I'm an impulsive gold member who really enjoyed the card payment. I'm not in crypto and don't like the waiting periods for the other methods.

Is there a plan to reintroduce some form of card based payment method?

Dick shaft I have no relationship with ESA and I do not speak for them, but I have considerable experience with this type of thing. Here's the problem. Any site that has anything at all to do with sex, and a bunch of other things, are considered by almost every merchant bank as a "high risk" company. The percentage of reversals on such sites is more than quadruple what it is for, say, a site that sells wholewheat muffins.

Because of this, most merchant banks will not allow you to use their credit card portals. Same thing with most ISPP's (internet service payment providers). There are some companies out there that have gone through the *MASSIVE* schlepp that it takes to process high-risk transactions but they are few and far between, and I don't know of any left in South Africa.

ESA is between a rock and a hard place as even if they wanted to make your life easier and they decided to do all the work to become their own ISPP, which is technically possible, it would never work because nobody would trust it. There's a good reason why all webcam sites, porn sites, escort sites around the world tend to use one of about 4 reputable ISPPs but their fees are outrageous. One of the biggest, charges 35% of the transaction fee!

Thanks a ton oraljim, that was very enlightening. It's unfortunate for ESA if that's the case.

I just renew a few days before the expiry date and then it's seamless.

What I don't understand is that you can pay by card for premium membership on a rival site, but not ESA. I don't do crypto and have suffered in silence, until now, as a basic member of ESA since payment by card was no longer possible. We all know ESA is by miles the superior site and I was a gold member for a long time.
It's a pain not having access to private galleries, videos, not being able to PM advertisers directly and save favourites, all the perks of gold membership. But I put up with it as my little protest.
The main thing is I have access to and can do reviews, see and contribute to the forum and PM other punters.
And the suburb search is invaluable.
Oh, and the SPs on this site are far superior to those on other sites.

On 2021-12-24 23:46:10 mervhughes said:
What I don't understand is that you can pay by card for premium membership on a rival site, but not ESA

If by "rival site" you are referring to a certain colour at the top of a robot and a type of cloth, then they are using a company called <dontwannasay>. When I last checked (which was admittedly over 2 years ago) it was expressly against their Terms of Service to charge for any adult services. That may have changed but I doubt it. ESA is simply being more ethical and actually obeying a legal contract. However if things have changed then yes, I agree it would be nice if ESA added that back as an option.

Dear dick.shaft

You are not alone, we would like nothing more than to be able to have a credit card system in place again, oraljim hit the nail on the head. We are considered high risk and, due to the content, we are not able to get a merchant with the bank as it's against their policies.

Yes, the rival sites do have a credit card system and we questioned it with the banks when they turned us away. We know of at least one site that registered a different name with the bank in order to get the merchant many many years ago when they started.
We did raise this with the bank as it's an unfair practice but they simply ignored it.

We will not stop looking for a way to get a credit card system again but for now, Crypto is the next best thing.

If you do not like the waiting time for the GM to be activated you could make a payment before your membership expires like tony882388 says he does.

We apologise for the inconvenience this has caused, it has caused a financial loss for the company too so we will not give up.

Regards
ESA