Every once in a while I am compelled to purchase some piece of video or to join a site that I see on the umd. However, because I don't want any fetish porn going on my credit card statement, I always purchase a gift card with cash and use it to buy downloads. The gift cards are available at supermarkets and convenience stores and they are available in limitless dollar values. Usually you have to pay five dollars more than the amount of the card value, a sacrifice I'm willing to make for the anonymity it buys.
I have purchased from Rich at Slapstick Stuff many times using this method, but I cannot join Messygirl.com using the same technique. I've been able to join Mudmad Phil's site, but not without trouble, and I've experienced similar hit n miss success with wetandmessy.com.
Can someone, a producer perhaps, explain the rhyme and reason as to why some sites accept a gift card and others do not? And if producers, such as Messygirl, are now aware of this due to this post, is it possible to change payment policy? (Please, Messygirl, I'm practically begging you to take my money.) I can't remember if I've ever used a gift card to purchase from the umd downloads page, but I have a feeling a few years ago I tried and failed.
I know for a fact that the umd download stores and the vidown(wam-mart) sites accept visa prepaid gift cards. Bought many downloads from both vendors using prepaid visa cards. All you have to do is register a zip code on the card's site and it will be activated for online purchases. I never use my real name or address when i order and have not had any problems. Hope this helps.
The vast majority of adult sites bill via one of the big adult payment processors like CCBill, so its them rather than the site itself that will show on statements, and they mostly use innocuous names. But because attempted fraud levels are much higher in the adult industry than in mainstream shopping, those sites tend to have fanatically strict anti-fraud checks on their card data, and will try and verify every single piece of information, and blow the transaction out if something doesn't match.
As suggested above, registering the card to a postcode, and using that address in purchases, may help with acceptance. Alternatively, get a separate credit card just for adult purchases?
Most prepaid and gift cards these days won't work online or at modern gas pumps (the ones that require a zip) until you register them for use at the card issuer's website. Many of the cards I've seen explain that right on a sticker across the front of the card.
Once that's done, you are still at the mercy of the card issuer and the category rating of whoever is doing the card processing. If the processor has a high-risk category number (porn, online pharmacy, gambling, and for some reason, web hosting), a few issuer's won't allow the card to be used there. In other cases, the card may not work if the processor is in a different country than the issuer.
Lastly, *EVERY* time you submit a transaction to a gateway, your card issuer "reserves" that amount for 3 to 10 days. If you try a $10 order and fuck up the expiration date, CVV, address or the zip code, the transaction will fail, but your card will be worth $10 less until that authorization request expires. If you do that 10 times in a row, your card will temporarily be worth $100 less. With small value cards, it's very easy to max out the balance without ever making a successful purchase. The solution is to pay attention and type everything in correctly the first time.
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