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IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR MEMBERS WHO PAY BY VISA CARD THROUGH IBILL: 

 

I wish that I had better news to report.  In fact I wish that I had any news to report.  As I have previously stated, Visa-USA has issued some new regulations that take effect on Friday, November 15th.  That is day after tomorrow.  There are many aspects to these regulations.  But the one provision that could directly and adversely affect Members of our site who pay by Visa is this:  Third party billing services, such as Ibill, can no longer process Visa cards for non-USA based internet sites such as ours.  We are located in the Czech Republic.  At least one third party billing company, Verotel, saw the handwriting on the wall sometime ago and moved its headquarters from the USA to Amsterdam, Holland.  There are three regions of Visa, Visa-USA, Visa-Europe, and Visa-Asia.  From what I understand, Visa-USA cannot impose its will on either of the two regions.  So, Verotel is not affected by these new regulations.

 

PayPal and CCBill also acted earlier than IBill to establish European subsidiaries.  Consequently, unless there are some nasty surprises in store, both PayPal and CCBill will be able to continue processing Visa payments for our site.

 

Rather late in the day, IBill attempted to establish a European branch.  Before this happened, I called Ibill, and a customer service representative told me that we would be out of IBill as far as Visa charges are concerned.  Then a very few weeks ago, our IBill Account Manager told me that Ibill had made some arrangements and IBill would be able to continue processing our Visa re-bills.  After that conversation it became very difficult to reach her by phone.  A few days ago, when I was once again able to get through to her, she said that Visa had not approved IBill's portal plan and it looked as though IBill would not be able to continue processing our Visa re-bills.  Then yesterday, IBill posted a notice on its webmasters portal indicating that there might be some hope.  I tried five times yesterday to get our IBill rep on the phone.  On the fifth attempt, I did reach her and asked if the situation had changed again, in light of the most recent Ibill announcement.  She said, and I'll paraphrase her almost exactly, "Nothing has changed.  Visa has a problem with our 'portal.'  As of this time it looks as if we won't be able to process Visa cards for you after the cutoff on Friday.  However, Visa has not said 'No' either.  So they could change their mind at the last minute."

 

My studied opinion is that as of Friday we will be out of IBill as far as Visa charges are concerned.  I have not been able to get any guidance from IBill about what will happen in that eventuality.  I believe, and it is only a belief, that if IBill hopes to avoid major disruptions to their business and possible litigation, they will cancel Visa rebills as they run out and notify us.  If they do that, they probably will not cancel your Visa membership until it comes up for renewal again.  That would mean that cancellations would be staggered, starting after the 15th. 

 

When we receive Visa cancellation noitice from IBill we will not shut off your access immediately.  We have established be a grace period in which affected members could sign up again through Verotel and still access the site.  Each time an affected Member signs into the site, a window will pop up explaining how to transfer his Membership to Verotel with the correct links.  Because anyone affected is totally blameless, we have built into this migration plan a very attractive package of inducements for affected Members to transfer from IBill to Verotel.  All affected Members will receive e-mails announcing these inducements, plus they will appear on the pop up window.  Unfortunately, after the grace period, the affected Memberships will be cancelled and the inducements will not apply if the Member decides to join again in the future.  The clock will not start running on the grace period until the first time that an affected Member logs into the site.  That is because many may have changed your e-mail addresses and will not receive the notices.

 

I would urge anyone who pays by Visa through Ibill to immediately look at the Verotel sign up page.  Verotel accept payment from  many of the countries that Ibill accepts.  Verotel does accept payments from the USA, Canada, and major European countries.  If Verotel does not accept payment from your country, then the best thing would be to go to IBill and immediately change your payment method from Visa to MasterCard.  This can be done at http://www.ibillcs.com

 

Here is the link for checking which countries from which Verotel accepts payments.   http://www.williamhiggins.com/signup/

Click "Verotel."  Then you will see a drop down menu with USA selected as a default.  You can then drop down the entire list of countries from which you can charge through Verotel.

 

Of course there will be many of you who prefer to continue billing through Ibill.  In that case I would strongly recommend that you go to IBill as soon as possible and change your credit card info from Visa to one of the other acceptable cards.  http://www.ibillcs.com

 

I must add that there is a conspiracy theory shared by some First Amendment attorneys in the United States that a deal has been cut between the Powers that Be and the credit card companies such as Visa and MasterCard to this effect:  "You want the new bankruptcy law, then first you get rid of porn."  They feel that these new Visa regulations are just one more turn of the screw.  If this is the case, then we can expect MasterCard USA to quickly follow Visa's lead in the very near future.  If this happens, we will use the same procedure to migrate MasterCard payers from IBill over to Verotel.  I do not expect Visa Europe or MasterCard Europe to buckle under to this kind of pressure.  It has been my experience during the 14 years that I lived in Europe that the European banks and credit card associations regard the adult industry as just another kind of business.

 

It would appear that Members who pay by Visa through PayPal and CCBill will NOT be affected.

 

Hopefully, there will be a last second reprieve from Visa and IBill.  If not, we will try to make this migration go as smoothly for Members as possible.  As nothing has happened, we have not been able to test the special software that we wrote to cope with this problem.  If there are glitches that we don't know about, we will fix them as quickly as possible.  Plus, we also have the ability to take care of problems manually.

 

I'm still hoping for the best, but we have prepared as best we can for the worst.

 

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