Knowledge is Power: The Vital Importance of Booking Codes in Assessing Risk
I wanted to write a post about reading booking/transaction codes and assessing risk levels of new potential clients, due to some questions I’ve been receiving lately about booking declines and how to assess and mitigate chargeback (cb) risk without turning away legitimate clients.
While every processor will occasionally decline the odd legit client, for the most part declines are an indy chica’s best friend, in that they help ensure that you won’t do work you won’t get paid for.
As independent camgirls it’s vital for each of us to know how to read declines, in the interests of both minimizing our risk and easing any fears of chargebacks that one may experience when interacting with new clients.
Declines are generally pretty rare, but when they occur they generally occur for one of the following reasons:
1) insufficient funds on the debit or credit card
2) no CCV data, which means the user has no access to the back of the
card-meaning the highest risk of cb
It’s really important for all indy cam girls to become accustomed to reading decline codes, as no matter what independent listing site you work the same codes still apply. If you receive a decline with a Transaction ID NSF 51 that means your client needs to use a new card as he’s over his limit on that card, whereas if you receive a Transaction code N7 that means he likely doesn’t have the card in hand (meaning a HUGE cb risk as there’s a good likelihood that the card data is stolen).
For those who are interested in a chart on decline codes, this: https://stats.slimcd.com/documentation/Error%20Codes_full.htm is the best I’ve found, and can really help you guide clients towards making successful payments and avoid the thieves. In all honesty if you want to do skype shows the above should be your bible.
If the decline is simply a matter of an NSF card you can ask your client to switch to another card. However, if he can’t provide a CCV number (the 3-4 digit number on the back of the credit card) tread with extreme caution, as chances are the card info is stolen and he doesn’t have access to the actual plastic held by the legit owner.
Risk Level in Not Tied to Booking Amount
Unlike many independent camgirls I’m not afraid of large sum bookings, as I’ve set my scrubbing system up to catch the losers no matter how much (or how little) they spend. If anything I’ve found that cb’s tend to be tied to lower-volume bookings, and that high-volume regs are the least likely to chargeback.
Independent Camming is Lower Risk Than Other Adult Niches
Regarding the risk of cb’s, avoiding them successfully is in large part due to a diligent scrutinizing of your bookings, but there are also a few factors that make independent camming far lower risk than other forms of adult entertainment that I’d like to explore below:
First off, please don’t stress out about cb’s too much, as indy is actually very low risk. The main reason why is that with our payment systems the funds are taken from the credit card before the show begins. With many pay per min cam sites the funds are only deducted at a later date, meaning many cb’s are actually card declines. Every now and then you’ll encounter a declined payment from a client with a ‘do not honor’ code, which simply means that the card is either closed or the client is over his limit. That’s a good thing, as an upfront decline means you won’t end up doing work you won’t get paid for like you would on a network cam site that doesn’t cover cb’s. On a site like IMLive for example, that NSF payment for a cam show would result in a cb.
Indy is also less high risk than porn membership sites, in that much of the fraud there is guys signing up with stolen cards to steal the members are material to sell on file locker sites for their own profit. Since there are tons of cam girls performing sex shows in free chat there’s no incentive for guys to use a stolen card to record a skype
show-they can get that for free already all over the net.
Main Red Flags for Indy Cam Girls
The main risk factors are female names (indicating either a stolen card or a mom/gf/wife’s card-and she WILL charge back once it’s discovered because her coward partner/son will deny it was him) and disposable email
accounts; beyond that it’s about trusting your gut and knowing how to read the booking info for each transaction notification you receive. Another successful strategy involving geo-blocking nations associated with high fraud risk. In almost 6 years as an indy camgirl I’ve had 4 cb’s worth less than $200 in total, pennies when considering my overall booking volumes. In sum, cb risk is something to pay attention to, but not stress over.
Knowledge is power, and learning how to read transaction/booking codes is a vital tool in both protecting yourself from fraud and in enjoying your new clients as you grow your own independent cam business.
Good luck out there, and happy camming 🙂
