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Is there a legal reason for being so conservative about financing porn? Or is this purely a moral stance that WePay is taking.

jonknee 12y ago
It's traditionally a very high fraud industry (tons of stolen credit cards, charge backs, etc). There are high-risk processors that specialize in it, but with higher fees than your typical processor. WePay's agreements with who they send payments through require that the transactions meet a certain standard and to get the rates that they get one of those standards is no adult content.
- yuhong 12y ago
  But why did the owner simply retweeting other tweets makes it higher risk?
  - istorical 12y ago
    For WePay it's not about risk, it's about being compliant with the rules laid down by the bank they use. The banks don't want to be involved with payment processors who process adult-related transactions, and if companies like WePay don't play ball with the banks rules then the banks walk away and WePay has to close. There are probably situations where a company like WePay has to take the stance of better safe than sorry and not piss off the bank, because if the bank gets pissed and walks then bye-bye WePay. So when WePay sees the owner retweets the tweets encouraging violating the TOS, they can't risk losing their relationship with the bank that processes their payments. On the one hand they might alienate some customers or put someone in an unfortunate situation, on the other hand their business collapses because they can no longer process any payments. Shutting down some accounts like this one is sad, but for payment processors it's their only real choice.
    - jonknee 12y ago
      Perfectly put.
    - krainboltgreene 12y ago
      Why was WePay monitoring the owner's twitter account at all?
amirmc 12y ago
> "This is in direct violation of our terms of service as our back-end processor does not permit it." That's from WePay's blog post. Though from the OP it seems there are other campaigns that should also fall foul of the ToS but continue regardless.
nasalgoat 12y ago
Due to the high fraud rates, the chargeback rate on adult content is generally 1%, compared to 10% for other merchants. It's very, very easy to lose your merchant account because of that restriction. Blame VISA.
- sp332 12y ago
  Do you have those numbers backwards?
  - nasalgoat 12y ago
    I meant the cutoff point for the processor - 1% for adult content compared to 10% for everyone else.

jonknee 12y ago

It's traditionally a very high fraud industry (tons of stolen credit cards, charge backs, etc). There are high-risk processors that specialize in it, but with higher fees than your typical processor. WePay's agreements with who they send payments through require that the transactions meet a certain standard and to get the rates that they get one of those standards is no adult content.

yuhong 12y ago
But why did the owner simply retweeting other tweets makes it higher risk?
- istorical 12y ago
  For WePay it's not about risk, it's about being compliant with the rules laid down by the bank they use. The banks don't want to be involved with payment processors who process adult-related transactions, and if companies like WePay don't play ball with the banks rules then the banks walk away and WePay has to close. There are probably situations where a company like WePay has to take the stance of better safe than sorry and not piss off the bank, because if the bank gets pissed and walks then bye-bye WePay. So when WePay sees the owner retweets the tweets encouraging violating the TOS, they can't risk losing their relationship with the bank that processes their payments. On the one hand they might alienate some customers or put someone in an unfortunate situation, on the other hand their business collapses because they can no longer process any payments. Shutting down some accounts like this one is sad, but for payment processors it's their only real choice.
  - jonknee 12y ago
    Perfectly put.
  - krainboltgreene 12y ago
    Why was WePay monitoring the owner's twitter account at all?

amirmc 12y ago

> "This is in direct violation of our terms of service as our back-end processor does not permit it." That's from WePay's blog post. Though from the OP it seems there are other campaigns that should also fall foul of the ToS but continue regardless.

nasalgoat 12y ago

Due to the high fraud rates, the chargeback rate on adult content is generally 1%, compared to 10% for other merchants. It's very, very easy to lose your merchant account because of that restriction. Blame VISA.

sp332 12y ago
Do you have those numbers backwards?
- nasalgoat 12y ago
  I meant the cutoff point for the processor - 1% for adult content compared to 10% for everyone else.