Hello fellow HA addicts,

I've signed up for allofmp3.com site. Then I wanted to put some credit on my account using my credt card. They use a company called cyberplat.com for payments. The problem is that the authorization fails. I just do not know if this is because my bank bounces every authorization request from Russia, or something else. I've never had any problem with my credit card. I have sufficient credit. I also tried larger amounts such as 20 dollars because initially I started with 5 dollars and I thought it failed because the sum is just far too low.

I live in the UK and I have a Mastercard from Clydesdale Bank. Does anyone succeeded in paying allofmp3.com from the UK. If so could you tell me

- what type of creditcard you used (Visa/Mastercard, etc)?

- from which bank (egg.com, Halifax, etc)

- I would be also grateful for other tips if that helps.

BTW I know that Clydesdale is crap, but it is a long story. So do not comment on that. However now I think I ready to consider another bank. Hence the question.

Many thanks,

Triza

Have you tried using PayPal?

It is disabled (ie not available) at the moment. There are no other choices unless you are resident in Russia.

Triza

PM me your credit card number so that I can further analyze your issue

Seriously: I guess your credit card operator is refusing to accept the transaction because russian hackers are somewhat famous for credit card fraud. Maybe you can contact them and tell them to accept that transaction coming from Russia?

Thanks rjamorim. That is what I thought.

Either do that, although I have not much hope that they alter their policies on an individual bases, or I get another credit card. It is high time to do that anyway.

I was/am hoping that somebody can come forward and answer my question regarding the card type which works and the bank that backs that.

Folks, just because rjamorim made some jokes, let me stress I do NOT want any personal details numbers etc, of course. Only the aformentioned innocuous details.

BTW did anybody experienced similar? Not necessarily in connection with allofmp3.

Many thanks,

Triza

Actually, I've had problems with online transactions with my credit card. I didn't try russian transactions, only american and european, but i'm pretty sure russia was blocked too. And not only online transactions, but every transaction (ticket-selling machines, phones, etc). I think it is my bank's default security policy. I contacted them and they fixed the problem. That was all
Sorry if I wasn't too helpful.

I tried allofmp3 once to see what the fuss was about. Had no problem using a Mastercard. Didn't care for it much though, as quality was too questionable in my opinion. Most material said (upon close inspection in the encoding window) that the source was alt-preset standart, not 384k freeformat as is commonly claimed around the net. What can one expect for 1 cent per song though, right? I figured for that you might as well not pay anything and just use P2P if you're so inclined (probably about just as legal as allofmp3 too). You also don't really know if you can trust the source format in the case of lossless either. It could have easily been lossy originally, you just don't know. And for the cost of downloading lossless material in a lossless format (2 cents per song, it adds up quick with large files) I might as well just buy the CD and do the work myself. Anyways, doing it myself I'm assured it's been done right with no errors (which is what I do 99.99% of the time now).

Edit: Minor fixes, additions, and some sentence restructuring to avoid confusion.

Hey, Im in the UK and i have no problem using my visa with allofmp3. I have a card with LloydsTSB and i put just $5 on my account. Worked fine for me :s

No problem with Barclays Visa from UK either.

Does your credit card have Maestro on it? That's one of the ones that thier credit card processing company won't use anymore. I have this problem with my debit card. It sucks.

Banks do it all the time. If you give them a ring you'll find they are quite receptive to the idea of a one-time transaction approval from a designated source.

Thanks emtee and also rfarris, who had a similar anwer. I am pretty newbie in these matters. I am gonna contact them 1st.

Actually after reading through some allofmp3 related posts, it seemed that the freeformat coding parameters they use are not optimal at least according to some HA residents. Besides very few players play it. So alt-preset standard would make me happier because you do not need to transcode and less can go wrong with alt-preset standard.

P2P is not good. I never tried that, so I might be wrong, but I do not want to offer my collection on line, so IMHO I cannot download either then. Even if technically possible it is not fair. Secondly, and I might be wrong again, I am not after mainstream stuff, so tracking down what I want is difficult. They have quite a few, which is interesting.

On the other hand I agree that CD s are the best. In fact that is my final goal because quality is important. The problem is that every online shop I know allows you to review the 1st approx 30 sec of the songs. 90% of the cases nothing happens there and it is difficult to decide. But the price is so good that I can download tracks dirt cheap using a low bitrate and if I like the album, I will buy it.

No. It is a Mastercard. I have a Maestro too, but that is a switch card, which I definitely do not want to use because there is less protection againts fraud.

Anyway, thanks for you, rmoody and Raffles, jimhaddon and digisurfer about the details about some working cards. I'll contact my bank and if it does not work I try to get one of those cards.

Pay close attention to the source format which is listed in the encoder window when you're about to confirm an order. Most of the time it says "alt-preset standart" (not the T at the end, their spelling error, not mine) which is definitely NOT 384k freeformat. If you select, say alt-preset extreme or another format, you will be transcoding from an alt-preset standard mp3 file. Not good at all. I wonder how long it will take before they obfuscate this little fact in the order window, or simply start lying about it.

No. Standart source means 384 kbps MP3.
For OEEX items you can choose "original CDDA source" and them it says "CD-DA original"....

Then why does it also say "standart" as an encoding option right next to other LAME presets? No, I think something fishy is going on here. And as far as OEEX goes, I've already stated my opinion on that. Just not worth it.

Edit: Adding two images...

I agree that it is 'odd' wording. But it(source:standart) would appears to only mean 'standard', as in their standard 384kbps freeformat mp3. I just purchased a song in 'standart' from the mp3 encoding page and then again in '320 kbps' mp3. I converted to WAV formats and analysed[1]. The 'standart' file is steeply cutoff after 18kHz. The '320' has data extending 21-22kHz. So, the 'standart' file option in teh first must not mean the same as source: standart, otherwise how did several kHz of added spectrum appear in the 320kbps file?

I asked tech support to identify the source data of their 384 freeformat files. They claimed from the original CD.

-Chris

[1]


-Chris