Hey guys, I just heard another horror story about Paypal locking an account over the producer using it for customs. You gotta stop that! If they see that you're directly accepting money for adult material (apparently, usually found out through the transaction comments), then they will put a hold on your money. We use Paypal, but we never accept any money through them.

There are alternatives out there, and one that I'm going to start trying is Paxum. They were recommended by our biller Epoch itself. Another one I'm reading up on is Payoneer. Maybe we can get a discussion going over in the Wammasters Lounge and share knowledge and find out if there are a more legit way to do transactions for customs without worrying that you'll get jacked for your money!

Why not just tell the customer not to put comments like "for hot naked girls DVD p0rn"? I usually put no comments, or extremely nondescript when I do business via paypal.

I have used paypal for years but i agree with the above comment make sure buyers don't leave stupid comments

Also, you can send your customer an invoice and i believe that lets you control the comments.

I am, however, fully supportive of finding an alternative across the board for pay pal. If they don't want a cut of the action due to ridiculous moral objections to legal market transactions, then let's take our business elsewhere.

This happened to Jayce and it's royally SCREWED us. So if you're using paypal don't mention porn, the site name, ANYTHING. Send it as a gift, just say "custom" if you absolutely have to, but no mention of adult content, pretty please!

Thankfully my personal paypal acct is working, but that's not the one we use for the store. Live and learn, I guess!

P.s. Green dot cards from walmart are great if u don't want to wait an additional 2 days for the recipient to get $$. Just make sure whomever it is has a card & u pay a $4.95 fee to get a pack # up to $500. Sometimes it's on your receipt, so don't throw that away! As soon as you get it, email the activation # to the recipient and they'll have it immediately

I've never used one for a custom, but I used to use them after I had identity theft happen TWICE with my actual bank card.

Unfortunately I hear some scammers are fond of using those, so I'd totally respect if someone didn't want to go that route. I won't just say "but I'm reliable!" because it's a personal choice

I wish places had more flexibility than just Paypal. Unless you have a credit card Paypal is almost the necessary evil.

I got locked out from PayPal also.

They used their own definition of "obscene" - one that is more conservative than what it would take to prove in court. (I looked up what it takes to be considered "obscene".)

In my case, they declared a video I was selling obscene because it showed a model taking off his pants, even though he was still in his underwear.

When I signed up with my new payment processor, I pointed them to the video PayPal didn't like and asked them specifically if this was considered adult content, and they were cool with it.

Any assistance Messmaster can provide in this matter would be greatly appreciated.

Me too. They actually got me back in 1998 for selling jello wrestling VHS videos with NO nudity in them.

Yes people, send an invoice if you are worried about a customer writing some kind of inappropriate comment. It's really not that hard to keep under their radar.

I personally don't like Payoneer because you have to use your real name and give them your SSN. I continue to use PP because it allows me to not have to give out my real name or address to customers (no offense to my customers but I am a bit paranoid about privacy since it's totally legal to discriminate against sex workers in this country).

In the rare event a customer refuses to use PP I will accept an amazon gift card.

They have some pretty messed up ideas of what is or is not morally acceptable. They would not allow a body modification website to sell piercing needles claiming a moral objectification to "mutilation" yet used to be a partner of the website zivity which is a softcore nude site that has a really degrading voting system to pay their models.

Been suspended and locked out twice over the last 10 years. I try to discourage my customers from using Paypal and to use our official cc services (ccBill, Verotel and Epoch), but some customers still want to use it, so if they do, my number one rule is....never make any comments in the Paypal comments field or mention the name of my site etc.

Rule number 2 is, if you accept Paypal, never mention the name of their company on your website pages and never have any Paypal buttons or links on your website, cos Paypal have their own spider programs that can search for adult sites that mention their name and or have back-links emanating from your site. So I just make sure there are no trails that can be traced. E.G. if you accept alternative payment methods, just say "Contact us for our alternative payment methods" and just avoid mentioning the Paypal name or displaying any of their links or buttons.

Another tip I can offer is, nobody knows what triggers a Paypal audit and account suspension, but from my experience the number one thing that seems to trigger their attention is too much "activity"....i.e. if you only have a few transactions per month...you fall below their radar....cos that appears to be somebody using payal for personal reasons....but when you have constant activity every single day, then this does not look like a personal account, but a business, and then Paypal want to investigate the nature of your business.

So, the bottom line is...you can't use Paypal as your main payment service to run an adult business with daily transaction activity, and you really need to have a proper cc provider like Verotel, Epoch or ccBill that will allow adult merchants to operate. However, you can use Paypal on an occassional basis, provided you tell your customers never to make comments inside the paypal system and you hide your trails and not have buttons and links from your site, and you keep your transaction activity low...i.e. not be having daily transactions and not having more than $1000 per month in transactions etc....and then you will fall below their radar.

But overall...stick with the official cc providers that UMD and theMothership systems already make available to you for your stores.

But hey...I still have many customers who are paranoid about having anything charged on their credit card that their spouse might see....and they will only order wam media via non traceable cash sent via Western Union wire payment. And so if that is what the customer wants...I am here to serve....so be it...cos you can send a wire via Western Union from any supermarket in the world these days.

MK

Definition of obscene: any sexual-fetish-stuff that I don't like.
Definition of not-obscene: any sexual-fetish-stuff that I do like.
Yup. That's about the legal distinction.

So, I assume it is impossible to buy "Family Guy" dvds through PayPal, right?
Last week's episode "Brian the Closer" started off whizz-bang with a discussion between Peter & Brian over how the tv network is going to fill that Glory hole with Shaft.

And that's the issue with processing anything adult related. Guys forget that their wives see the credit card statements and are caught off-guard to explain the $7.99 charge for "tropical entertainment."

The husband plays stupid and says "heck, I didn't make that charge" and the wife hops on the phone to reverse the transaction.

The Mothership (via our Softokens system) has been doing a small but steady business funding accounts with Bitcoin. The volatility has really slowed down lately and it's been ranging mainly between $350 and $400. There are increasing numbers of merchants accepting it too, so it's not necessary for us to ever convert it to "real" currency. We accept it like cash and spend it like cash, usually for business equipment from places like TigerDirect.

If you happen to live in one of the numerous cities with a Bitcoin ATM, you can just walk up and buy some with cash, then transfer it anywhere in the world pretty much for free. Here's a world map of locations:

http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-atm-map/

I'm 5 minutes away from two of them here in Las Vegas.

I didn't know that there even was such a thing yet. I've seen some sites that I've wanted to join that take Bitcoin (one ONLY takes Bitcoin, because the operator got fed up with the billing companies/cc's), but it still seems really difficult to get a hold of them. I've even looked into mining them myself, but it looks like I missed that bandwagon by a few years. They seem easy enough to use once you have them, but not so easy to get. Hopefully that means it will become increasingly more convenient.

They know what "custom" means, too. Just say "thanks" if you feel the need to say anything. Even using a model's stage name to address them can be enough to make them investigate.