Exotica wrote:

{ Ok, well, maybe they haven't caught up with Renderosity yet, maybe but not bloody likely! I have a similar thread going on in the merchant's forum and not a single word has been written by Renderosity staff/admin even when specifically addressed. Now I find out that Renderotica accepts PayPal! They're either very, very stupid or very, very sneaky.}

Renderotica does NOT accept PayPal for any items in our store. We never have and we won't because of their rules.

PayPal states in their Additional User Agreement for Premier and Business Accounts:

{#6. Reserve Account in Case of Closure. If you or PayPal close your account, PayPal may retain a portion of any funds it holds in custody for you, based on your transaction history, as a reserve to the extent reasonable to protect PayPal against the risk of future reversals of transactions occurring prior to such closure. PayPal will pay you the balance of any such reserve 180 days after closure. }

This is common practice for merchant accounts. Believe me, I know from having dealt with several of them. Consumers have 6 months to file a chargeback on credit card purchases, so the merchant provider does this to protect themselves. If you disappear and there's a chargeback, they have to pay it. Do I like this rule? Not at all. But if you want a merchant account, you deal with it.

Do I think PayPal is being ridiculous in this case? Yes, I do. Do I think you will get anywhere with them? Probably not. It's like someone said. They aren't looking at individuals. They are blindly assessing risk, just like insurance companies do. It's unfortunate. And it isn't really true that adult businesses in general have higher chargeback rates. (In fact, I would bet good money that Renderotica's chargeback rate is significantly lower than Renderosity's or DAZ's.) However, by giving merchant accounts to fly-by-night webcam businesses who do tend to have high chargeback rates, they have set up a situation where all "adult" businesses have suddenly been painted with the same brush.

BTW, any online transaction for digital goods is considered a higher risk than a transaction for shippable hardgoods because you have no way of proving that the owner of the card is the one who actually received the merchandise. That's why many companies will not ship to an address that is different than the billing address on your card. Diane