The Exotic Matrix wrote:
If you're selling prints/downloads of your photos online, you can also use something like this:  www.exposuremanager.com.  You upload your photos to their server,  you set your own prices, the customer orders online and pays by credit card, and the lab sends you a check for your profit.  I've got mine setup to accept deposits for shoots as well.  Seems to be working well for me so far.

Be careful, services such as Yahoo, MSN, MySpace, etc ... which offer "groups" are allowed useage of your content submitted.  As to what I remember about Yahoo groups ... they even sold select images for their own profit.  Also picture hosting services such as PhotoBucket allow the free distrubution of your images.  Having your own website and control of your sales through your own merchnat account is still the best way.  Some of the same companies that provide the zon machines at traditional business locations are also able to provide the e-commerce merchant accounts too.  The one I use happens to specialize in e-commerce though.

Darren Green wrote:
I use Verisign for online transactions.

Your money gets tied up for about a week but it's safe as hell!

They charge way too much for all their services!  I use http://www.godaddy.com for my domain names .. only 8.95 vs a much larger sum of money.  Adds up when you own over 100 domain names like I do.  But I don't use Godaddy for hosting ... I trust my own dedicated server set up in Fort Knox for that.  It would take a nuclear strike on the Marine base to take out my server!  LOL  It's more expensive, but well worth it! 

Of course I need to keep in mind that a strom took out OMP's servers for 10 days!  So never say never!

"Be careful, services such as Yahoo, MSN, MySpace, etc ... which offer "groups" are allowed useage of your content submitted.  As to what I remember about Yahoo groups ... they even sold select images for their own profit.  Also picture hosting services such as PhotoBucket allow the free distrubution of your images.  Having your own website and control of your sales through your own merchnat account is still the best way.  Some of the same companies that provide the zon machines at traditional business locations are also able to provide the e-commerce merchant accounts too.  The one I use happens to specialize in e-commerce though."[


I'm not sure where Yahoo, etc., came into the picture.  Exposuremanager is a pro photo lab, offering services.  They do charge a fee, and are extrememly safe.  Yahoo and MSN groups are NOT safe!

I use Paycom for my paysites, as that's the one my affiliates use.  Our group as a whole does somewhere around $1.1 million per month, so they treat us well.

Patrick Walberg wrote:
I am not offering solutions, only education.

I am in the process of activating a VeriSign SSL cert for an e-commerce portal.  Knowing full well it costs more, why did I choose them over GoDaddy?

The Exotic Matrix wrote:

Be careful, services such as Yahoo, MSN, MySpace, etc ... which offer "groups" are allowed useage of your content submitted.  As to what I remember about Yahoo groups ... they even sold select images for their own profit.  Also picture hosting services such as PhotoBucket allow the free distrubution of your images.  Having your own website and control of your sales through your own merchnat account is still the best way.  Some of the same companies that provide the zon machines at traditional business locations are also able to provide the e-commerce merchant accounts too.  The one I use happens to specialize in e-commerce though."[


I'm not sure where Yahoo, etc., came into the picture.  Exposuremanager is a pro photo lab, offering services.  They do charge a fee, and are extrememly safe.  Yahoo and MSN groups are NOT safe!

I use Paycom for my paysites, as that's the one my affiliates use.  Our group as a whole does somewhere around $1.1 million per month, so they treat us well.

http://www.lawncafe.com/showthread.php?p=92406  that's the first thing that popped up when I googled Paycom.

Paycom has a serious lawsuit coming up.  But they are typical of third party providers.  I would rather not deal with third party billing providers.  It is so bad that Visa has put a moratorium on allowing anymore third party companies to exist. 

I am NOT talking about using a third party CC provider. It is never safe!  I am talking about doing the most common thing that business people did before the Internet ... that is to have your own merchant account.  We can have a merchant account and avoid giving our hard earned money to the third party billing providers that would rather we not learn how to do it ourselves.  Sure there are affiliate programs ... Paypal and Ebay are the largest of those.  But an affiliate program is something you can start yourself.  There are also many other ways of getting traffic.  I can tell you how, but not here.

area291 wrote:

I am in the process of activating a VeriSign SSL cert for an e-commerce portal.  Knowing full well it costs more, why did I choose them over GoDaddy?

I don't know?  Why did you choose them over godaddy?  I bough a SSL certificate from godaddy.com because I've been happy with their prices and services since 2002 after I found out that Veirsign was charging me 3X's the amount for domain names.  However, I would not use godaddy for hosting ... but we all have choices.  Just because I use godaddy, and you use Verisign ... at least we are learning something about the business!  Having an SSL certifiicate is a very important element of getting your own merchant account.  Good luck to you!

The Exotic Matrix wrote:
When I referred to "affiliate" I wasn't talking about affiliate sites like you're thinking.  My bad.....  I should have said our marketing group.  We have about 750 different sites under one umbrella. 

And I do agree that 3rd party billing companies aren't great, but adult sites have a higher rate of credits and chargebacks, and banks tend to steer away from them.  We had a hard time even getting a bank to direct deposit our payroll checks.

Yes, marketing groups are great!  In my opinion, the 3rd party billing business exists because those sort of companies found a niche where people are either uneducated, or too lazy to do the things neccesary to get a merchant account.  I'm not saying that nobody should ever use third party billers, I still have my Paypal account ... but rarely use it. 

Many of the third party billing companies are not even legal.  The big name ones are not perfect, but they serve a purpose.  Porn sites are hard to get billing for, but what I am doing is to bring models who are 16 or older, and do not do porn in a group.  I do have a model profile site that will not compete with Model Mayhem or OMP, it will be different than any other profile site out there.  It's pretty exciting to be alive today! 

David A wrote:
The only reason I can see to use a provider other than a merchant account is credit.  Got bad credit, maybe these other options are better.  If you've got good credit it's no problem.  I got my first merchant account when I was 21.  It was no problem.  I don't understand why someone would let a middle man get involved with their transactions.

Bad credit is a problem for some for sure.  The other thing I forgot to mention is that models who do paid webcam chats are not going to get an account ... at least through the bank I'm using.

lightscapes wrote:
Please clarify something for me.

I have a company that sells exotic computer hardware globally (ie. stuff you can't find in stores) and I've been warned to be wary about dealing direct with Visa or MC because although they may approve a credit card initially, they may later come back and say that card was fraudulent. Unfortunately, by then I've shipped out the system(s) to my customer, so I'm left high and dry and I've got no recourse to recover my money. Has anyone else had similar experiences or know what I'm talking about? Once Visa approves a transaction, are they legally bound to pay me or can they come back later and refuse based on the fraudulent card? That's what I need clarification for.

I can't afford to be losing money to fraud, so that's the reason for Visa/MC/Amex I've been using 3rd party companies such as escrow.com,  paypal.com, etc. I've not had any problems with either company in the time I've used them (despite what has been said about PayPal's earlier practises). I know they both charge a bit extra, but the peace of mind escrow.com affords me is worth it. Of course, I also accept cheques, money orders, wire transfer, cash, etc. Credit card purchases have always been a bit trickier for me so I'm glad to see this thread. ;-)

Thanks.

You don't deal directly with Visa/MC, instead you have a gateway that is a part of your merchant account.  Authorize.net is the number one gateway in my opinion.  Your gateway is provided along with your merchant account.  You log in to the control panel and have instant access to all the pertinent information with a break down as to batch's, etc. AND the ability for you to refund on a card when the customer contacts you regarding their purchase.  here is a key difference ... instead of the customer complaining to the third party, they have to go directly to you.  In my case, I have handled customer support and taken care of my customers directly.  If someone attempts to make a purchase with a stolen card, it should have been reported to the card company. If it is a reported card, it would be rejected at your gateway by Visa/MC before the purchase would be accepted. 

Having your own merchant account allows you to deal with things that Paypal and others wont help you with.  You want to have access to each transaction on your control panel so that you can avoid "charge backs" ... I have handled thousands of transactions so far with only one customer complain that their card had been stolen. Even though I had my doubts,  I refunded the money rather fight them over it.  One "stolen card" out of thousands is not bad!

Patrick Walberg wrote:
You don't deal directly with Visa/MC, instead you have a gateway that is a part of your merchant account.  Authorize.net is the number one gateway in my opinion.  Your gateway is provided along with your merchant account.  You log in to the control panel and have instant access to all the pertinent information with a break down as to batch's, etc. AND the ability for you to refund on a card when the customer contacts you regarding their purchase.  here is a key difference ... instead of the customer complaining to the third party, they have to go directly to you.  In my case, I have handled customer support and taken care of my customers directly.  If someone attempts to make a purchase with a stolen card, it should have been reported to the card company. If it is a reported card, it would be rejected at your gateway by Visa/MC before the purchase would be accepted. 

Having your own merchant account allows you to deal with things that Paypal and others wont help you with.  You want to have access to each transaction on your control panel so that you can avoid "charge backs" ... I have handled thousands of transactions so far with only one customer complain that their card had been stolen. Even though I had my doubts,  I refunded the money rather fight them over it.  One "stolen card" out of thousands is not bad!

Oh one more thing ... Authorize.net is my gateway. Third Party billing providers are in control of the gateway when you use them.  A "gateway" is different than the merchant provider.  If I were to have gone directly with Authorize.net, it would have cost me more to set up the gateway first than by having the merchant account get set up first with adding Authorize.net as the gateway next.

lightscapes wrote:
Pat, thanks for the info. I went to the site and it looks good. However, I couldn't find any info on their percentages. Then I tried to sign up to see if it will tell me the percentages charged but it said I need to call or send them a note to sign up (which I've done).  Are you a reseller with this site?

You are welcome.   I think you are talking about Authorize.net which is the "gateway" ... it's costly setting up your gateway first.  Authorize.net will charge you and then you still have to find a "merchant account provider!"  But I have not posted the merchant account provider.  First, I'm a customer using Authorize.net and the merchant account provider.  I am a reseller for the merchant account provider.  I wish to deal directly with those people interested as so to keep track of those who contact them as a result of my post here.  You have to message me for more information.  The percentages vary depending on your website/product and the bank they get for you.  Ok, I'll message you some more information .... 

Note: the purpose of my post is NOT to promote any one company, but to get people to google "merchant account providers" to see that we do have many choices.  Also I wish to educate people about the differences between third party billing providers (Paypal, CCbill ... etc) and having your own merchant account set up.   It's the third party billers that get the higher percentages (think of them as the "Quick Check Cashers" of the Internet!)