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Well I guess you would have to be living in a cave with almost no connection with the industry not to have heard about the ePassporte Virtual Visa debacle by now. Although if you haven't heard about it till now don't feel too bad ... while it all blew up sometime on Friday I was blissfully unaware of it till Saturday afternoon.

And if you haven't heard about it the news is that Visa has frozen all the funds that people have in their ePassporte Virtual Visa accounts. ePassporte says that it's doing all it can to have those funds unfrozen as quickly as possible but the reality is that if those funds are released it's unlikely to happen any time soon.

Now that means that there are a heck of a lot of small affiliates out there who now have no access to the money that they have earned. It's all locked up thanks to Visa and it's going to stay there until whatever the problem is that caused Visa to take this action is resolved.

Obviously that means that a lot of small people are going to be struggling to survive. They won't be able to pay their bills and they won't be able to put food on their tables. When small people are faced with a problem of those dimensions usually their first reaction is to panic ... then get angry ... and then do silly things that end in bad outcomes.

So if you want to survive this situation ... a situation that could take a long time to resolve ... and may never be resolved ... then here are a few suggestions on how to do it.

Don't get angry
You only have to look around the message boards to see that some people have got very angry about being placed in such a difficult position ... and you could hardly blame them for being that way. But what has that anger achieved for them?

Absolutely nothing positive and probably that anger has almost certainly clouded their judgment and made it even harder for them to achieve anything positive from all of this.

So don't get angry ... just work towards surviving.

Protect your business
If you're in affiliate marketing then hosting is a vital part of your business. Good hosting for your sites supports your business ... bad hosting can ruin it ... and right now if you can't pay for your hosting because you're money is frozen then you're in real trouble because your host could cut you off if you don't pay your hosting bill.

So the first thing to do is to ensure that you have the latest backups of your websites and galleries saved to the hard drive on your own computer. If you have off-site backups of all your work you won't lose it if your host shuts you down.

The second thing to do is to contact your host and talk to them about ways that you might be able to have them continue to host your sites even though you're going to be slow in paying them. See if you can work out a payment plan with them so that you can keep your sites online and earning money.

Look for alternate payment methods
Hit every one of your sponsors and look to see if there are alternate ways that you can be paid that don't involve ePassporte. These days checks seem to be old-fashioned but it may be the only way for small affiliates to get paid if bank wires are too expensive.

Maybe sell some stuff
A lot of people buy stuff that they don't really need and affiliate marketers are no different. If you've had a good month and spent money on things that you don't really need ... or you've discovered that some of the things you've bought are things that you can live without ... look at selling them.

However don't rush in to selling your sites. On Saturday as I looked around various adult webmaster boards I came across quite a few people who wanted to sell their sites. They saw that as the only way to survive and I'm sure that the sharks that are out there were more than happy to offer them cents in the dollar for all their hard work.

Perhaps selling off your sites may be the only way you can get out of the mess that Visa has created for you but it shouldn't be the first or even third option that you explore.

Negotiate
Being in debt is not a good feeling and the last thing many of us want to do is to talk to the people that we owe money to. It's difficult ... it's embarrassing ... it's even a little demeaning ... but if you want extra time to try and fight your way out of this mess then it's the only thing to do.

Talk to the people that you won't be able to pay this month ... explain the situation ... offer them a payment plan ... be prepared to show them copies of the notices that ePassporte posted so that they know that you're really facing problems and just don't want to pay them.

Learn from this
Whether you like to admit it or not if you've allowed yourself to be put in the position where your business may not survive because you only have one conduit for your income then you've made a mistake. So learn from your mistakes and don't make them again.

There's no doubt that the industry will survive the mess that Visa and ePassporte have visited on us but it's not so certain that you will survive. However if you stop panicking, stop getting angry and start approaching this objectively your chances of survival will be much greater.