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| Porn Users Forum » Currency traps and tricks |
| 1-9 of 9 Posts | Page 1 |
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| 09-20-08 04:10am - 5937 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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Denner (0)
Active User  Posts: 1,217 Registered: Mar 03, '07 Location: Denmark |
Currency traps and tricks I do not know if this still ongoing and increasing speculations in currency, Euro and US dollars affects US-PU's at all. But it's getting out of hand and has now increased prices for euro-PU's quite a lot: Especially CCBill now seems to speculate in better earnings here. I looked throug a lot of the TBP "Top 100"-sites - and every site with CCBill as billingco. has the problem. And it's not an TBP-error in any way. Exampel: Checked out Twistys: $19.95 is the sites own price when hitting the join-button...but when you get into CCBill the price is now 19.95 in euro - I know thats been going on for some time - but now when you try to change into US-currency the price is suddenly: $27.37. Another: Nubiles. price stated AT the site: $29.31 - but again: at CCBill it's euro and when trying US dollars it's $ 40.21... Webmasters of sites using CCBill: you may loose a lot of euro-costumers that way... On the other hand if you TRY to join via Epoch (for exampel) you might get lucky and get the ordinary price.. "I don't drink anymore - I freeze it, and eat it like a popcicle" | |
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| 09-20-08 06:18am - 5937 days | #2 | |
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Khan (0)
Suspended  Posts: 1,737 Registered: Jan 05, '07 Location: USA |
It's often called "regional pricing" or "Geo-Targeted pricing" and it's becoming much more prevalent in the industry. My understanding is that the webmasters/ site owners decide if they want to use it. CCBill simply provides the mechanism for the varying price. Former PornUsers Senior Administrator Now at: MyPorn.com "To get your ideas across use small words, big ideas, and short sentences."-John Henry Patterson | |
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| 09-20-08 06:36am - 5937 days | #3 | |
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Denner (0)
Active User Posts: 1,217 Registered: Mar 03, '07 Location: Denmark |
Thanks for that info, Khan. With this I just want to make sure, that the webmasters get more aware of the problem - for euro-users....It's a pretty heavy increase of price when you have to go from $29 to $40 for a membership, just because your're based on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. Futhermore I think it's strange, that if you succeed in joining via Epoch (like I did with Twistys via Porninspector) I got the $ 19.95 price. But - this may just be an exampel - no matter how hard I tried to go through Epoch via TBP, I could not... "I don't drink anymore - I freeze it, and eat it like a popcicle" | |
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| 09-20-08 07:08am - 5937 days | #4 | |
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Khan (0)
Suspended Posts: 1,737 Registered: Jan 05, '07 Location: USA |
Well, making webmasters know you're aware of the practice could well be a good way to combat the trend. If they hear that you're going to look for sites that don't have prices based on geographical locations, they might be more inclined to drop the practice. Former PornUsers Senior Administrator Now at: MyPorn.com "To get your ideas across use small words, big ideas, and short sentences."-John Henry Patterson | |
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| 09-20-08 09:56am - 5937 days | #5 | |
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Drooler (0)
Disabled User  Posts: 1,831 Registered: Mar 11, '07 Location: USA |
While I'm certainly not an economist, I doubt that US dollar-based interest rates are going to rise much, if any, over the next few months given the US financial sector/mortgage/leave-room-for-the-next-thing crisis. That's at least one important factor that's going to keep it low. I wanted something new, so I left England for New England. | |
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| 09-20-08 11:05am - 5937 days | #6 | |
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Denner (0)
Active User Posts: 1,217 Registered: Mar 03, '07 Location: Denmark |
Well, it seems that there is an error here of some kind...after writing to some of the webmasters, I got the first answer: "What is the price for the membership in Europe? It should not be more, simply the conversion of the currency. Please let us know. Kim Ticket Details" That is from a Twistys webmaster..... It is NOT simply a conversion of the currency by CCBill - it's just the same amount....It would be great if it was for exampel in Nigerian (Africa) dollars, then the price of a full membership for a month would be like 2 US cents, but guess they are not that stupid.... "I don't drink anymore - I freeze it, and eat it like a popcicle" | |
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| 09-20-08 09:49pm - 5937 days | #7 | |
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TheRizzo (0)
Active User Posts: 44 Registered: Jun 11, '08 |
I've started seeing more and more sites and advertising not mentioning the price these days until you get to the join page. Just another way they try not to get caught in this practice. | |
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| 09-21-08 09:58am - 5936 days | #8 | |
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Denner (0)
Active User Posts: 1,217 Registered: Mar 03, '07 Location: Denmark |
Just got a reply from the webmaster at Nubiles, Captain. I think his input is interesting about billing in general, so with his permission, I place it here: Hi Denner, We actually just implemented the regional billing last night. Its funny that you wrote about it hours after we changed it because we were very skeptical about changing the price. We were concerned about the reaction. We have been talking to many other sites that have been doing it for some time now, like FTV, Met-art and others and they say that they have not had one complaint. We were very skeptical because we think its a big price difference. CCBill has told us that overall they have not had major complaints and that they have not seen a loss in transactions. A few things they brought to mind is that for the last 3 years the cost of memberships for Euro countries is down quite a bit compared to what it used to be because of the dollar. So they say that while the cost of regional billing is up at the same time for many years those who buy in Euros have received a discount. My biggest concern is not new buyers but return people and I do think they should get the same price an d I am working to figure out how to do that. I know it sounds like a scam or trick to you but it is not a trick. In 5 years we have not raised our prices one time. As the dollar dropped over the last 3 years, the Euro customers got a very nice discount. During that same time our costs of shooting content in Europe went up dramatically. Not only was the dollar dropping but due to inflation the Euro was increasing. Producers, make up artists, models, location rentals, equipment, all went up dramatically. From our side the content was more expensive as everyone wanted more money immediately. So while the costs went up, we never changed our prices for years. In the end the Euro customers were getting a better price, the models and producers got a better salary and we really did not receive any benefits, but at the same time we continue to try to work to improve. Last year compared to this year we have done some major changes at Nubiles. With the advent of new features, more HD content, instant flash movies for those who don't want to download, and tons of updates we have seen server and bandwidth costs up 6 figures compared to last year, and the year isn't even over yet. If you add that to the costs of shooting going up, we felt that we would like to try out the regional billing. We are not trying to scam or trick anyone, but it does cost a lot more to shoot in Europe. We are not convinced that we should keep it. We will add a ccbill regular euro price page for return members in case we keep the regional billing or we may just drop the regional billing completely. We haven't even done it one full day yet just testing it. I believe most other ccbill sites have moved to it. Thanks Captain "I don't drink anymore - I freeze it, and eat it like a popcicle" | |
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| 09-21-08 12:04pm - 5936 days | #9 | |
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atrapat (0)
Active User  Posts: 182 Registered: Apr 19, '08 Location: Non-USA |
Thanks for sharing webmasters' views on the subject. I still don't get this regional pricing thing, though. Pay sites are basically selling bytes. It's not like it's gonna cost them more to send 1Mb to a town a couple of miles away than to send it to the other end of the world. I understand Nubiles logic, though, as they also shoot in Europe. But companies who shoot all their content in the US (perhaps in the San Fernando Valley only) are also using it and, for me, it's very hard to understand. Let me also say that, in my personal experience, I've recently seen less regional pricing taking place. Also, I've seen more epoch sites than ccbill ones using it. For some reason (perhaps because the USD has been getting stronger against the EUR in the last couple months), I have less strong feelings against it than when I started the Sites that charge more in EUR than in USD thread some time ago. I think the main problem is the sudden increase of a 40-50% in memberships. But I'm sure that, if the EUR gets ever nearer 1.10/1.20 USD, everyone will switch to regional pricing. Altough, if this exchange rate is reached soon, the price of porn will probably be the last thing we'll worry about... Edited on Sep 21, 2008, 12:08pm | |
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