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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

#81

Post by mrweasel »

kennydude wrote: post #39
philip1209 wrote: post #25

Some questions: - Would ACH solve an issue like this? There are some clean interfaces (e.g. Plaid), and chargebacks are not trivial. - Would 3-D secure solve the chargeback problem? As I understand it, it shifts liability to the consumer, not the business. - Is blockchain being adopted anywhere for micropayments like this?

> Would ACH solve an issue like this? Still doesn't solve the problem of people with shared accounts and then one half pays for porn without telling the other. It happens so often UK banks have ways of looking up subscriptions. People would reverse the transaction, still enjoy porn and the company goes out of business. > Would 3-D secure solve the chargeback problem? As far as I know, that's a European only thing? It…

One of the points of 3D Secure is that it shifts the responsibility from the sells to the card company or bank, not necessarily the customer. So I don't believe the bank has much incentive to do a chargeback, as they will be the ones covering it.

Also I don't believe chargeback on a 3D Secured transaction doesn't count as a strike towards the seller, not to sure about that one though. It would seem reasonable not to count it, seeing as the seller was in good faith, and the card company claims to have verified the buyer... but the rules of online credit card payment are anything but fair.

Re: Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

#82

Post by moneylaundering »

oliwarner wrote: post #69

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. Travel sites, dating sites, and other high risk CNP merchants don’t have the same benefit.

The techniques described in this article are exactly why issuers block transactions. Merchants are trying to force transactions that are likely to be charged back by engaging in increasingly elaborate, and likely illegal, schemes.

If you’re operating a legitimate adult CNP site, there are plenty of options available to you and the adult-focused processors will hold your hand through rejecting sketchy charges even if it means lower up front revenues.

I have seen bad actors open up fake porn sites to obtain processing for their illegal activities because adult processing for legitimate sites is that available.

Edit:typos

Re: Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

#83

Post by chatmasta »

skykooler wrote: post #70
scarface74 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Re: Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

#84

Post by mrweasel »

gonzo41 wrote: post #3

Two thoughts about all this pop up. You'd think porn companies would charge with sensible names? And I'm surprised Stripe wouldn't build an off brand company to handle this part of the market. Seems like it's just giving up on a lot of money for 'reasons' Though similar problems exist in business for things like weed companies. Banks don't want to touch em.

As is pointed out in the article, the issue is the chargebacks. If you have to many, the credit card processing company (I don't know who Stripe uses) will close your account. Both MasterCard and VISA will also shut you down if you have to many charge backs, or to much fraud.

Stripe would have to setup an entirely separate legal entity to do this. Otherwise they would risk not being able to process ANY card transaction, because the porn sites have to many chargebacks. It would potentially be a risk to their primary business.

I think Stripe is "giving up" on the money for the same reason many others are: It's simply not worth the hassle. If you have a nice income doing payments for non-adult sites, why bother?

Re: Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

#85

Post by mrweasel »

wodenokoto wrote: post #26
krapp wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You'd think porn companies would charge with sensible names? If they're doing legal business, why should they?

For the same reason porn magazine aren't delivered in see-through plastic like other magazines and instead are delivered in white envelopes.

I don't know where you live, but porn magazines are in see-through plastic, just like other magazines. They're just on the top shelf, that's all.

Re: Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

#86

Post by rbinv »

marikio wrote: post #71

There are a few companies/orgs trying to solve these issues: https://spankchain.com/ https://www.iliac.io/ But porn doesn't have high margins. No one (except the large distributors like Mindgeek - Pornhub, Redtube, YouPorn) is making much money. Especially these small sites that are being built. After you subtract legal, production, performer fees you're left with almost nothing. I worked in the Adult Industry for se…

iliac seems to be your very own venture. A disclaimer would have been nice.

In what form exactly hasn't the industry been "financially stable" for you and why? As a contractor? As an employee?

Re: Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

#88

Post by segmondy »

As someone in the payment industry, find a processor/payfac that specializes in this. They handle all that complexity, they will have multiple processors/banks in the backend to find out who will accept the card. Your frustration is due to lack of who to use, all the pros use such processors. It's pretty much transparent, they also have massive fraud systems, and since they process for tons of sites, if they notice a card doing fraud/multiple chargebacks across different sites, they put a stop to it quickly.

Re: Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

#89

Post by pavel_lishin »

vortico wrote: post #44
Rjevski wrote: post #23

Seems like cryptocurrencies would be the way to go for this.

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…

> The disadvantage is that most people don't know how to use crypto.

To expand on this, it's hard to turn crypto into rent. You mentioned the friendly online wallets - they're almost a necessity if you want to accept bitcoin, and then turn it into fiat currency.

The idea of directly paying content producers is great (mumble mumble some middlemen do add value), but it doesn't do them much good if they can't buy a gallon of milk or a pair of shoes.

Re: Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

#90

Post by philtar »

marikio wrote: post #71

There are a few companies/orgs trying to solve these issues: https://spankchain.com/ https://www.iliac.io/ But porn doesn't have high margins. No one (except the large distributors like Mindgeek - Pornhub, Redtube, YouPorn) is making much money. Especially these small sites that are being built. After you subtract legal, production, performer fees you're left with almost nothing. I worked in the Adult Industry for se…

> 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 believing pornography is a reputable industry.

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