''Rebill'' discussions should not be allowed on BHW

[Venusaur]

Re-bill, rebill...whatever they call this shit, it's just a fraud. There are some newbies discussing their scams here, I don't think it should be allowed, it's darker than cookie stuffing and other already disallowed subjects.

Rebill = The victim buys something and at the bottom of the website there is a forgotten section explaining that this $1 purchase will generate weekly or monthly charges of $50. In other words, it's just a virtual scam, punishable by jail time in several countries.

Some orphans from Cracked, Nulled, and other breeding grounds for criminals on the internet have come here and are discussing their dirty deeds, thinking that BHW is the Dark Web or some kind of stronghold for fraudsters...please mods, consider officially banning this topic and putting it in the site's ToS, so I can report all these comments and threads about this scam

If I'm already allowed to report, let me know.

 

[SettingSun77]

If I'm already allowed to report, let me know.

I'm sure you (and everyone else) are bored of hearing me say this. But if in doubt, report it. It's our job to look into them.

As for this topic as a whole, I'll leave this open for further discussion and the team will discuss this.

 

[BeatboxRank]

I think that BHW mods and admin should take more decisive action against any scamming activity and finally bring some good bhw members as escrow services or directly bhw which,for me, has a very high opinion.

 

[SettingSun77]

I think that BHW mods and admin should take more decisive action against any scamming activity and finally bring some good bhw members as escrow services or directly bhw which,for me, has a very high opinion.

As we've said a number of times, Escrow is being mooted for MP2.

 

[proxygo]

I'm sure you (and everyone else) are bored of hearing me say this. But if in doubt, report it. It's our job to look into them.

As for this topic as a whole, I'll leave this open for further discussion and the team will discuss this.

simply put - if it sounds sketchy - report it
then its down to the mods .

 

[Lukmat]

I don't think rebill is scam.
Actualy... all trials in Appstore are doing rebill. Free 7 days trial and then bum, $50/m or more, but most of them have lower like $10-$15/week

 

[Deleted member 731332]

I don't think rebill is scam.
Actualy... all trials in Appstore are doing rebill. Free 7 days trial and then bum, $50/m or more, but most of them have lower like $10-$15/week

You already know that they are going to rebill because they clearly tell you that it’s a monthly sub and you are getting a free trial, then they bill for the month. Cancel at any time or get billed, basically.

Rebill = The victim buys something and at the bottom of the website there is a forgotten section explaining that this $1 purchase will generate weekly or monthly charges of $50. In other words, it's just a virtual scam, punishable by jail time in several countries.

 

[Venusaur]

I don't think rebill is scam.
Actualy... all trials in Appstore are doing rebill. Free 7 days trial and then bum, $50/m or more, but most of them have lower like $10-$15/week

Free trial and then start a subscription seven days later is not a scam, just a legit business model.

But the mentioned scammers are selling products for $1 on spammy template Shopify websites and not even mentioning to their victims that their card will start to receive unauthorized charges weekly or monthly. If they make the effort to mention, they put it on a random hidden page...total scam. The victims can't even cancel that shit, there is no page to click on ''cancel subscription'' or anything like that. A distorted version of what you are referring to.

 

[Lukmat]

Free trial and then start a subscription seven days later is not a scam, just a legit business model.

But the mentioned scammers are selling products for $1 on spammy template Shopify websites and not even mentioning to their victims that their card will start to receive unauthorized charges weekly or monthly. If they make the effort to mention, they put it on a random hidden page...total scam. The victims can't even cancel that shit, there is no page to click on ''cancel subscription'' or anything like that. A distorted version of what you are referring to.

Ahhh, ok, first time I heard about it on BHW, the guy was charging $1 and then $250 with Stripe, but he vanished few years ago xD

 

[jq1]

I don't think rebill is scam.
Actualy... all trials in Appstore are doing rebill. Free 7 days trial and then bum, $50/m or more, but most of them have lower like $10-$15/week

Free trial and then start a subscription seven days later is not a scam, just a legit business model.

But the mentioned scammers are selling products for $1 on spammy template Shopify websites and not even mentioning to their victims that their card will start to receive unauthorized charges weekly or monthly. If they make the effort to mention, they put it on a random hidden page...total scam. The victims can't even cancel that shit, there is no page to click on ''cancel subscription'' or anything like that. A distorted version of what you are referring to.

I think you're both right. Rebills are legitimate when used ethically, but absolutely scam sites and services that conceal rebills from customers should not only be reported here but to their payment processors as well.

(Don't even get me started on pre-checked cross sales, which should be lit on fire and thrown off a cliff)

Banning all discussion of rebills? That would significantly hinder both membership site operators as well as providers of SaaS services wherein rebills and free or lower cost trials are an important part of pricing strategy. Reporting those who use concealed rebills seems like a more effective approach.

 

[Venusaur]

I think you're both right. Rebills are legitimate when used ethically, but absolutely scam sites and services that conceal rebills from customers should not only be reported here but to their payment processors as well.

(Don't even get me started on pre-checked cross sales, which should be lit on fire and thrown off a cliff)

Banning all discussion of rebills? That would significantly hinder both membership site operators as well as providers of SaaS services wherein rebills and free or lower cost trials are an important part of pricing strategy. Reporting those who use concealed rebills seems like a more effective approach.

If you use the search tool, you'll notice that ''rebill'' is often mentioned with words like ''high-risk payment gateway'', ''high chargeback'', ''blanks'', ''shopify banned'', etc. Legit people rarely talks about the legit business model related to free trial and subscriptions, they usually use other terms instead of ''rebill''. In any case, the comment would be reported and manually reviewed by a mod to avoid punishing legit discussions.

 

[BassTrackerBoats]

If you use the search tool, you'll notice that ''rebill'' is often mentioned with words like ''high-risk payment gateway'', ''high chargeback'', ''blanks'', ''shopify banned'', etc. Legit people rarely talks about the legit business model related to free trial and subscriptions, they usually use other terms instead of ''rebill''. In any case, the comment would be reported and manually reviewed by a mod to avoid punishing legit discussions.

You make a good point, but not all rebills are scams, so banning them entirely is probably not in the best interest of the community.

For instance, I owned an automated SEO service years ago, which was quite successful because it provided value. We had a minimal fee for a 7-day trial and then an automatic rebill for the regular monthly price.

Our chargeback ratio was negligible, as even PayPal was fine with it, and we all know that if you take a deep breath, they will close your account. I don't remember what it was as it we shut it down some 9 or 10 years ago as the service was no longer viable in the SEO world but I bet I you could count on the customer chargeback issues using the fingers on one hand.

I think that the advice @SettingSun77 and @proxygo shared above is the way to keep the forum clean.

Please report those posts/threads that appear to be nothing more than scams, and I know the rebill world has plenty of them, as opposed to taking the measure of banning any and all.

 

[AriaAstrologer]

Re-bill, rebill...whatever they call this shit, it's just a fraud. There are some newbies discussing their scams here, I don't think it should be allowed, it's darker than cookie stuffing and other already disallowed subjects.

Rebill = The victim buys something and at the bottom of the website there is a forgotten section explaining that this $1 purchase will generate weekly or monthly charges of $50. In other words, it's just a virtual scam, punishable by jail time in several countries.

Some orphans from Cracked, Nulled, and other breeding grounds for criminals on the internet have come here and are discussing their dirty deeds, thinking that BHW is the Dark Web or some kind of stronghold for fraudsters...please mods, consider officially banning this topic and putting it in the site's ToS, so I can report all these comments and threads about this scam

If I'm already allowed to report, let me know.

Users have the will power to cancel subscriptions at any time. If users don't cancel subscriptions, then it's all fair game

 

[SOCOM]

Re-bills are an awesome way to legally make money if you're doing it legally. If someone is saying they're scamming users, BHW doesn't support that so just report the thread and mods take care of it.

 

[Lukmat]

Re-bills are an awesome way to legally make money if you're doing it legally. If someone is saying they're scamming users, BHW doesn't support that so just report the thread and mods take care of it.

It's legal here in Europe, but terms and conditions must be clear and you need to write in visible place that customer will be rebilled
CV generator companies doing it

 

[Deleted member 731332]

I have personally never been scammed on BHW or any other forum website since the early 2000s.

I think bringing this up is a good thing for people that might buy something for $1 or some other unbelievable price online. Thank you @Venusaur for bringing it to our attention. You’ve definitely alerted me to this kind of nonsense. I won’t fall for it now.

Not that I would because not even dollar tree sells anything for $1 in the US anymore lol

 

[jq1]

If you use the search tool, you'll notice that ''rebill'' is often mentioned with words like ''high-risk payment gateway'', ''high chargeback'', ''blanks'', ''shopify banned'', etc. Legit people rarely talks about the legit business model related to free trial and subscriptions, they usually use other terms instead of ''rebill''. In any case, the comment would be reported and manually reviewed by a mod to avoid punishing legit discussions.

High Risk payment gateways are the those that cater to industries such as adult. Adult processing services and merchant account providers have an entirely different set of rules that must be followed compared to 'lower risk' ecommerce. This entails annual $1000 fees and higher processing costs.

A lot of legitimate, ethical adult sites use pricing that includes rebills, so that's why you see rebills combined with 'High Risk'. It's not about the site itself, but rather the category the site falls into, as determined by Visa and Mastercard. Other areas you might see that are dating and casino, that's just a guess as I haven't read any threads here about rebills so not sure what you've been seeing.

Then there's areas that aren't considered 'High Risk', such as SaaS. One could make the argument that it's actually sometimes safer to pay monthly (get rebilled) for use of a software/program rather than pay a huge sum for 'Lifetime Access', only to have the program die along with the next Google/Meta/whatever update three months down the road.

Visa and Mastercard decided adult is 'High Risk' in large part due to the scam pre-checked cross sales that used to be a huge part of the industry. Along with that came a higher risk of chargebacks, which used to happen so often because customers were rightfully upset their $25 purchase ballooned into $250 or more in add-ons. Legitimate sites don't do that, and it had nothing to do with pricing strategies that include rebills.

Rebills are not inherently unethical or scammy, it's practises such as concealing them which are, as you pointed out. I'm not trying to change your mind with this post, simply explaining what 'High Risk' means in the context of payment processing, and offering an example of situations where rebills are actually safer than making one large upfront purchase.

 

[proxygo]

@BassTrackerBoats - i saw the allert and thought
oh oh - what have i done lol .

 

[dvc]

@BassTrackerBoats - i saw the allert and thought
oh oh - what have i done lol .

Is this the first time @BassTrackerBoats reacts with a haha emoji???

 

[BassTrackerBoats]

Is this the first time @BassTrackerBoats reacts with a haha emoji???

It's a rare occurrence... kind of like Halley's Comet.