4 ms·

I can see blocking CC transactions that originate from a VPN provider's IP space, as having a high risk of fraud. But this is about blocking payments to the VPN

I can see blocking CC transactions that originate from a VPN provider's IP space, as having a high risk of fraud. But this is about blocking payments to the VPN providers, which seems somewhat different. Are they worried that the purchase of VPN services is itself often done via CC fraud? From the statement it sounds like they're more worried about the existence of VPN services at all. It doesn't personally affect me, though, because just about anything you can do via a VPN you can do by buying a VPS and ssh -D'ing through it. It takes slightly more technical skill, but anyone who can operate PuTTY can do it after reading about 1 page of instructions. And I consider it unlikely that Visa will start blocking payments to Linode or Digital Ocean...

lsc 13y ago
>But this is about blocking payments to the VPN providers, which seems somewhat different. Are they worried that the purchase of VPN services is itself often done via CC fraud? Yes. the nature of credit card "security" is that, well, there is no security. The agreement between the merchant and the bank is that if anything goes wrong, the merchant has to return the money. This means that they generally only want to give merchant accounts to people who are "good for it" - they will check your credit, and if it isn't awesome, they will either hold back a bunch of your money, or deny you outright. They want to avoid industries with a lot of chargebacks for the same reason. "adult content" has the same problem... you get a /lot/ of chargebacks, so if you want to have a merchant account and sell adult content? well, you are going to pay substantially higher fees, and you are going to have a limited number of providers who will take you at all. But yeah, from what I've seen, reputable VPS providers have fairly low chargeback rates. I've never run a VPN service, so I wouldn't know, but from what I have been told, the chargeback rate is way higher.
Amadou 13y ago
> just about anything you can do via a VPN you can do by buying a VPS I like my VPN service because my network traffic is mixed in with all the other users. Makes it harder to distinguish between my web browsing and their web-browsing. The other major benefit I get from VPN is the ability to very quickly switch VPN egress points - so I get a new IP address half-way across the planet. That makes it harder to isolate my web usage too, it also is a work-around for geo-blocks on some websites. I don't think either of those are functions of a VPS.
- justincormack 13y ago
  Well you could use a cloud service to do the second one. The first is harder.
dobbsbob 13y ago
They've obviously flagged them as high risk merchants. Carders use VPNs all the time in their fraud craft, seems natural they would steal the VPNs too. Big deal VPN providers can accept bitcoin, Okpay, direct deposits, or get around this by selling vouchers and credits for cards on a seperate site.

lsc 13y ago

>But this is about blocking payments to the VPN providers, which seems somewhat different. Are they worried that the purchase of VPN services is itself often done via CC fraud? Yes. the nature of credit card "security" is that, well, there is no security. The agreement between the merchant and the bank is that if anything goes wrong, the merchant has to return the money. This means that they generally only want to give merchant accounts to people who are "good for it" - they will check your credit, and if it isn't awesome, they will either hold back a bunch of your money, or deny you outright. They want to avoid industries with a lot of chargebacks for the same reason. "adult content" has the same problem... you get a /lot/ of chargebacks, so if you want to have a merchant account and sell adult content? well, you are going to pay substantially higher fees, and you are going to have a limited number of providers who will take you at all. But yeah, from what I've seen, reputable VPS providers have fairly low chargeback rates. I've never run a VPN service, so I wouldn't know, but from what I have been told, the chargeback rate is way higher.

Amadou 13y ago

> just about anything you can do via a VPN you can do by buying a VPS I like my VPN service because my network traffic is mixed in with all the other users. Makes it harder to distinguish between my web browsing and their web-browsing. The other major benefit I get from VPN is the ability to very quickly switch VPN egress points - so I get a new IP address half-way across the planet. That makes it harder to isolate my web usage too, it also is a work-around for geo-blocks on some websites. I don't think either of those are functions of a VPS.

justincormack 13y ago
Well you could use a cloud service to do the second one. The first is harder.

dobbsbob 13y ago

They've obviously flagged them as high risk merchants. Carders use VPNs all the time in their fraud craft, seems natural they would steal the VPNs too. Big deal VPN providers can accept bitcoin, Okpay, direct deposits, or get around this by selling vouchers and credits for cards on a seperate site.