deceiving payment processors to generate a profit. This was, in fact, one of the act…

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.

I work on money laundering cases. What the poster admitted to doing, particularly in the comments section, reads like money laundering. I have used emails more vague than this write-up against defendants in money laundering cases. The underlying crime would be bank fraud, wire fraud, or mail fraud, or all three, depending on how a particular merchant account was opened, how transactions were processed, and who the parties to a contract are (if a financial institution, then bank fraud, and so on).

Re: Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

#67

Post by stef25 »

akanet wrote: post #14

This article is extremely alarming. The process the author is calling "cascade billing" is money laundering. This exact process of disguising the nature of transactions to get banking institutions to transfer funds is literally what the feds took down Backpage for recently. I am very familiar with the details of that case and am surprised to see someone be so cavalier with the details publicly. Many adult services pr…

Buy a t-shirt and get access to my members only blog / porn site.

I can see how it's against the rules of the payment provider but this wouldn't be fraud would it?

Re: Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

#68

Post by stef25 »

pjc50 wrote: post #4

The big "legit" payment provider is cc-bill. The "tube" sites are more exploitative than the rest of the industry in that they don't actually pay the performers, they're simply piracy, and because small independent producers don't have the political leverage to impose an equivalent of content-ID on them they stay that way.

The tube sites have (official?) channels for all the big porn studios + they have this "verified amateur" feature as well. That's not all piracy afaik.

Re: Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

#69

Post by oliwarner »

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 companies need to get the hell out of the way and just deal with money at a fair risk level. Adult entertainment is higher risk than a card-present or delivered transaction, but absolutely no worse than your Netflix subscription. Considerably less risky than the in-app junk that Adyen happily underwrites ("My toddler bought this without my permission, waaa").

Re: Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

#70

Post by skykooler »

scarface74 wrote: post #64
phkahler wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there was a prepaid card that make these payments easy and even anonymous, I'd spend a lot more on the internet. I refuse to get into subscriptions. I pass on a lot of articles that I'd like to read. A prepaid card that not connected to my finances and widely usable? If drop a hundred on it today. How many people like me will it take to have this make sense?

All prepaid cards are anonymous. You pay for the card with cash.

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.
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