Warning to other CCBill users

[Torn Rose]

I was just looking over my stats today and noticed a returned online check. What struck me odd is the fact that I have not offered the online checking option in at least 2 years. I removed the online checking option since 1/3 of them are fraud and I got sick of the easy access thieves were getting.

So I look up the transaction number thinking this guy has been recurring for the last few years, and oddly enough, he just joined July 23 2005. Thinking I fucked up, I go to my site to see if I still had the checking option up and confirmed I didn’t. So I am at a loss since this sub account has been in use for 2 years or so and never had the online check option to this sub account posted on my site.

So I call CCBill and explain the situation, and after a few minutes the CCBill tech asked if I had an affiliate program (Different sub account) and anything else, and I explain that is sub account is used ONLY for our main site so I can track them.

He is at a loss to explain what happen.

So I ask to make sure all online checking options on all my sub accounts are removed, and I know there are people out there who, like us, removed the linking to the online CCBill check options from their sites, but as this proves, you need to have CCBill remove the access as well.

And it just dawned on me as I was writing this on how this was done, all he has to do is look at the source on the join page and copy and past the join buttons and replace the “cc” with “ck” so from what I can see the only way to make sure this doesn’t happen is have CCBill remove the online checking option if you do not want it to be used.

[juggernaut]

This is good Info to know. I never take checks, to risky. I did get alot of errors today with ccbill in the admin section looking up stuff. Man I hope they get all these problems fixed from the past few months.

[kalle7]

Thanks for the info Torn. I will contact CCBill regardning this and have them to remove the option for my sites as well.

[hincapie]

Thanks for the info.

[Cleo]

FoxyAngel does take checks and doesn't have any problems with them.

[Simon]

We take them at Fetish Club too, and pay affiliate commissions on them, with no problems regarding fraud... at least nothing more than we see on check and telephone orders.

Did you really see that much check fraud when you used that option?

[Cleo]

FoxyAngel does not get a lot of chargebacks but after looking through her stats almost all of the chargebacks were from credit cards. In fact I don't see any from checks at all.

[Torn Rose]

The few years we did accept online checks our returned check for them was easily 30%, compared to .4% in credit card chargeback.

We stopped offering them since I think CCBill’s scrub policy in regards to online checks makes it way to easy for people to signup under false names (Harry Bawls, Jay Feidler (the day after he signed a large contract with the Dolphins) and even a H. Jay Simpson) and so they get free access for a few days and then when it finally processes and finds out that it is indeed false information and kills the username, they have already had access to our site for 3-4 days and once the username is killed they just do it again.

I would say 50% of all returned checks that we have had are from 2 people who just repeated the process over and over and a few times posted their usernames on password boards so we lost a lot of BW over nothing.

I just wanted to point this out to people who no longer offer online checking so when/if it does happen they know how and why and what they can do to stop it.

[lassiter]

Originally Posted by Torn

The few years we did accept online checks our returned check for them was easily 30%, compared to .4% in credit card chargeback.

Y'know, when we had a small selection of paysites (now closed), we went through three different third-party billers, and I remember that every one of 'em promoted the online check option as a selling point - explaining that "unlike CCs, you don't incur chargeback problems with online checks." This seemed absurd to me at the time, but every one of the sales people there insisted that they were so much better and safer.

[juggernaut]

Originally Posted by lassiter

This seemed absurd to me at the time, but every one of the sales people there insisted that they were so much better and safer.

LOL agreed. lol My online checking account allows me to cancel a check online or well you can just call the bank. For mysite cam shows thats a total no no. Right after the show, cancel check. sureeeeee. Took that option off the site with in 3 hours of getting sign up with ccbill lol. Never again lol

[Verbal]

Originally Posted by juggernaut

LOL agreed. lol My online checking account allows me to cancel a check online or well you can just call the bank. For mysite cam shows thats a total no no. Right after the show, cancel check. sureeeeee. Took that option off the site with in 3 hours of getting sign up with ccbill lol. Never again lol

That sucks Juggernaut... I was always under the impression checks were less prone to fraud, but apparently not, erf. Don't Cam sites see a bit higher chargeback ratio in general though?

[juggernaut]

Oh with out a doubt I would think Cam sites see more CB. As far as checks being less prone to fraud, well I would think the other way around. I am never asked for any id when using one. Or a credit card for that matter in stores. But I would think online. Its just a whole nightmare. Most banks are not even processing the checks on a friday or saturday night until monday morning. And as long as someone has money i their bank account I would think the online processor would process the payment. But how hard is it for a person to call the bank and say they just found out someone stole a check from there house or something. I think the nightmares that come with them are not worth the risk unless you are some huge huge company processing them online an can afford to eat the CB from them.

[Useless]

At my bank, it's a huge ordeal to cancel a check, even if it's stolen. I'm surprised that there are chargebacks from checks at all.

[Torn Rose]

A returned check and a chargeback are two different things.

Basically these guys are using false information and either using their own checking account with a false name or just making one up and CCBill is giving them access until it is found out that it is false information and will not/can not process it.

The one good thing I can say about Ibill when we used them 4+ years ago is they took online checks but do not grant access to the site until the check has been processed a few days later.

I have asked CCBill many times to start doing this and received no reply.

[lassiter]

Originally Posted by Torn

The one good thing I can say about Ibill when we used them 4+ years ago is they took online checks but do not grant access to the site until the check has been processed a few days later.

Hmm, really? One of our main issues with iBill was that they would grant site access to our members' areas before a CC or check authorization even cleared, and if the check bounced or the CC turned out to be bogus, they wouldn't tell us and wouldn't cancel the username/password.
Needless to say, when checking the logs, those bouncers had d/l'd every smidgen of content off the sites before they were found out and shared the name/pass combination on every password site on the net. We never had a problem like that with our subsequent rebillers, ACPay and then Paycom/Epoch. Other problems, maybe, but not that one.

Every attempt of ours to deal with this issue with iBill was ignored or answered with actual hostility. That's why I shed no tears over their karma coming back to bite 'em in the ass over the past year (though I am sorry for the webmasters who got f*cked in the process).

[KCat]

Originally Posted by Torn

The one good thing I can say about Ibill when we used them 4+ years ago is they took online checks but do not grant access to the site until the check has been processed a few days later.

I have asked CCBill many times to start doing this and received no reply.

I don't understand this either. Conversions might be less if the customer knew they had to wait 3 or 4 days for the check to clear (less of an impluse buy), but I'd take lower conversions over the high fraud rate of checks any day.

Probilling was great for checks, but I think they had some visa trouble.

[Torn Rose]

Lassiter now you got me thinking... It might have been Globill who held the checks until they were processed, but I could have sworn it was Ibill. We didn’t use either of them for very long so it's hard to remember.

[lassiter]

Originally Posted by Torn

Lassiter now you got me thinking... It might have been Globill who held the checks until they were processed, but I could have sworn it was Ibill. We didn’t use either of them for very long so it's hard to remember.

I'm not at all meaning to imply you were wrong. Just that my experience was different.

[andrej_NDC]

this happens sometimes, as some surfers are clever enough to edit the ccbill code(for example to find a cheaper price, too), but its so rare, that its not worth to spend time on it

[Allfetish]

Originally Posted by Torn

Lassiter now you got me thinking... It might have been Globill who held the checks until they were processed, but I could have sworn it was Ibill. We didn’t use either of them for very long so it's hard to remember.

I don't think it was Globill. I had a paysite with them long ago and got the "Homer Simpson" joins as well. I'd say off the top of my head 40 - 60% were fraudulent.

Perhaps it'd be nice if they set up something like an ANI 800 dial-in number where someone can call in and confirm their membership and be given immediate access, all ogthers would have to wait. The number that the call was placed from could be compared to the number on the join form. At least then they'd have to have a valid number to reach them at.

[BillyWRN]

Originally Posted by Torn

Lassiter now you got me thinking... It might have been Globill who held the checks until they were processed, but I could have sworn it was Ibill. We didn’t use either of them for very long so it's hard to remember.

I believe it was Globill. That was the one and only thing I liked about their system. I think 3 or 4 days was a bit much, but at least you knew if you saw an online check transaction that it was cleared. Thanks for the info on CCBill BTW. I saw a check transaction show up today and was wondering wtf was going on, cause it was on an account that doesn't accept checks. Makes sense now.

[koolkat]

I know back in the late 90's that the check had to clear first with iBill. Not sure what they did more recent since they sucked and we dumped them!

[lassiter]

Originally Posted by koolkat

I know back in the late 90's that the check had to clear first with iBill. Not sure what they did more recent since they sucked and we dumped them!

That's a common enough story, eh?

There's only two companies I've ever publically burned my bridges with in the biz, and iBill is one of 'em. 'Twas a most unpleasant experience from beginning to ugly, drawn-out end.

[LindaMight]

I think that online checking is okay, and haven't had trouble with it at all......The absolute WORST is telephone billing. It takes every single provider months and months to collect the money and forward it. I hate it and wish I had never offered it. And this goes for any billing company....all the telephone subscriptions suck as far as I am concerned. Sorry....got carried away...

[FiReC]

If you just remove the link from your signup page, the surfer could always guess the check join page, the difference between the check and cc page in ccbill is sometimes just two letters...ie

check
https://bill.ccbill.com/jpost/signup...eId=0000016687

credit card
https://bill.ccbill.com/jpost/signup...eId=0000016687

You can prevent a person from changing "cc" to "ck" and gaining access to the check option by removing the check join page from the admin in ccbill.