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Since, I know a friend in this industry, let me explain what's going on here. Yes, OnlyFans uses Stripe, but that's not the entire story. In the adult/porn wor

Since, I know a friend in this industry, let me explain what's going on here. Yes, OnlyFans uses Stripe, but that's not the entire story. In the adult/porn world, there's a high amount of chargebacks and fraud relative to low-risk industries like SaaS software. If you pass a certain chargeback threshold in the adult industry, your account is terminated, and no payment processor will do business with you. To reduce the likelihood of passing that chargeback threshold and being banned, OnlyFans uses "cascading payments", which essentially load balances the payments across multiple payment processors in order to reduce their chargeback ratios across their merchant accounts. The payment is either processed by Stripe, Securion, CCBill(the leading payment processor for adult), or another company. Last time I checked the network requests, I noticed it was storing the card on Stripe, CCBill, and Securion, but using CCBill or Securion to process the payment. I think Stripe is there for models on the site who don't sell adult content. OnlyFans probably does a check to see if the page is adult-related and if it is, then routes it to the correct payment processor.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
techsin101 6y ago
loading across multiple providers won't alter the chargeback ratio so what is the point?
- capableweb 6y ago
  You could (in theory) do some risk analysis and put the ones with the highest risk into the providers where you had the lowest chargeback. Wouldn't be 100% solution, but could get you there.
  - netsharc 6y ago
    I wonder if they do do that. In Germany there's a credit rating agency that more or less has a monopoly, and everyone has more or less a profile with data supplied by companies who've dealt with them commercially (e.g. if you signed a phone contract or opened a bank account). But sometimes their algorithm would also try to predict the chances of people not paying bills by things like the ZIP code where they live...
- thomasedwards 6y ago
  Stripe is cheaper than CCBill, so it makes sense to send more that way when you can.
- Exuma 6y ago
  Because MIDs also look at the total # of chargebacks and will do a manual flag review of your account, so they don't just look at the % ratio but also total number.
- nasalgoat 6y ago
  It spreads the chargebacks across multiple processors, who don't talk to each other so don't know about the chargebacks on the other processors.
  - vehementi 6y ago
    That still does not affect the ratio
    - nasalgoat 6y ago
      The individual processors are the ones who care about chargebacks, not VISA itself. So by spreading the processing among several of them, the number of chargebacks per processor are lower. It's load balancing.
      - xuhu 6y ago
        Also lower is the number of transactions. The ratio stays the same.
        nasalgoat 6y ago
        From my experience in the adult industry, the processor cared more about the total than the percentage.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - Quarrel 6y ago
        This just isn't true. Yes, you can be pinged by the processor, but mostly because they're worried about the CC networks pinging them. Source: Have a 30M+ people site that has been pinged by VISA itself for chargeback ratios ...
    - sk5t 6y ago
      Maybe the confounding factor here is that the term "load balance" could be extremely unsuitable for onlyfans' processing logic; e.g. they might preferentially route the risky transactions to one or two processors that won't get too agitated/punitive.
- PeterisP 6y ago
  You can direct most of the payments towards the cheap-but-prudish processors, and the really adult stuff towards a processor that accepts almost anything but is more expensive.
- fooey 6y ago
  Chargeback ratio's are per account, but also have a minimum absolute threshold. So it's say, 2% chargeback AND at least 200 chargebacks before penalties kick in. In a past life I worked for a place who had a few hundred processing accounts to load balance it all out because their chargeback rates were way too high. If an account gets close, you just don't use it for a month, or you throw a bunch of "safe" recurring charges at it to dilute it, or you hold a batch and send them through right before the rollover. Lots of ways to play number games. Most of the execs did go to prison though, so don't take this as advice, but to be fair, the processors are the ones who told them to use those tactics.
  - folli 6y ago
    They went to prison for load balancing, or how does this relate?
    - thinkingkong 6y ago
      Gambling.
      - fooey 6y ago
        The business was just run of the mill "get rich on google" and "free government grant" garbage that was common in the 2000's. Ironically, they made so much money doing their regular business the owner bought a small US based bank and was running online poker processing through it. When "black friday" in the poker world happened, the bank failed and everything fell apart, but so far as I know, no one involved was ever charged with anything related.
    - fooey 6y ago
      The technical reason was bank fraud for all the shell corporations they set up in the process. The bank claimed they had no idea they were all related, even though every application had the owners name on the paperwork. To be clear, it was a bad company. However, the bank 100% knew what was going on and the merchant accounts 100% knew what was going on. So long as they were making money, and chargebacks make them a lot of money, they were happy. In my opinion the people running the company were just naive enough to not know how to cover their asses as well as the money guys.
capableweb 6y ago
Thanks a lot for the reply here. So Stripe manually checks the websites and sees exactly what they are being used for, as long as Stripe itself is not being used for the adult stuff, it's fine, and you can use other providers for the adult content? Still sounds like OnlyFans has some custom agreement with Stripe and a small player would get banned from using Stripe as soon as they see nudity on the site.
- Rapzid 6y ago
  That sounds pretty reasonable; Stripe must be in a trusting arrangement with OnlyFans to do the right thing there.
mobilemidget 6y ago
Stripe merchants are not audited by G2 LLC for MasterCard? (*edit, maybe not with all banks I think of after 'submit') https://www.g2llc.com/solutions/monitoring-solutions/merchant-monitoring/ https://www.g2llc.com/solutions/monitoring-solutions/merchan... In EU they do, and if a string, or image on the site is not 'okay', you get denied for processing. And that's website wide, not just a single page. So in that line, I don't understand how stripe does this 'on the radar'.
ardy42 6y ago
> I think Stripe is there for models on the site who don't sell adult content. OnlyFans probably does a check to see if the page is adult-related and if it is, then routes it to the correct payment processor. How would the bank even know that transactions for adult-content pages were routed away from it? Wouldn't they just all come in as "OnlyFans wants $20 from card XYZ?"
- stu2b50 6y ago
  I'm guessing it would be negotiated terms between all three parties. Onlyfans ensures in their contract that they only route non-adult payments to Stripe, Stripe tells Wells Fargo to chill. Maybe some audits along the way to keep WF happy.
rebelidealist 6y ago
"Last time I checked the network requests, I noticed it was storing the card on Stripe, CCBill, and Securion, but using CCBill or Securion to process the payment." Im curious about how to use Stripe to only store cards and let other processors make the charge. Would anyone have more info on this? Greatly appreciate it.
- cj 6y ago
  > how to use Stripe to only store cards and let other processors make the charge 1) Have the user submit their card info on your payment page 2) Simultaneously send the card info to the 3 processors 3) Then process the charge through just 1 of the 3 processors, leaving the others open to be used later (At least with Stripe) the process of saving a credit card to Stripe and actually charging the card are 2 independent API calls. Nothing stops you from saving card info to your payment processor(s) without actually charging it.
  - m11a 6y ago
    To pull that off, they'd have to (technically) process the card info, which puts them in the scope for PCI compliance. By that point, I don't know why they'd send card info to 3 processors especially when they know, at that point, which processor they're gonna process it with. It would just make more sense to send it to the 1 processor the code ends up deciding to use.
    - cj 6y ago
      No, I don’t think that’s accurate. With stripe.js, you send the cc info directly to stripe from the browser. Stripe returns an identifier which you can use in the future to charge the card. Assuming other payment processors work similarly, you could easily send the credit card details to multiple payment processors directly from the browser to the payment processors, and then store the card identifiers from each processor (not the card number) in your database to charge it at a later date.
      - dylz 6y ago
game_the0ry 6y ago
> To reduce the likelihood of passing that chargeback threshold and being banned, OnlyFans uses "cascading payments", which essentially load balances the payments across multiple payment processors in order to reduce their chargeback ratios across their merchant accounts > I think Stripe is there for models on the site who don't sell adult content. OnlyFans probably does a check to see if the page is adult-related and if it is, then routes it to the correct payment processor. Very smart.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

techsin101 6y ago

loading across multiple providers won't alter the chargeback ratio so what is the point?

capableweb 6y ago
You could (in theory) do some risk analysis and put the ones with the highest risk into the providers where you had the lowest chargeback. Wouldn't be 100% solution, but could get you there.
- netsharc 6y ago
  I wonder if they do do that. In Germany there's a credit rating agency that more or less has a monopoly, and everyone has more or less a profile with data supplied by companies who've dealt with them commercially (e.g. if you signed a phone contract or opened a bank account). But sometimes their algorithm would also try to predict the chances of people not paying bills by things like the ZIP code where they live...
thomasedwards 6y ago
Stripe is cheaper than CCBill, so it makes sense to send more that way when you can.
Exuma 6y ago
Because MIDs also look at the total # of chargebacks and will do a manual flag review of your account, so they don't just look at the % ratio but also total number.
nasalgoat 6y ago
It spreads the chargebacks across multiple processors, who don't talk to each other so don't know about the chargebacks on the other processors.
- vehementi 6y ago
  That still does not affect the ratio
  - nasalgoat 6y ago
    The individual processors are the ones who care about chargebacks, not VISA itself. So by spreading the processing among several of them, the number of chargebacks per processor are lower. It's load balancing.
    - xuhu 6y ago
      Also lower is the number of transactions. The ratio stays the same.
      - nasalgoat 6y ago
        From my experience in the adult industry, the processor cared more about the total than the percentage.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - Quarrel 6y ago
      This just isn't true. Yes, you can be pinged by the processor, but mostly because they're worried about the CC networks pinging them. Source: Have a 30M+ people site that has been pinged by VISA itself for chargeback ratios ...
  - sk5t 6y ago
    Maybe the confounding factor here is that the term "load balance" could be extremely unsuitable for onlyfans' processing logic; e.g. they might preferentially route the risky transactions to one or two processors that won't get too agitated/punitive.
PeterisP 6y ago
You can direct most of the payments towards the cheap-but-prudish processors, and the really adult stuff towards a processor that accepts almost anything but is more expensive.
fooey 6y ago
Chargeback ratio's are per account, but also have a minimum absolute threshold. So it's say, 2% chargeback AND at least 200 chargebacks before penalties kick in. In a past life I worked for a place who had a few hundred processing accounts to load balance it all out because their chargeback rates were way too high. If an account gets close, you just don't use it for a month, or you throw a bunch of "safe" recurring charges at it to dilute it, or you hold a batch and send them through right before the rollover. Lots of ways to play number games. Most of the execs did go to prison though, so don't take this as advice, but to be fair, the processors are the ones who told them to use those tactics.
- folli 6y ago
  They went to prison for load balancing, or how does this relate?
  - thinkingkong 6y ago
    Gambling.
    - fooey 6y ago
      The business was just run of the mill "get rich on google" and "free government grant" garbage that was common in the 2000's. Ironically, they made so much money doing their regular business the owner bought a small US based bank and was running online poker processing through it. When "black friday" in the poker world happened, the bank failed and everything fell apart, but so far as I know, no one involved was ever charged with anything related.
  - fooey 6y ago
    The technical reason was bank fraud for all the shell corporations they set up in the process. The bank claimed they had no idea they were all related, even though every application had the owners name on the paperwork. To be clear, it was a bad company. However, the bank 100% knew what was going on and the merchant accounts 100% knew what was going on. So long as they were making money, and chargebacks make them a lot of money, they were happy. In my opinion the people running the company were just naive enough to not know how to cover their asses as well as the money guys.

capableweb 6y ago

Thanks a lot for the reply here. So Stripe manually checks the websites and sees exactly what they are being used for, as long as Stripe itself is not being used for the adult stuff, it's fine, and you can use other providers for the adult content? Still sounds like OnlyFans has some custom agreement with Stripe and a small player would get banned from using Stripe as soon as they see nudity on the site.

Rapzid 6y ago
That sounds pretty reasonable; Stripe must be in a trusting arrangement with OnlyFans to do the right thing there.

mobilemidget 6y ago

Stripe merchants are not audited by G2 LLC for MasterCard? (*edit, maybe not with all banks I think of after 'submit') https://www.g2llc.com/solutions/monitoring-solutions/merchant-monitoring/ https://www.g2llc.com/solutions/monitoring-solutions/merchan... In EU they do, and if a string, or image on the site is not 'okay', you get denied for processing. And that's website wide, not just a single page. So in that line, I don't understand how stripe does this 'on the radar'.

ardy42 6y ago

> I think Stripe is there for models on the site who don't sell adult content. OnlyFans probably does a check to see if the page is adult-related and if it is, then routes it to the correct payment processor. How would the bank even know that transactions for adult-content pages were routed away from it? Wouldn't they just all come in as "OnlyFans wants $20 from card XYZ?"

stu2b50 6y ago
I'm guessing it would be negotiated terms between all three parties. Onlyfans ensures in their contract that they only route non-adult payments to Stripe, Stripe tells Wells Fargo to chill. Maybe some audits along the way to keep WF happy.

rebelidealist 6y ago

"Last time I checked the network requests, I noticed it was storing the card on Stripe, CCBill, and Securion, but using CCBill or Securion to process the payment." Im curious about how to use Stripe to only store cards and let other processors make the charge. Would anyone have more info on this? Greatly appreciate it.

cj 6y ago
> how to use Stripe to only store cards and let other processors make the charge 1) Have the user submit their card info on your payment page 2) Simultaneously send the card info to the 3 processors 3) Then process the charge through just 1 of the 3 processors, leaving the others open to be used later (At least with Stripe) the process of saving a credit card to Stripe and actually charging the card are 2 independent API calls. Nothing stops you from saving card info to your payment processor(s) without actually charging it.
- m11a 6y ago
  To pull that off, they'd have to (technically) process the card info, which puts them in the scope for PCI compliance. By that point, I don't know why they'd send card info to 3 processors especially when they know, at that point, which processor they're gonna process it with. It would just make more sense to send it to the 1 processor the code ends up deciding to use.
  - cj 6y ago
    No, I don’t think that’s accurate. With stripe.js, you send the cc info directly to stripe from the browser. Stripe returns an identifier which you can use in the future to charge the card. Assuming other payment processors work similarly, you could easily send the credit card details to multiple payment processors directly from the browser to the payment processors, and then store the card identifiers from each processor (not the card number) in your database to charge it at a later date.
    - dylz 6y ago

game_the0ry 6y ago

> To reduce the likelihood of passing that chargeback threshold and being banned, OnlyFans uses "cascading payments", which essentially load balances the payments across multiple payment processors in order to reduce their chargeback ratios across their merchant accounts > I think Stripe is there for models on the site who don't sell adult content. OnlyFans probably does a check to see if the page is adult-related and if it is, then routes it to the correct payment processor. Very smart.