But, I am more curious than anything else. If you want to make sure you are doing business with who they say they are, that's fine by me.

But still...my above question :)

On a more serious note…

I'm a corporation so I don't ever have to give out my personal information and don't have any problem with showing my corp papers to anyone that I do biz with.

But what kind of fraudulent activity can someone do with getting paid by ePassporte? I mean I log into my account and tell someone to pay me to my ePassporte account. What am I missing here? Besides saying send my payment to this account what else could I do?

I'm betting that some fraud or excessive chargebacks or something along those lines was found AFTER a webmaster was paid via ePassporte & they can't get the money back.

This is not a big deal - just because we work on the internet does not mean that everything has to have this anonymous feel to it.

Like I said, if you worked in the ARS offices (or any other sponsor for that matter) they'd have all this info already.

Jim,

GG hit the nail on the head. I don't really want to go into details on a public forum as it's a large ongoing investigation but let's just say there was some not too nice activities occuring across a multitude of Epassporte accounts. While it's true I don't really care how/what webmasters do with their money once we send it to them be it offshore corps, etc that's their problem, but when they utilize an offshore anonymous entity to defraud the program that's whole other game.

Cleo, again don't really want to let the cat outta the bag how we caught this but it's not hard to have multiple epassporte accounts... see where I'm going with this?

Correct, in this case unfortunately when you tried and weed out the bad seeds you have to inconvenience all of those using the system, but just think of all the time you save every week from visiting the bank ;)

But I like to flirt with the girls at the bank. :D

I think this is a relatively right decision, but I think better strict the original ePassporte verification. I hate the carders and money targeted hackers.

I don't use epass with ARS, but would have no problem giving this kind of info to any reputable sponsor.

Agree with Greenie...this is a no big deal thing to me.

I don't really see any problem with this. They are in the unfortunate position of dealing with people who hold multiple accounts. This puts them at risk of violating Patriot Act rules concerning money laundering.

I can't so much as send a $500 wire to Russia (from Canada) without a NYC bank calling me to verify why I am sending it thanks to these rules. And yes, photo id is required despite my bank having my blood type, shoe size and satellite photos of my last 3 boyfriend's homes.

By covering their own ass, they are proving to us that they are serious about their longevity and commitment to our industry.

I don't use ARS, but it's pretty much the standard flow of how the adult biz works. Scammers find a loophole to cheat the system, someone finds out, new rules are put into place to stop the scam. Unfortunately honest webmasters get grouped in with the cheaters when the new rules get put into place.

I don't really blame ARS for taking steps to prevent whatever cheating is occurring. Also, if you don't want to put your id on, just get a check instead...it doesn't seem like a biggie to me.

Moral of the story: Cheaters suck and they make it inconvenient for everyone.

at least they gave us a couple weeks warning

I get it now...
I was thinking tax problems or the like.

I can totally see how tax issues would be a major problem.. we've been hit with some pretty hefty fines.. b/c tax ids no longer match a paid to...

Me too :) When I had Ultracash, I wanted to report paying foreign webmasters. Our software spit out 1099s for everyone and put all "0s" for non US webmasters. I sent them to the IRS and they fined me $20 for each one. It ended up being over a $20k fine. The thing is, before they let me know, it was another time for taxes and I did it again (not knowing it was wrong). They never did or said anything about them. I guess it just depends on who or what is doing the 1099s on any particular day. :)

i'm having dejavu... except .. the $20 each was on US webmasters!!!

now we constantly have people updating their pay to info to some foreign entity.. and then wonder why we have to hold payment b/c their old tax id gets kicked back by the irs... for a no longer working tax id... I think there are lots of people getting bad tax advice from friends and boards.. not realizing that just moving their company offshore.. does not let them not pay US taxes.. ifthey still live here...

LOL yeah I'm not sure where everyone got this idea that you didn't have to pay taxes if you just created offshore corps everything would be fine and dandy, yeah, that works great if you MOVE offshore and don't plan on coming back.

Actually there is a way for US companies to avoid taxes on foreign generated revenue from a subsidary corp registered in a foreign country, they still have to be reported but there is a structuring method that reduces them significantly though I doubt most making the move are doing it properly...

avoid? or defer???

That's correct...but if a sponsor is from out of the US and is paying you through an offshore bank, you are basically running a cash business, right?

So, like any other cash business, you need to report that cash you receive :) Kind of like tips if you are a waiter :) Or the guy down the street from me that I buy motorcycle parts from. For some reason, if I pay him cash, the price is cheaper and I get no receipt :) But I know he must be reporting that income ;)

It got much worse for me. My accountant contacted the IRS and assured them that we would be sending corrected 1099s. So again, I heard nothing from the IRS until it was too late. I paid the accountant for the new 1099s but they failed to send them to the IRS. The accountant said he did, the IRS said they never received them so...I was screwed twice.

Well neither really, you still pay taxes to your local authority, you're just not subject to US Corp taxes. I shouldn't have mentioned it, its off topic anyway. Also, its not an easy thing to do either. You have to have foriegn agents, and officers, and you'd still pay US taxes on dividends received which is how the revenue is paid out. Bottom line just pay your reasonable taxes. People scamming are just asking for trouble and in this ever increasing electronic world you're likely to get caught. Stick to the old rules... CASH IS KING |thumb

This is a fraud prevention measure and if it became an industry wide practice then it would benifit everyone long term.

If you can't prove you are who you say you are then something ain't right.

I could never understand why people got so upset by this. You want someone to pay you thousands of dollars, well, what is wrong with them verifying you are who you claim to be?

It still amazes me how many affiliate companies out there still file 1099s in violation of the IRS rules when they are paying a corporation instead of a person - and either just havent been audited yet or are just waiting for that needless filing fine thats gonna get levied on them. Sure seems like a waste of money and time to me