NEW Verotel Visa and MC regulations
 

Hello,

I just got an e-mail from Verotel:

Dear merchant,


You have been a beloved TicketsClub merchant for
the last couple of years and we thank you for that!


During the last couple of months, the credit card
companies have imposed new rules and regulations
regarding transparancy.


That is why Verotel needs to register every single URL and
every single merchant with the credit card companies and
affiliated Web Crawling Agents. The credit card companies
are now charging us registration fees for these registrations.


Because of our location in Europe we are one of the first
internet payment service providers in the industry imposing
these new changes. Others will follow. Shortly after summer
(September 15th) the new registration requirements will
go into effect globally – including with our US competitors.


Starting May 1st your TicketsClub account will be
automatically converted into a Verotel Basic account.


More information about the Account Type changes can
be found on our website at


http://www.verotel.com/accounttypes


These changes have the following implications:


* we need to register you, as a company and individual,
with the credit card companies.


* we board your account under a new service name:
Verotel Basic. This is the new name for your type of
accounts from May 1st onwards.


---------------------------------------------------


All our accounts are subject to registration fees
with credit card companies and Web Crawling Agents.


We have decided to pay these fees for you,
since you have been a long-time customer with us.


However, on June 1st we will introduce a minimum
weekly volume. This is set to EUR 100.00 (approximately
US$ 130) per week.


If you have on June 1st, or thereafter, less revenue per
week than EUR 100.00 - you have the option to pay an annual
registration fee of EUR 500.00 or to cancel your account.


Please note that the registration fees are calculated
per merchant; not per website. So if you have websites
with other billing providers, they will soon ask you for
similar registration fees.


This is for you an opportunity to consider the
possibility to add these website(s) to your
new Verotel Basic portfolio - ensuring you that you
will have more than EUR 100.00 in Weekly Volume.


In short: as long as you keep your Weekly Volume
over EUR 100.00 the only thing that's changing
is the name of your account: from May 1st onwards
you will have a Verotel Basic account.


We hope to continue to do business with you
Kind regards,


Verotel Merchant Services BV
http://www.verotel.com/accounttypes

Although we are 100% CCBill I don't like the sound of this. I don't think it is aimed at the adult industry but more targeting money laundering/tax avoidance. However anything that makes life more difficult for us is bad news.

Sounds like VISA EU is implementing the requirements that VISA USA has had in place for quite some time. Essentially making it more difficult to move money anonymously.

Not sure what is new about this. I spend a few grand a year on "high risk" fees to m/c and Visa and have done for years and years.

For us in Europe this could be a tough change. Higher transaction costs, and still the same piece of shit tax regulations.
In short...just more problems, especially for small websites or sites that are just starting up. Anyway...let's see when CCBill and Epoch will go into this direction...still no sign from them

I am not sure of all of this, but I believe you pay higher processing fees at the moment to cover the cc high risk charges. You might want to ask if the per centages charged will drop accordingly. But I could be wrong.

As for the cost of getting into or doing business, it is not all that bad for existing web sites but will stop the fly by nighters etc. who chip away at business at the moment. Not necessarily a bad thing, actually.

Well of course you are correct, higher initial costs could send away those that don't have a clue of what they are doing...but well i'm just thinking back of when we started with PiediCash...it took us a long time to just cover expenses...and it would have been even harder if rules like this would be in place...that's all :)

but that is the nature of business. You start a coffee shop or a butcher shop or an ad agency you will have the same problem. The higher the entry, the fewer weekenders in it to make payments on their Honda.

Harsh but true. The pity is that many of us started as "Mom & Pop" sites and learnt as we went along. It's so tough now that many won't bother, so we will possibly miss out on the new Roni, Kryztal, Elise, Kirsty Blue et al.

Exactly what i was trying to say cots... i started like that a few years ago and i'm still learning...but at least changes like this one won't affect us that much... but a new one trying to start now...well...that would be different