PPS FAQ

When you join up with the Pay-Per-Scene Direct plan, you’ve chosen to buy individual scenes with your credit card from us. It’s our most-expensive way to buy, but it’s ideal if you only want a few a scenes (read about the three ways to buy – you can always change to a different account type later, with no penalty).

ABOVE: The Join page, showing the different join types, with Pay Per Scene Direct highlighted on the right. If you did not sign up with PPS-D, the info below is not for you!

When you sign up for PPS-D, we bill your card for US$4.49 in exchange for a “scene token”, that you can then use to get access to any scene on the site – some scenes cost up to $7.49 (such as our girl-boy scenes), so you may wish to extract the maximum value from that token by buying one of them first. 😉

Because you have a token, buying your first scene is very slightly different from buying scenes when you don’t have a token (we occasionally give away free tokens, but usually, your credit card will be charged for each scene you buy).

You may wish to read up on how our site is organised, to find a scene you like, but in a nutshell, check out the most recent updates, or browse the site and use filters to find scenes of the type you like.

Load a scene page by clicking on the scene’s representative image, and check out the sample images and 30-second preview trailer to see if it’s a scene you’d like to purchase with your token.

If it is, look for this section of the page:

ABOVE: The part of a scene page that shows where to buy a scene using a token with Pay Per Scene Direct. This is the lovely Kate G. Here we also see the 28-second preview video, and an indication of the full 52 minute feature video that becomes available when the scene is purchased. Because this user just joined up with PPS-D, they have a scene token available and so the scene’s price shows as being one token.

Click the “Buy scene (1 token)” button, and the following screen appears:

ABOVE: There’s an option to buy with a token, or to charge your card for the scene price.

While it’s likely you want to use your scene token for your first purchase, it’s not a requirement, and you may choose to pay for this one instead (perhaps saving the token for a more expensive scene). Tokens expire after seven days, so don’t wait too long.

Once you make a decision by clicking either button, our server thinks a moment, and the scene is purchased. The page reloads in a different format, giving access you to the images and video of this scene.

The scene is also added to your Digital Locker (if you’re logged in, that link will open your Digital Locker in a new tab), where all scenes you purchase are stored. You can always re-download (or stream media from) scenes you have purchased in your Digital Locker. Scenes you purchase are yours for life.

In the future, you may be awarded free scene tokens because we like the cut of your jib – you’ll get an email about that. 🙂

Buying Pay Per Scene Direct scenes day-to-day

Day to day, buying scenes you like using PPS-Direct will be similar, but you typically won’t have a scene token, so you’ll be shown the price, like this:

ABOVE: Typical buying model for Pay Per Scene Direct, a forest scene with Juliana.

Click the buy button twice to confirm you want to buy this scene, enter your username, password, and answer the security question, on a screen like this:

ABOVE: After clicking (1) “Buy scene direct” button twice, enter your (2) AW site username (3) AW site password, and (4) answer the security question (based on the data entered when you first joined up with GMBill). Finally (5) click “Bill my card” to initiate the transaction.

Click “Bill my card for $4.49 (or whatever the scene price is), then, your card will be billed for the indicated amount.

Once the purchase is finalised – should take under 15 seconds – you’ll have access to all the media from this scene, just as occurred when using a scene token!

When trying to top up your Pay Per Scene wallet (or, buy a scene using your PPS-Direct account), you’re asked verify it’s really you. The normal process works like this.

To verify your identity, you’ll be asked either:

1. GMB Security question: A billing detail from when you first joined up (not recommended)
2. 2FA: A One-Time Password from an app on your smartphone (this is called Second-Factor Authentication) (recommended)

By default, all accounts are set to the GMB Security question. This is a setting in your Preferences, see screenshot below.

ABOVE: How to change the security method. (1) and (2) be on your Preferences page (3) Select the Pay Per Scene tab (4) Set an option. More info.

GMB Security question, answered two questions wrong in a row?

If you get two of these security questions in a row incorrect, the system locks your account from adding more credit to your wallet. The system assumes – to be safe – that it’s not really you trying to add credit (perhaps some has guessed your password, and is trying to bill your card for their own desires?).

We need you to re-verify who you are, by re-entering your credit card details on the secure site GMBill.com, our billing company.

ABOVE: The alert shown when two security questions have been answered incorrectly.

You need to do this even though your credit card is likely not expired or otherwise faulty – it’s just to prove who you are, and re-set the blocking on the PPS credit topup. We apologise for the frustration, but we’re working hard to keep your personal information secure.

This FAQ answer shows how to re-enter your credit card info at GMBill.com, or you can just do it – it’s not hard (you’ll need your abbywinters.com username and password to log in at GMBill.com). You need to re-enter any details that show x’s (eg, Card number, CVV2, Expiry). You may choose to use a different credit card if you wish, but that’s not required.

Once your credit card details have been re-entered, you can switch back to abbywinters.com, and try again to top up your PPS credit account (the two-questions-wrong counter is reset to 0 when credit card details are re-added).

What if I keep getting the questions wrong?

If you get the questions wrong, you’ll have to repeat the process again! You can always contact us with what you think the correct answers to the questions are – it’s possible there was a typo when you originally entered the data, and if you do not replicate that typo, you’ll not be able to prove you are you! We can help with that (but, we cannot just tell you what the data is – what if someone has access to your emails?).

Let us know what you think the correct answers to the questions are.

We recommend switching to One-Time Passwords – it’s secure, easy and reliable.

Overview

Some abbywinters.com accounts require you to manually ask us to charge your credit card:

Security methods

We have other several security measures to reduce the chance of this happening, but it can still occur (see our FAQ on How did my account get hacked?). For example;

If someone got access to your abbywinters.com account, they cannot do any damage to you directly, but they can download shoots you have bought.

If you have PPS-Wallet credit in your account, they can spend down that credit – meaning you miss out on spending that credit on scenes or Playdates you like!

Thus, a secure password is important, a password that you do not use on other sites is always best (you should never use the same password more than once!). Using 1Password or LastPass (free password managers) is strongly recommended, so you never need to remember complicated passwords.

Beyond a username and password, we also have an additional security requirement for PPS accounts called Second Factor Authentication (abbreviated as “2FA”).

A username and password is considered one factor authentication. Generally considered to be poor security, though convenient and well-established online. We want to take fewer risks with your money (while still being practical), so we require an additional “factor” to prove it’s really you.

You might already use two-factor authentication for online banking – you’re sent an SMS code to enter when logging in? Or when you log on to Facebook from a different computer, or when you forget your password for your Gmail account…

Those are examples of second factors of authentication (the first factor is the username/password, or equivalent). Here’s a good blog post about 2FA for non-technical people.

We offer two options for two-factor authentication (2FA) for Pay Per Scene accounts:

1. GMBill security question (not recommended 😦)
2. One Time Passwords (OTP) (recommended 🙂)

GMBill security questions (default; not recommended 😦)

This process asks for your username and password (the first factor), and a piece of data from your account when you first registered it with our biller GMB (the second factor). Some example second-factor questions might be:

• When does your credit card expire? (MM/YYYY)
• What are the last four digits on your credit card?
• What is your email address?

This is better than just the single factor of username-and-password, but not as good as our other method, a One Time Password second factor.

It works well in principle, but what if you forget which credit card you used? Contacting Customer Support will always resolve this, but if you get two questions wrong in a row, you will need to re-add your credit card details at GMB, to verify it’s really you (here’s how to do that).

Overall, the GMB security questions work, but it can be frustrating and is not as secure as we would like.

One Time Passwords (Recommended! 🙂)

For each purchase or top-up, you’re asked to enter a one-time password  – a six digit number – from an app on your smartphone or computer, as the second factor of authentication.

ABOVE: A screenshot of the Google Authenticator smartphone app. This user has two accounts registered for 2FA – the blurred out bits are the names of the websites. The six-digit numbers are the “one time passwords” that expire in 30 seconds (to be replaced by new one time passwords). The blue wedges indicate how much time is left before the one time passwords expire – about 6 seconds in this case.

Read more about One Time Passwords on Wikipedia.

Choosing a One-Time Password app

abbywinters.com does not make One-Time Password (OTP) apps – they are common tools in the computer industry. We do not get any kickbacks by recommending the specific apps we recommend. These OTP apps are all free, secure, simple, and work reliably on iPhone and Android. OTP apps can be on your computer, or on your smart phone.

The name of our site does not need to mentioned (by default it’s listed as “AW PPS”, you can edit this).

Google Authenticator: Simple and easy. This is what we use at abbywinters.com HQ. Recommended. Only for smartphones (Apple iOS and Android).

On Google Play store | On iOS Apple store

Authy: More powerful and still easy. Also works on Windows PC’s and MacOS, download from Authy.

On Google Play store | On iOS Apple store

Other suitable smartphone apps include;

• Duo Mobile (iOS; Android)
• Microsoft Authenticator (iOS; Android)
• LastPass Authenticator (iOS; Android)

Yubico make a physical USB key that does the same thing, widely considered to be the most secure approach to 2FA (works, but probably overkill for us).

WinAuth is an application for your Windows computer, and Authy can be used on MacOS.

Switching to use One Time Passwords (OTP) on abbywinters.com

All accounts use GMBill security questions by default when they are created, and need to be manually switched to use the more-secure One-Time-Password (OTP) method instead. Takes less than five minutes to get that set up:

1. Choose a 2FA application
   1. See “Choosing a One-Time Password app” above
   2. Get it installed and set up
2. Visit your Preferences page  on abbywinters.com
   1. That link will work if you are logged in
3. On the Pay Per Scene tab, PPS Wallet top up and PPS Direct scene purchase security panel, select the option 2-Factor Authentication.
4. Re-add your credit card details in GMBill
   1. Follow the supplied instructions
   2. Check the How can I update my credit card? FAQ page on GMB’s site for more detailed instructions
5. Add AW PPS as an authentication source
   1. We’ll assume you’re using a smartphone app; apps on your computer are similar, but slightly different
   2. A QR code (a white square with small black squares inside, more info) appears on screen – see example below.
   3. In the OTP app on your smartphone, add a new site (plus button)
   4. Select “Scan a barcode”. The smartphone’s camera activates.
   5. Align the QR code on screen in the viewfinder of your smartphone. Should only take a second to be recognised.
   6. abbywinters.com is added to your OTP app as “AW PPS (username)”. You can rename this if you wish – long-press to edit.
   7. A six digit number is shown for 30 seconds, then is replaced with a new six-digit number. This happens forever – these are the one time passwords.
6. As prompted, enter the current one time password (six digit code)
   1. As currently shown in your OTP app
7. The page on abbywinters.com shows a “Success!” message
   1. Second-factor One Time Passwords are now set up!

ABOVE: An example of the QR shown at step 3 of the 2FA setup. Your QR code will look different to this.

What now?

When you go to make a charge to your credit card (ie, top-up your Pay Per Scene Wallet) from now on, you’ll be asked for the six-digit number shown in your OTP app (which changes every 30 seconds).

Your OTP app keeps this in sync with our servers, so only someone with access to your phone and your username & password can make a charge to your card (hopefully, that’s only ever you!).

You’ll need to enter the one-time password for each charge we make to your credit card.

To change back to the less-secure GMB Security questions 😦

This is not recommended, because the GMB Security Questions are less-secure than the One Time Password method.

To change back to the GMB security Questions, visit your Preferences page (that link will work if you are logged in), Pay Per Scene tab, and choose from the two options, GMBill security questions (instead of OTP).

Simply select GMBill security questions, and from then on you’ll be asked the security questions instead of the second-factor authentication number – however, again, this is not recommended!).

We currently offer a free scene token to encourage you to make this switch, but we may not do that forever. While it might seem like you can get unlimited scene tokens for switch back and forth, we’ve already thought of that, sorry. 🤯

As soon as you buy a scene, as you are on the scene page, you can immediately view the images and video for that scene.

However, the scene is is also stored in your Digital Locker, securely, forever.  You can come back and view the scene as many times as you want (stream video from our site, or download video, and images).

Your Digital Locker is linked on every page on the site – click on your username in the top right corner, and select “Digital locker”.

ABOVE: How the Digital Locker looks. Select a scene to look at the images and video from that scene.