2Much Internet Services Survives Payment Standstill

- Billing, live video, and audio streaming Website creator 2Much Internet Services was forced to a standstill over the weekend of Jan. 16-19, when its newly formed network of Websites virtually lost the capacity to accept payments from clients.

As AVN.com reported earlier this month, ProBilling, the third-party billing company 2Much.net has dealt with since last summer, announced it would cease all credit card billing services, with only e-checking remaining. Citing "challenging times for all online credit card processing companies" in their Jan. 16 bombshell communiqué, ProBilling claimed "due to the increased scrutiny by the credit card associations we feel that we can no longer offer reliable credit card processing." Calling the credit giants "high risk processing," Pro Billing cancelled these services with only a four-day warning on Visa and none for MasterCard.

2Much Internet services, which powers a few-dozen chat Websites and requires a reliable third-party billing processor to enable customer purchases, was obliged to put normal operations on hold and hunt the market to seal a deal before the Jan. 20 deadline.

"The sites powered by 2Much had 70 to 80 percent loss in sales," 2Much communications director Greg Jones confirmed to AVN.com. "Webmasters were cool headed and understood the situation, as it happened to us once before in the past. As time wore on, they did become anxious. But they had no real cause to worry."

2Much president and CEO Mark Prince and his programming team immediately began approaching companies, dealing for compatibility to the 2Much system. Each billing company is unique and shares no standards when communicating sensitive customer data between transaction points. "We have had to write new software," said Ye Zhang, head programmer at 2Much.net, "for each of the billing companies we have tested."

The distinctive E-Wallet system LiveCamNetwork 1.9 uses simplifies purchases for end users but can't be universally adapted to just any third-party billing system, the company said. 2Much.net had the unpleasant option to either re-write its LiveCamNetwork software or reconsider the system altogether, but in the end decided against either course.

"It was hell," Prince said in a statement. "Phones rang, customers were nervous. They just dropped $12,000 on our software and they needed service. It has been hectic."

Five days past the deadline, 2Much was still testing. "We're looking into standardizing ourselves with one company in particular, and I have a pretty good idea who that'll be, but I won't say any more for now," said Prince.

Despite his lack of rancor, Prince said he had a bone to pick with ProBilling. "They announced it on a Friday, making finding another company to work with harder. Then there's the fact that nobody was open on Martin Luther King Day, a three-day weekend."

Despite 2Much's response, they say that ProBilling's announcement has been "unduly harmful." ("All 2Much-powered sites had approximately a 70 percent drop in sales, " said Prince.)

"2Much.net sites lost money," said Jones, "but not faith. Actually, reactions have been encouraging and calm on behalf of the webmasters. I think that demonstrates a great amount of faith and understanding on their part. I just hope no one took too much of a financial beating."

A new, permanent processor has yet to be found and 2Much is using temporary billing providers in the meantime.