FV seems to be the only Internet payment mechanism that lets buyers quickly open an account and use their credit card to cover purchases. Anyone know of any others? The FV 90 day lag is their main downside in my opinion (though defaulting to not paying if the customer does not answer email is another problem). So FV does not take any risk at all - and a merchant has to have enough extra capital to let 3 months worth of sales sit at FV. Some ideas for ways that they or someone else could improve on this: 1) reduce the 91 days after a merchant had been a merchant for awhile 2) reduce the 91 days when sales were to long time customers 3) verify customers with letters/phone calls when opening the account and then with digital signature on sales - and give very short clearing time -- Vince ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 15:11:02 -0800 From: morehelp@fv.com To: vince@offshore.com.ai Subject: <960130/vinc0328078> (Lag between sales and payment?) Your question has been answered by a help operator for FIRST VIRTUAL (TM). The operator assigned to your question is op106 (Christopher Arndt), That operator, or someone consulted by that operator, has provided the following answer to your question: ---------------- Hello, We put an escrow hold on a seller's money for 91 days to protect ourselves from buyer credit card charge backs. We realize this can be inconvenient for some of our sellers, but at this time, that is how the system works. Federal Regulation Z of the Credit Card Regulations entitles credit card holders to a 90 period during which they can charge back any purchase. Though buyers are obligated to return the goods, this does not always happen. The credit card company is obligated by federal law to pay the buyer back, and it is the merchant who is left without payment. In our system, because it is First Virtual that has the merchant credit card account, not you, First Virtual is at risk of losing money when your buyers issue charge backs on your sale items. Because we do not conduct any credit checks on a seller, and because any buyer can charge back any charge, if we didn't protect ourselves with this 91 day hold, we could easily fall victim to charge back fraud. But once 90 days have passed, it becomes significantly harder for a buyer to make a charge back. And it is at this point that we feel that the risk of a charge back is sufficiently low that we can deliver your funds to you. We hold your money for 91 days for our protection, but the flip side is that we allow our sellers the freedom of being allowed to sell without having to go through a credit check. Virtually anyone can sell using First Virtual, and this opens up many possibilities for people who otherwise would not be able to sell products through major credit cards over the Internet. Thank you for your interest in First Virtual -- ************************************************************* ...one flew east, one flew west, one flew over the cuckoo's nest... Christopher Arndt First Virtual Holdings carndt@fv.com http://www.fv.com ************************************************************* ---------------- You may communicate further with our operator by replying to this message. If you are unhappy with the service you get from operator op106, you may send mail to "helpescalator@fv.com". Your original question is included at the end of this message. Thank you for using FIRST VIRTUAL!