Happy Friday all. I have added new requirements for producers and models who wish to negotiate customs with our users. https://umd.net/stores/customs

To not get automatically removed from the list, you must respond to all inbox messages from your customers within a week. You must reply to any forum complaints about your customs business within two weeks (after being made aware of course). You must not have a lot of late unfilled orders or complaints of doing bad business. And you must not use Paypal or any service where it's against their terms. If you don't want to adhere to these rules, you can still run your customs business and even link to your customs web site, but you can't be on our list or negotiate directly with our users.

I have started a new Customs group which could hopefully help models, producers, and customers find each other as well as get advice for avoiding pitfalls. https://umd.net/groups/group/custom-scenes For the first thread I started a community project to refine a video production contract as well as a model release. These will continue to be available for free download from your Add Scene page as well as the Customs page.

Peace,
Messmaster

Good stuff... great to see some quick action over the recent customs issues/discussion.

Thank you for this work, MM, and for looking out for both Customers and Producers.

Please remove us

After a 100% success rate and a wonderful year of offering customs and fun with creating them, it looks a little too much hassle, high risk and too messy (excuse the pun)

Thanks to everyone who used our customs service and for our amazing feedback in what may have been a once in a lifetime chance to get customs on our devices. After seeing so many problems its reinforced our confidence in our own service. So at least that's a big positive but I feel for those who have had difficulty elsewhere.

We'll still offer some from our own website, backed up by our own 100% buyer protection and fast delivery policy but we wont offer them here as it may be conflicting. Best to keep it under one roof so policies are clear.

Massive thanks to UMD for listing us though and the sites continued support and we look forward to adding more videos here on UMD including more of our recent customs

Thanks again to staff at UMD for helping keep trust in our industry

So excited & glad to see this development. hopefully things get more friendly for both producers and customers.

Feature me nearly having a coronary at first glance reading this and thinking it was you getting out of customs entirely when I'd only just checked in today that they were starting to run again and beginning planning!! *breathes again* See you on your site!

Going forward this will be known as the....

Better Wamness Bureau

Hah, sorry for the health scare. Yes, we are very much open for business. our girls (and guys) love making them and we enjoy hearing all the cool ideas our customers have.

We cant commit to both LX and umd in keeping with the time constraints because of studio demand thats all.

We like to focus entirely on one customers project at a time, which is why we have to turn down so many applications. Never enough time in a week

Happy planning

I would ask for clarification of this rule:

"Do not use Paypal or any service that specifically does not allow adult/fetish transactions"

Most payment platforms don't allow adult transactions...as in 98% of them. There are a few that do that are operated off-shore, take a nice cut of the payments and are blocked by a lot of banks and credit card companies. I remember trying to pay a model via Verotel and having to actually call my bank to authorize it.

If I'm taking a custom project, I don't care how I'm paid. and when I order customs, 98% of the models only accept peer-to-peer platforms and all of them don't allow adult transactions.

Well that's their rules not mine. I don't think it's too much to ask that everyone actually respect them? It really does affect us all. Maybe seek out that 2%

MM

I've also been hesitant to mention that UMD stores do have a Private Sale option. As a store owner, you can take any scene and make it purchasable by only one UMD user instead of the whole world. UMD still takes the 30% cut which is why producers don't use it. Plus, the price limit is $300 and there is absolutely no obligation for the customer to buy it.

MM

I covered that in my post - the 2% are off-shore and most banks and credit card companies block those transactions. There is no viable US-based payment platform that allows adult transactions.

Don't you have direct bank transfers in the US? Over here, all you need is the sort code, account number, and account name, and you can send any amount of money to anyone for any purpose. Its how I pay most of my people, and we'll even do things like if two of us go to McD or a pub, one person uses their card to pay and the other one bank transfers over their share of the bill. All done via banking apps, authorised by fingerprint, and the transfers are instantaneous.

That would require the real name of each party which most models and customers are not going to do. But yes, we have that - Zelle is a bank to bank app with no fees and requires real names.

You are correct. Sadly this is not a problem I can fix.

In the UK, if you know the "real" company name (not necessarily the same as the UMD store), you can look it up at Companies House to find out who the directors are. So, it might make financial sense for the producers to sign the contract on behalf of their limited company: the whole point is limited liability, i.e. the company can go bankrupt and the director doesn't have to foot the bill. However, it won't provide any real privacy.

(I have no idea how it works in other countries, e.g. if a company is registered in the Cayman Islands as a tax haven.)

Zelle does not require "real names" to my knowledge. You can put in any name you want for the party you are sending to at least. When I get or send money it says I received it from "email address". I recommend at least looking into it before completely discounting it.

Also, what about Venmo? I know they are related to PayPal, but their user agreement doesn't seem to say anything about pornography except ya know...no child porn of course.

The issue with ANY money transfer company that doesn't allow adult services is that it will ultimately come back to UMD if any communication was done here.

Then UMD gets in trouble. Don't use PayPal. Or if you do, don't use UMD to discuss any of your customs at all.

I know the personal names of a few models I've used. They know mine if I order something off their Amazon wish list.

I appreciate MM going through all this and the new forum will hopefully help others both with issues, but also help some FIND producers to do their customs.

As a non-producer, I find this weird too. Why are we policing ourselves to keep in line with Paypal's policy? I do business via paypal with many producers here without issues. It's not like Paypal is going to sue UMD for this... so why this restriction?

Also would producers and customers be comfortable using these unheard of 2% payment processors that are probably not even regulated?

And do we have documented proof of this UMD gets into trouble?

It's like saying I used my credit card to buy candy from a person I met at the library... and the library gets sued by visa because somehow buying candy is offensive? First, the library is not even selling the "candy" in this situation, it's merely a meeting spot for people to make deals.

For the record, Zelle transfers are IRREVERSIBLE, I do not recommend using it at all. A Zelle transfer is a red flag for being scammed.

I honestly couldn't care less about Paypal, I'm not a fan, even though I seem to be supporting them in my post... and that's because there is a recourse if things goes south. I actually had to use it once... on Gia or Chris or whoever behind those accounts, where she burned all bridges on her way out.

But you have a good point about UMD getting banned... I did not know about this sharing of banned companies between financial institutions, that seems really unfortunate.


Fair point, I will need to examine these unheard of payment processors and dig further should I choose to go that route.

Yes, I think that's precisely the point here. Anonymous transfer yes... paper trail minimum, not necessarily, I'm ok either way. Putting everything out there creates privacy risk. At the end of the day, I really don't care what the real names of the producer/models are, the end goal is a fair and equitable transaction where one party pays and the other delivers.

I can see this backfiring in so many ways. I'll just add that I will be the first to post that this will likely lead to some sort of harassment/blackmail from either side.

I think there are a few issues here that everyone needs to get straightened out.

First of all, you can't have a legally enforceable contract with an anonymous entity, if you actually need to take someone to court, you need their actual legal name, or legally registered business name, from which in most juristictions you can then easily obtain the directors' names. So any custom buyer or seller who wants any kind of legal protection has to use full legal names anyway, else the contract is unenforceable.

Regarding financial houses sharing information, that's what a credit rating is. Start missing your credit card payments and suddenly it's harder to get a mortgage, that kind of thing. It also applies to businesses so if a busines ends up in some way associated with bad debt or transactions that break a provider's T&C, that business may well get blacklisted. Which is why MM is fussy about not allowing his business, the UMD, to be used to enable people to break PayPal's T&C. Given the UMD pays its vendors through PayPal, and Epoch are actually authorised to use PayPal for UMD store sales, this is a sensible business protection precaution.

Re bank transfers, sounds like US people don't quite have what I'm talking about. When I want to pay someone, I just log into my bank's app, and send the money directly to their account from mine, no third party apps of any kind involved. Just about every bank and building society account in the UK uses the same details format, an 8-digit account number and a 6-digit sort code. It used to be those were all you needed but in order to clamp down on scammers who'd phone up vulnerable people, pretending to be the bank's security team, and tell the victim they needed to transfer their savings to new account (sort code, account number) to protect it from hackers - the new account of course being the scammer's account, the banks added name checks. So since last year, you now also need the name on the account (so yes, the real name) to verify the transaction. But the advantage is you can send almost any amount of money to absolutely anyone, with no restrictions at all, it's exactly the same as handing a wad of cash to someone. We are well on the way to becoming a largely cashless society, it was happening anyway but the pandemic has really driven the process forwards.

There are still ways people could do customs transactions anonymously, two I can think of immediately are:

1. Actually meet up and hand over cash. Obviously it's risky but two UMD users could meet in a bar or coffee shop, both logged in on their phones, the buyer could send a DM to the seller with a codeword in it, the seller then opens the received message and shows their phone screen to the buyer, proving it really is them, the buyer then hands the cash to the seller. No need for real names and you'd still know that the cash had gone to the correct person. I would *very* strongly advise doing 50% advance, 50% completion if doing things this way though.

2. Use the UMD itself to arrange the transaction. This will only work for people doing "pay in full on completion" so there is a high risk to the seller, but someone could shoot a custom and then upload the edited video to their download store, but set to be sellable only to a specific other UMD username and priced at the full cost - though that does mean an upper limit of $300, though I suppose a video could be split into sections and each section sold to the buyer at $300 if the total price was above that. The downside is you'd also be paying the 30% fee on the price but on the upside you could legitimately use PayPal for the purchase, and the seller would get paid the same way.

In short, if you want security and a legally enforceable contract, you have to use real names and have a proper paper trail. If you want anonymity and to pay people outwith the T&C of whatever payment provider you use, you basically have no comeback if it all comes off the rails.

I think it makes sense to prevent this place from becoming known for sending a bunch of anti-TOS activity to one of own business partners. Paypal has actually partnered with an adult biller which is how we accept them, so there is a way to do it but it takes more work, and you've got to pay the biller's fee.

I also think it'll solve a big chunk of these issues. A major reason why people can't get their refunds is because the producer's 9th Paypal account got shut down for doing wam directly, and they ran out of friends' Paypals to use. Sometimes they WANT to send the refund but have no way to send it! Or to take the final payment! So it becomes an impossible situation between producers and customers who can't move money. It's frustrating to see something preventable like that happen over and over again so I just won't deal with those situations anymore. To be clear, you can use Paypal or any service you wish for your own business! And we'll even link to your Paypal-accepting site from our directory. You just can't be on the Customs Producers List. TLDR; Paypal is a known risk to being able to complete your order or a refund if necessary.


As much as I want everyone to be comfortable, I wouldn't condone breaking rules to do it, much less let this platform be used to encourage it. Those "2%" of processors are what the internet uses for adult billing, including ostensibly UMD's biller Epoch. And they are definitely regulated--by governments AND as we recently are experiencing, credit card companies. Anyone can research billing options for themselves and sign up to something they're comfortable with. Maybe that should be a Group?


This ain't a court of law where we need proof beyond reasonable doubt. And I could be wrong, too. It just obviously is not a good look to be sending them so many problems from here. Customs clients (mistakenly or otherwise) always add comments in the transactions that identify this site and the nature of the custom, and years ago Paypal confirmed this with me over the phone, but we weren't at fault (we've never accepted one dollar directly through them). Will they change their minds and policies for the worse one day? I don't know, but why push it by breaking the ones they have now?


It's not lost on me that I will not be calling up my lawyers to review a contract or try to go to court in another country to enforce it I doubt others would either. But what I've learned is that putting things in writing keeps people honest. I bet that would still be true even if the contract used stage names. Furthermore, only working with producers (or customers) who will do a contract means it's more likely that they are legit. For my purposes I'm requiring to see it because trying to mediate between two parties that haven't done so much as written anything down is just asking for pain. There's nothing but he-said-she-said-they-said about what the original date was supposed to be, what was owed and when the deadline was. It's a lot of pulling teeth just secure the basic facts. This site is full of customs producers and customers and they are only growing, so I've got to triage it somehow. Thanks for your response in general DM1.... u said better than I could have.

MM

Messmaster, do you plan on building out your own payment portal one day so customers can pay through UMD for customs directly?

What we have is a Private Sale option that's been around for a long time. The store owner can upload a scene as they normally would, except they can fill in a special field with another user's UMD ID, and that makes the scene only be available to that one person to purchase. It won't show up on the regular store but that user will see a prompt on their profile and a link to go purchase it. This option has been here a long time but our site still charges the 30% and I offer no guarantee for the customer to actually purchase the download. There is also no process for accepting half-payments or verifying the custom or anything.

MM

I think there's a "by the book" legal way to get customs done, then there's what 99% of all producers and models do.

No one's signing contracts with real names. It's not done. I've been at this since 1999. I paid Rob Blaine $3,000 for Pie Wedgies and nothing was signed. Nodda. We exchanges a few emails and I mailed money orders.

100% of the customs I take on go like this:

1) Customer emails me, give me the details, asks for a price

2) A give the price, confirm the details, set a shoot and delivery date, send an invoice from my company's billing which does not allow any adult transactions. But they also have no idea what my clients are paying me for so that's served me well year countless years without issue. In every case, my customer only goes by a user name.

3) I shoot and deliver the video.

In 100% of every custom video I've ordered since 1999, here's the process:

1) I email the model/producer with my request.

2) They confirm the request and I generally pay through PayPal, cashapp, venomo, or Zelle.

3) They deliver the video.

No, I'm not taking anyone to small claims court over a custom gone south. It is, however, a good threat when I've been burned (although an empty threat) and works sometimes.

When I get burned, the model/producer's punishment is for me to spread it that all over the 4 corners of the net. I'm a webmaster and have a ton of SEO experience and I'll make it so for anyone googles their model/producer name, my post about them burning me is on the first page of Google results. I actually had a model who burned me actually pay up months later just for me to remove the post - it was killing her business.

I'm not sure getting a signed contract with MessyFun would have meant anything. First, he was the industry standard pie producer at the time. His reputation proceeded him. Secondly, just how would I have enforced it? Would I have flown from MD to TX to see him in small claims court, then taken the time to enforce a judgement? If I filed in MD, the judgement is not automatically valid in TX and it's rats next to get it attached to TX.

So there's a base level of trust in this industry when anyone pays for a custom.

I think your premise while reasonable may not be needed to solve the problem. Right now, the issue is with customs and scams. The easiest solution is to use a trusted 3rd party escrow. That way no/less privacy concerns and both sides get the benefit.

The legally enforceable route has practical issues. Say I paid $500 for custom, and it doesn't deliver. So now I do sue? Which lawyer is going to pick up a case for only $500? Go small claims court? That takes time. Do I want my name on public record stating I spent $500 for a custom video of naked messy women because it turns me on? Ok let's say I'm chill and pretty out in the open. If I get a judgement so what... now I have to go after the other person. How do I do that? This legal contract sounds good in practice, but does not work in reality. With escrow that's better. Of course, the weakest link is now the escrow entity... so nothing is perfect.


Security and legally enforceable contract is not a prereq not to get scammed, you may be making the assumption that this is the only viable solution. I disagree.

I agree. This system works better. Theoretically suing for a $500 custom in small claims court halfway across the country or in another country means... almost no action in practice.

There's some ideas that can be adopted from the ongoing discussion. Like having a standard contract template (but can use stage names)... and the UMD circle is small enough that if you're Chris/Gia/whatever... people will know and remember.

There can also be a Y/N rating of approved custom producers. Perhaps make it a requirement that both parties rate each other Y if they hold up to the original agreement. That way people can see Producer A has a history of 50 delivered customs, or Customer B has a history of paying for 50 customs... that builds trust, and it's transparent and open.