Wirecard CEO exits as search for missing billions hits dead end in Asia

Re:Wirecard CEO exits as search for missing billions hits de... by blablabla123 on Friday June 19, 2020 @08:44AM (#23573911)

"No one knew how they did it. One theory was that they were active in more “risky” areas such as online gambling and porn sites but no one cared as long as reported profits and the stock price went up."

That's actually the explanation. 10 years ago I ran a small project and they were the only Payment Service Provider that agreed to work with us. At that time at least in Germany there were no Paypal and Stripe to directly process Credit Cards etc. for small websites. IIRC their fees - especially for refunds - were much higher than those of competitors. Refund rates are normally in the sub percentage but they would accept higher than usual refund rates without cancelling the account. It's easy to start a business in an area where there is a vacuum of competitors.

(FWIW I think cancelling the account with them to switch over to Paypal took almost 2 years...)

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Re:Wirecard CEO exits as search for missing billions hits de... by hef19898 on Friday June 19, 2020 @08:56AM (#23574012)

I have trouble to see the risk with processing payments for online porn. Sure, some institutions might have a "moral" issue, but otherwise? Gambling could be different, so.

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Re:Wirecard CEO exits as search for missing billions hits de... by objclxt on Friday June 19, 2020 @09:24AM (#23574288)

> I have trouble to see the risk with processing payments for online porn.

Huge number of chargebacks. A previous employer of mine had a subsidiary that handled premium rate SMS and phone call billing, a lot of which was adult services. You'd see a huge amount of contested charges, for reasons such as:

* Buyer's remorse (get drunk, wake up the next day, realise you spent $500 on porn)

* Unsupervised minor - your kid "borrows" your credit card for some online "research"

* Outright fraud - stolen cards, etc.

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Re:Wirecard CEO exits as search for missing billions hits de... by stickfigure on Friday June 19, 2020 @12:51PM (#23576250)

This varies quite a bit. I was the CTO of a very large porn site in the mid-2000s and our chargeback rate was tiny - a small fraction of a percent. That fact didn't help us avoid high-risk categorization, though.

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Re:Wirecard CEO exits as search for missing billions hits de... by Throwawayaerlei on Friday June 19, 2020 @07:59PM (#23580186)

The only time I've ever suffered from "stolen id", not even cards or accounts, was with an online porn company that sold the account in arrears to a collections agency. The agency even admitted they had nothing linking me to the transactions other than my name, but demanded I pay up. A stern letter fixed the problem from my end.

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Re:Wirecard CEO exits as search for missing billions hits de... by chefkoch on Friday June 19, 2020 @09:17AM (#23574214)

I guess there are a lot of chargebacks from people entering their details for "trials" as well as stolen cards being used.

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Re:Wirecard CEO exits as search for missing billions hits de... by ojnabieoot on Friday June 19, 2020 @09:09AM (#23574125)

PornHub has an enormous problem with sexual trafficking and child abuse, which means that financing PornHub exposes you to serious legal liability (and an unambiguous moral responsibility). So it's not just institutional prudishness - online porn is full of vicious criminals.

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Re:Wirecard CEO exits as search for missing billions hits de... by arbitrary_name on Friday June 19, 2020 @02:49PM (#23577657)

Wow so I guess Facebook needs to be classified as high risk as well? Please don't spread misinformation like that.

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Re:Wirecard CEO exits as search for missing billions hits de... by anoncareer0212 on Friday June 19, 2020 @10:43AM (#23574998)

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Re:Wirecard CEO exits as search for missing billions hits de... by 55555 on Friday June 19, 2020 @08:35PM (#23580410)

Yeah this is probably a big part of their business. I recently shopped around for a merchant account for a similar market and Wirecard reps were willing to work with me and would allow us to process big numbers.

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