I know not everyone is a VIP, and many who are maintain that status through reviews. While I have been a part of this community for a while, I don't write enough reviews to keep my VIP status on that alone. Every now and again I do have to purchase more time for my VIP status, and yesterday was one of those times. This in and of itself doesn't bother me, I'm a member of a website that is built by a team of people who are in the business of making money (I'm a web developer myself, so I can sympathize), so paying a few bucks every now and again to support the cause is fine by me. What bothers me is what happened this morning.

I was woken up by a call from the bank that issued my credit card. When I attempted to pay for my renewal last night, TER directed me to their payment partner SEGPAY. I checked to ensure the page was encrypted, filled out the form, entered my card info, and clicked submit. The page mentioned that my card had been rejected and offered an alternate form of payment in CCBill. I quickly checked my account online to be sure I wasn't over my limit, and then paid with CCBill (a familiar merchant processor in the adult web space).  

Back to my point, the bank pointed out the SEGPAY has been flagged by the financial community as a processor that repeatedly been associated with fraudulent transactions and they wanted to confirm I was the one who attempted to purchase through them. I explained the general situation (leaving out that TER was whom I was paying), and confirmed with them that SEGPAY had not charged my card.

The reason why this disturbs me is twofold: 1) TER is using a merchant processor who a major US bank has identified as a problem, and 2) TER obviously knows that payments through SEGPAY fail, this the reason they immediately offered up CCBill as an alternative form of payment.

There are those that would argue that because SEGPAY is a processor for adult-themed websites that it would lend itself to claims of fraudulent charges. However, CCBill is the processor for several adult websites and the bank had no issue with them (nor have they in the past). So CCBill obviously has measures in place to resolve the fraudulent charge claims thus making them a safer option (especially when it involves calls from your bank's fraud department).

That being said, why does TER do business with a merchant processor with a history of problems, so much so that they do not (or cannot) work with banks to clean up their reputation?

Has anyone else run into this problem?

TER, care to weigh in on this? I love your site, but the call this morning scared the shit out of me.

A few months back I paid for a month through SEGPay.  It never processed and my VIP membership never activated.  I sent an email but never got a response.  Discretion is more important to me than 25 bucks, so to be honest, I let the matter drop and decided to probably never pay TER again.

I tried to do a renewal in February, a week before my trip to LV.  I was not successful, as 2 of my CC's were declined, with no reason given for the decline.  The only option that was avail. for me was to send a check, which did me no good because of my short time frame.

I sent a msg to TER, and their reply (3 days later) was to blame it on a systems problem.  I told them when I was arriving in LV, but there was no offer of any help, such as a loaning me a few days on credit.  Fortunately, I did just fine w/o VIP status, and they lost out on making a sale.  

I am very disappointed with TER over this, especially when there is almost no useable info available for non VIP's.  

to get the charge to go through.

In the past, I have had my cc compromised but it was at a restaurant.  The cc fraud dept. is good at catching this sort of thing.  They overnighted a new card and merged the old account charges into the new act. number seamlessly.

I use the envelope every time.  otc, not developed enough of an relationship but therre is  a new one I am working on.  Bank calling, tell the none of their business where you spend your money, but thanks for watching my back.

why are you having to pay anything?

percentage-wise, so maybe SEGPay offers a better processing fee to its accountholders (ie TER) than CCBill and that's why it's the first option?
xxx
Jinni

In my case, the SEGPAY transaction went through on the second card I tried. I got a call from my bank security department the next day. They had flagged the vendor as a scammer, and they refused to pay the transaction. They immediately invalidated my card and sent me a new one.

Like you, I do reviews but not enough new babes to keep the VIP status going.  Not sure if I am willing to expose myself the way you guys have. Just looks like the kind of experience I rather avoid.  WTF happen to TER that they are putting the loyal client base through such a mess.   I won't do it , but I fear we are going to be victims of more and more fake reviews from dudes who can no longer easily buy memberships.  BTW...you mentioned your bank called...do you mean your credit card company?

also i noticed that vip went up 10.00 dollars

I hate to see you leave the boards.

I'm not going to risk using the new pay provider when my membership expires.  I wish they had the money order option going where it was mailed to the netherlands and you were credited in about three weeks.

A few years ago I was a member of an adult oriented site and they had a pay mechanism where you could just make a cash deposit in a bank of america branch. You put your account number and whammo you got credit for that service.  I wish there was something like that.

Another option which would be more expensive for us mongers but I would do it is to use Western Union to send money.  

I've heard SEGPAY has has problems with gift cards as well.

Very disappointing.

I've complained to TER to set rates according to the readily available denominations of safe (anon), prepaid cards that actually work with CCBill.  Keep the $30-30 days / $75-90 / $250-365 structure if you want to, but include rates pegged to standard cards, even if the number of days is strange: $25 prepaid - 25 days / $50 prepaid - 60 days / $100 prepaid - 146 days.  

Or use a system, even if it means manual override by TER staff, that allows payments to be summed: $50 + $25 = 90 days instead of $50 = 30 days with lost $20 overpayment; $25 = insufficient payment for anything.

You have no idea how much laughter I have received from you two, mostly you.

Learned these risks a while back... no more vip.
TER should get a clue on this; looks like they are loooosing bizniz.


HH

I'm not going to renew my VIP membership when it runs out, if TER continues to use SEGPAY which many financial institutions are apparently flagging as "probelmatic".

I've been a paid VIP member for many years and never had problems using CCBill.  Like the OP, I can't maintain my VIP status via reviews alone, but I'd rather not go through the hassle that others are experiencing using SEGPAY.

Guess I am glad my card is looking out for me, but really don't like the extra attention to my account.  And don't want to go throu pay pal if that is available (dont recall).

There was lots of reasons, I just dropped my reoccurring VIP. A few of them are in order of importance:

1) My being moderated not for breaking rules but because I am moderated "to protect TER", what ever that means.

2) I had credit card issues with SEGPAY in the past so I will not use them.

3) I am finding too many discrepancies in the reviews verses real life.

4) The inconsistency of the rule being enforced both on the boards, with the ladies, and with reviews is annoying.

5) The long list of unpublished rule concerning providers has affected a friend of mine and I have heard of other ladies having similar issues.

When my VIP off of reviews goes so does does my VIP status. It is just not worth it. I have 43 days left as a VIP. If it wasn't for a handful of people I would leave TER altogether. I still will post reviews from time to time when a lady asks me to or I find a rip off, and I will still post on the boards. But, I am done paying for this site.

Maybe if some of the issues are resolved I will start paying again but not until then. After all, there is other options to TER.

Until they come up with a better method of payment.

that prepay cards were being rejected?  Did this work for you , recently?

Just give up VIP. I would miss to many people.

Even if you are laughing at me. I laugh at myself all the time. I post some pretty stupid stuff sometimes. I am glad it amuses you.

In my emails to TER, I've been trying to stress that

IF they make it EASY TO PAY, PEOPLE WILL PAY.

IF they make it DIFFICULT TO PAY (as seems to be the case as of now), PEOPLE WILL NOT PAY.

Easy: anonymous, simple, fast, reliable, prepaid CC or GC denominations, ...

Difficult: Segpay, CC and Bank inquiries, not anonymous friendly, hard to pay fee structure, ...

What do they need, a Harvard Business School case study???

Sp far I have maintained VIP status through reviews.  Reading a considerable number of the responses in this thread leads me to the conclusion that:

1.  Something bigger than what is being discussed is wrong with TER (hope not, hate to see that happen)

2.  Glad to have obtained/maintain VIP through reviews.

3.  Have made note to self - never, ever send money (in any form) to TER.

4.  TER owes an (on the "board" response to the entire TER community.

5.  Last but not least, this post will probably never see the board's "light of day" (I can see the "post not allowed" now.

Oh, well at least I have vented.  If they black ball, they are only hurting themselves.

It's difficult for me to be sympathetic here since you guys are using your personal cards to buy VIP on an escort listing site.  This is certainly not like buying a book from Barnes & Noble online.

The smarter thing to do is to go to your local drugstore or grocery store and load a prepaid Green Dot card with the correct amount of cash.  It's anonymous and cheap (Walmart charges $3 for a card).  No banks to deal with.  No sketchy payment processors to worry about, because, after all, you are using this card for one thing only.

If you really want your activity in this world to remain discreet, then I suggest you take your privacy seriously.  Doing anything that red flags your account at your bank/cc company is not in line with such a strategy.

Do you think we lowly moderators are thin skinned?  lol

i just visited the site where TER requests payment.. wish TER would switch to another merchant. i am not gonna give some  payment site my m/c number..  and risk being ripped off.. pls no msgs i am not vip here
A mature Indiana Provider

Green Dot does not work for everyone. It is not a universal solution. I've never tried it, but check the history of posts and problems getting Green Dot to work. Sometimes you need a real SSN to register it to get it to work. To hell with that! I don't know if Green Dot is "load exactly the amount you need" but cards that have worked for me are specific denominations only ... and they don't come in $30, $75 or $250, just $25, $50 and $100.

TER: Make it easy to pay and people will pay. Make it hard to pay and people won't pay.

but then the price unexpectedly went up and the quality of the product went down.

I stop paying for anything where price rises and quality falls.


-- Modified on 3/21/2011 9:09:14 AM

-- Modified on 3/21/2011 9:09:43 AM

No, no. Nothing recent. The prepaids that worked for me in the past with CCBill only come in 25, 50 and 100. There is no EZ way for me to pay the new 30, 75 or 250 rates anyway. (My account is good for a few more months. I hope they fix things by then.)

I recently also renewed my membership on an annual basis and even though they quoted a prive in Euros (180) they also listed a USD price. Now When i received the bill it was for more that the quoted price, and frankly the exchange rate for Euros as well.

I emailed TER about it and was told that TER is a european site and therefore we US clients must pay in Euros, or the equivalent there of. I went back to the page and looked for the USD rate quoted, but could not find it and frankly I am too busy to haggle over a few dollars, but it pissed me off. If you are quoting a price in USD then you honor that price. If you are quoting a price in Euros then you should have a fair exchange rate, don't screw me for wanting to screw.

Anyway maybe the exchange thing has people complianing, but a call in the middle of the night from a bank to a home could turn into a nasty problem if you are married, have a mate or a GF, that would take some explaining.

....as this site gradually implodes of its own ineptitude, if any of us (providers or hobbyists) finds a new/better site, we should all keep the "community" in mind wioth a timely headsup.

2 weeks ago I bought VIP service here on TER using a CC. The following day I just happened to be checking my info online and I noticed an Avon purchase that was pending on my acct. I got suspicious so I called my CC company. Apparently there were other purchases being tried as well and some of them were coming from the UK. I immediately figured out that SegFRAUD must've used my CC info from my purchase for TER the night before. I cancelled the card immediately and don't plan on renewing my TER membership again.