Because of my debit card I simply can't purchase through Vidown without going through a good bit of hassle, which is annoying as most of what I would buy would be through Vidown if I could. I also can't buy through UMD as of late for some reason, but I've tried it enough times to know it's not something I've done wrong. So does anyone have any site recommendations that don't use UMD or Vidown? :-S
I've had people have problems using their card on UMD but not vidown, I'm surprised your having problems. A few producers do use clips4sale but would guess you might have the same problems. Maybe speak to the producer who's work you want and see if you can arrange something directly. We've done that before where somebody didn't want to actually download the film directly.
All debit cards with the Visa or Mastercard logos will work in any credit card processing system that accepts those brands. That's a requirement of Visa/MC. If your card has some other brand logo, (like some EU/UK issuers) they probably aren't going to work on a US-based processor. Gift/prepaid cards are also accepted, but you MUST register the card to a valid street address before they can be used online or at most modern gas pumps (the ones that ask for a ZIP code)
Note that if you have an American Express gift card, NOBODY accepts those. AE charges the merchant an insane fee for processing (2-3 times higher than Visa/MC/Disc) Any merchant that does accept AE and doesn't offer a discount for other cards or cash is simply adding the extra processing fees to their list price.