Please post/tell who you use and give your opinion on who you tink the best is.

When you do a poll like this, you should take care to ensure that you're asking your participants to only compare apples to apples, else the validity of the results is questionable at best.

Companies that provide true merchant accounts and gateway services should not be compared with third-party credit card processors. They're completely different animals. And you've got both kinds listed in your poll.

The problem is further complicated by the inclusion of hybrid products that are neither true merchant accounts nor merely 3rd party processors -- like Firepay or Paypal, for example.

I suggest this poll is valueless on its face, and that readers of these forums would be better served by first discussing which method of processing credit cards (true merchant accounts vs 3rd party processors vs hybrids) might be better, and why; and then discussing which vendor is the best of its method, and why.

Just my .02 worth -- which my ex-wife will quickly point out is usually all it's worth.

That is very true! Same point I was gong to make DesElms.....

You forgot PaySystems i.e. ReveCom... don't think they can be ignored ;)

Originally posted by hostNOX
Please post/tell who you use and give your opinion on who you tink the best is.

What is it that you are looking for. Authorizenet are huge and not only that, but most / all shopping carts are made to work with AuthorizeNet.

When I seeked a merchant because my prev. merchant was charging an arm and a leg on monthly fees. I went to AuthorizeNet, and went to their reseller page and basically "emailed" everyone on the list and seeked best option.

Sometimes be very carefull. Some will charge a cancellation fee and some will waive the cancellatin fee. If so, have it in writing.

I have a shopping cart gateway option and also a WebTerminal option to where I can manually or do a batch charge.

Try Merchant Accounts 4 Less.... These merchant accounts work with the WHNBilling software and they got great deals going at the moment.... http://www.webhostingbilling.com/

I have problem whit 2checkout at this time,

and got no reply to email ... :angry:

I second "tech". Absolutely, Horrible! Read my other posts. http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=55520

Very immature people. They are sitting on $1,000 - I don't think we will see it. To top it off the guy is telling me that "this is not a loan account". The funds were released on 6-1 for the transactions that took place on 5-19 (yes almost been a month). But the funds were never deposited to our account and the guy is telling that it is not a loan account. All they have to do is to tell us whether or not a card was approved.

Could someone please tell me why this guy from 2checkout thinks that he is giving us a loan?

at 2checkout.com thinks he's giving you a loan because he was (or is) unable to verify your legitimacy as a merchant vendor.

There are numerous posts on our own forum explaining the verification procedures in place for both your customers and you as a customer.

We are not in the business to promote credit card fraud and part of our responsibility includes shutting down those sites who are established purely for the purpose of laundering stolen credit cards.

Fraud has been VERY high lately -- both from a customer basis and from individuals attempting to set-up fraudulent accounts.

We've stepped up the level of verification on all accounts -- which is responsible for the delay in releasing your funds. You should have received notice from our Verification Dept when your funds weren't released in a timely manner. If you failed to do so, please let me know at kristin@2checkout.com. This is a mandatory notice and the failure to notify any merchants will have a negative effect on our employee's performance records -- with obvious further effects at review time.

Hopefully your account has since been cleared.

Kristin

Well, I really find this poll very usefull...

I am loooking for a way of processing cc's for my business and I am also trying to determine if its better a third party proccessor or a merchant account or an hybrid...

After a lot of research I have two companyes at the top of my list, one is a third party processor and the other one is a merchand account provider, this is because what I am really looking for is a solution as a whole, so which will be my best option is an union of pros and contrs in wich I have included cost, simplicity, security, reliability, etc... and not only for me, you have to think in wich will be better for your clients, like being able to charge in their own currency, etc...

So, looking for a solution as a whole, I really don't matter if it is a merchant account, a third party processor account or a hybrid one, because this is just another feature to compare...

Also my 2 cents...

Kdach,

If you have any dignity, reply to my comment here.

We are not in the business to promote credit card fraud and part of our responsibility includes shutting down those sites who are established purely for the purpose of laundering stolen credit cards.

No one is asking you to promote fraud. That is very stupid statement. In fact, the problem here is that you never told if the transactions were legitimate or not. You job is to process the transactions and if they are good, pay the merchants. If they are fraud, notify the merchants. Instead your accout panel says the funds were released on 6-1 (for orders placed on 5-19). But they never were deposited in the bank. Only when I asked last week did your people tell me that they were doing voice authorizations.

1. You don't do voice authorizations on funds already released.
2. You don't wait for 1 month to verify transactions.

That is why I say, you are shoddy opertion. Who is fraud - you are because you have the $1,000! Answer me now and tell me.

You should have received notice from our Verification Dept when your funds weren't released in a timely manner.
Read my posts. Like I said, I initiated the email last week when I found out that the funds ($1,000) released on 6-1 never went to our bank. When I emailed the immature guy "sebastian" (he was the one who thinks he is loaning us money) told me that he is doing voice authorizations - after almost 1 month?

You are a shoddy shack - it is nothing to do with fraud. If there is a fraud, you have to tell us whether or not the card went through in a week at the maximum. The fact is that you don't have those systems in place. The only thing you have to do is to tell us if the transaction is good or bad and then pay us or give us a reason why it failed - that's it. You failed to do that and don't talk about fraud and tell people that you have stepped up. You haven't stepped up anything and I can gurantee that there will be more people here who will confirm that in the future.

You should have received notice from our Verification Dept when your funds weren't released in a timely manner
Sent you an email, I don't know what your capacity is but I hope you are not a support staff because your other support staff is immature.

Finally, the problem here also is the way you deal with your customers. I have already said this person how immature he is, and how he made all the insults - I have all his emails (I only hope he is not one of the officers - on the otherhand I hope he is). He has said he will refund our $49. That is what I would like - we have already disabled you on our site and will not be using you anymore. Just refund the $49 and then with regards to pending transactions, let me know what happened - that's all I am asking.

Perhaps you have your own reasons for choosing the companies in your poll, but others should consider clickbank and paysystems.

Tim.

I reply to all posts - dignity has nothing to do with it at all.

Nealy all 'new' accounts are subjected to verification processes. Very rarely there are problems in verifying -- via voice -- the orders placed.

__________________

1. You don't voice authorizations on funds already released.
2. You don't wait for 1 month to verify transactions

__________________

In response to issue 1 -- obviously your funds were NOT released or you would have received them.

Calls are placed as soon as the first order on an account is generated. Unfortunately, many customers do not call us back which necessitates the last minute verification by individuals on staff such as Sebbe (Sebastian).

While we would love to be in a position to assume everyone out there is legitimate we simply cannot do that. Your situation is unfortunate and I sincerely hope the funds have since been released but we won't be modifying the procedures in place. We're continuously adding staff to keep up with the number of new merchant signups (over 800) we have each month but problems do still occur.

It has little or nothing to do with a card "going through".

If you failed to receive notice prior to querying our support lines then that IS something I can deal with. The notification procedure was initiated by me on a mandatory basis simply to avoid the long delays in payment that you encountered. We've found most merchants are more than happy to assist us in verifying their account's legitimacy -- if they are legitimate.

I am in no way condoning what happened with your funds. That was not my intent in my first post either. We regularly monitor forums such as this for the purpose of identifying problems that may not be routed to senior administration's attention and we welcome all input -- good or bad -- because we can't modify internal procedures without knowing what is or is not working.

Kristin

obviously your funds were NOT released or you would have received them.

Your account panel says the funds were released on 6-1. One month for verification is horrible. Again, until I emailed no one had told me there was a problem. Transactions are either good or bad and that can be done within a week at the most. If they are good, you pay us - if they are bad, you tell us and you don't pay us. That's all you have to do. You are not loaning me money, you are not my bank (like the immature guy in your office would like to think). If I want a bank, I have got one right here 2 blocks from our office. The last thing I want you to be is our bank. The only thing that you were supposed to do, you cannot do properly and now don't come back and lecture on your fraud detection systems - because you don't have any. If you had them, this issue would have been resloved last month becasue the orders were processed on 5-19.

This isn't about detecting fraud generated from stolen credit cards.

This is about websites that appear, generate sales and then disappear without providing any type of service or goods in exchange for the payment they've received.

I've emailed you a more in-depth example of what we are talking about but, if we released $1000 to you and you had failed to provide your customers with what they purchased and they initiate refund requests or chargebacks and your future sales do not offset the amount previously released we would have essentially loaned you money.

Any clearer?

Kristin

if we released $1000 to you and you had failed to provide your customers with what they purchased and they initiate refund requests or chargebacks and your future sales do not offset the amount previously released we would have essentially loaned you money.

I have also emailed you. You were commenting about detecting fraud - it is of 0 interest to me. All we want from you is approval or disapproval from you and then relase funds.

I have forwared the email that the buyer sent to us in which it says he received the project and he is happy with it. Do you want to see it again (I will forward it to you). We had only not paid the progarmmer because we have not gotten paid for the project ourselves and we don't know if the buyer put in a legitimate order. The buyer did not request a chargeback - when sebastian called him he said that "he has received the project but we have not paid the programmer and he will be happy to mail both of us checks" and not worry about his credit card transaction - do you want to see that email?

How are you loaing us money, when you have not deposited funds to our account? You are asking us to pay the programmer on funds that you have not released yet and from our own funds? How are you loaning money?

We cannot pay the programmers before taking our commission out and before receiving the money in our account first from approved transactions. Anyone else reading this message here would clearly understand that we will otherwise have to pay from our funds and if at a later time it turns out be a bogus transaction then we are at a loss - only you think that you are loaning money while you have not approved the transaction. You are amazing!

I just requested to close my 2checkout account, decided to go with a real merchant account sometime ago for various reasons. One being, the lack of support I received early on from 2checkout and some of the email responses I received from their support rep Tom who posts on these boards were flat out rude and uncalled for! If you're going to treat customers like you treated me, Tom, you're going to cause some big losses for your company!

Best of luck,

David

Genaldi Co.

Tom who posts on these boards were flat out rude If you're going to treat customers like you treated me, Tom, you're going to cause some big losses for your company!

Yes, I have dealt with him too. He was the defender of 2checkout in these boards and no doubt rude (one can read his past posts here). I think he is no longer there, the emails I sent him bounced back or may be he is busy with other things. From my experience so far, looks like they handpick their support staff - very immature. Do you need more proof? I mean, read the posts above where they think they are loaning us money, while they have not even cleared the transactions. How could they be loaning money when they have not paid us?

Yes, old Tom was a real work of art. I understand what you're saying about the problems you're having, and I feel your pain indeed. Especially for that large of an amount, I'd be pulling my hair out by now. Have you thought about getting your own merchant account possibly? It's one of the best decisions I've ever made. Not only are their rates cheaper, you get your own company name to appear on customers statements, looks much more professional... Sure, there's some small monthly fees when you have your own merchant account, and the original startup costs, but I feel it's money well spent!

Best of luck,

David

Genaldi Co.

We will NOT release funds to a merchant who has not been verified. I don't know how much clearer I can make this.

You want us to verify credit card purchases as legitimate and immediately pay you without verifying your own legitimacy as a merchant vendor. What happens then if you turn out to be providing nothing in exchange for the money we've already released? If there are problems with the merchandise you are providing? If your customer support is non-existent and you fail to respond to customer inquiries?

And if those same customers then contact their cc companies and request chargebacks or refunds? In this case we didn't loan you money we threw it away.

I've reviewed your account. Not a single one of your customers has responded to either telephone or email inquiries. Numerous telephone and email inquiries. Additionally, all but one of the email addresses used are hotmail accounts. One customer submits bids of $1000, fails to respond to telephone calls or emails and has a hotmail acct? Red flags galore.

It remains unfortunate that you weren't notified as to the original delay in releasing your payment but the rest of it ...

Kristin

We will NOT release funds to a merchant who has not been verified. I don't know how much clearer I can make this.

I never asked you to release funds without verifying! You are provocating me again and again by repeating your senseless comments. Let me repeat - orders were processed on 5-19, account panel said funds were released on 6-1-2002.

1. All I am saing is "if they are good release them, if they are not don't" but you do, tell us what the hell you have done and don't put in the account panel the funds were released on 6-1-2002 (did I say that already, I think I did about 10 times now).
2. To top it off, don't go around circles and lecture about your fraud detection. Anyone reading here would understand that if you had any fraud detection or proper systems in place, then they would have either been approved or not within a week.

How long will you take to verify? Do you want to wait until next year?

In this case we didn't loan you money we threw it away.
Bull - either way we make the loss and it is never you. Who are you kidding? If we don't get paid on a transaction from you we lose the money, if the buyer asks for a chargeback we lose the money. Not you. People here are smarter to understand that. Don't make foolish comments. Just admit that you screwed up.

It remains unfortunate that you weren't notified as to the original delay in releasing your payment but the rest of it ...
Again, unfortunate for us - you will go about your business, all you can do is to say the 5 letter word (well, you haven't even done that and instead accused us that we might leave town with money and never deliver the projects to buyers).

You are bad news and there are others here who will confirm it (now or later).

You have done nothing but bash us for not releasing your funds despite repeated posts. I have done absolutely nothing to provoke you except -- repeatedly -- confirm what you were told by our staff: The orders are verified. It is YOUR account we cannot verify.

FRAUD is the 4-letter (or 5-letter as the case may be) word of eCommerce. We have thousands of merchants -- very few of whom ever experience any type of problems and most of whom are readily verified prior to a payment being due to be released.

If you had received a notice of the delay and the problems we were encountering then the amount showing as payable would have been moved back to your account balance. As it is, you received a reasonable explanation for the discrepancy quite some time ago and I explained (or admitted) this posts ago but you would rather be irate than reasonable.

I do not know why NONE of your customers will respond to email or telephone inquiries but we are justifiably right to be concerned whenever this occurs. How are you taking a loss if you've received your $1000 and 2Checkout processes requests for refunds or chargebacks (full price + 2nd transaction fees or full price + chargeback fees)? On the contrary, you'd actually come out quite far ahead.

We sincerely wish you good luck with your alternate processors.

Kristin

(My apologies to everyone for dragging all this out here. We seem to be debating the issue on email as well).

It is YOUR account we cannot verify.
Hehe.. which account our bank account? If so, you have already sent one payment there and it is the same account that we are using with "paysystems" and with "paypal" - altogether about $15,000 processed. Do you want to see?

If you are telling me that you cannot verify our US Bank account established about 4-5 years ago, I have got news for you "you are in the wrong business" and all the fraud verification crap you gave is bogus.

In any case, YOU HAVE NOT BROUGHT THAT UP UNTIL NOW - I wonder why! No one from your organization contacted us.

FRAUD is the 4-letter (or 5-letter as the case may be) word of eCommerce.
5 letter word when someone screws up is S-O-R-R-Y

How are you taking a loss if you've received your $1000 and 2Checkout processes requests for refunds or chargebacks (full price + 2nd transaction fees or full price + chargeback fees)? On the contrary, you'd actually come out quite far ahead.
Believe this! If I had received the $1,000 then we would not be having this discussion.

Anyone who wants to believe this woman here belive it - she sent an email to me saying that she is suspending our account, this while I have already asked for a refund and they had agreed to. I replied to her saying that "she is making me feel as if I am in a relatioship". I already have asked for a refund (they agreed) and have diabled them from the site since Sunday.

Not your bank account - your 2Checkout.com account!

We cannot directly verify with a single one of your customers that they have received and are satisifed with the services you provided. Is that any clearer than the other six times I've explained it?

I do not count an email forwarded from you from one of your customers as verification.

Yes, you can disable our link from your site but I explained that only our staff could actually terminate or suspend an account. This wasn't done as a petty power issue - it was (yet another) explanation.

Maybe we're having a language difficulty here but I've honestly never had to explain anything so many times ever before.

Kristin

I do not count an email forwarded from you from one of your customers as verification.
Do you want more? You did not ask. There have only been 2 that went through you, the others used paypal. The second one is here - http://rfq.programmingbids.com/cgi-bin/rfq/project.cgi?id=1021812836

Click on the link for the programmer (realmen0) and see the 10 star rating - the buyer rated this guy 10 star (the highest).

This wasn't done as a petty power issue - it was (yet another) explanation.
Oh? Your email said this:
Actually I would say it is the other way around - we are done with your account and have suspended it already." Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 16:21:32 -0400

Remember?


Maybe we're having a language difficulty here
No language problem. If you want I can speak another language (I can speak 6 languages). Anyone else who have read my posts knows that my english is legible. So....

I've honestly never had to explain anything so many times ever before.
Honestly... I have never had to either, HONESTLY!

Originally posted by Gurudev

(1) Do you want more?


Oh? Your eamil said this:
Actually I would say it is the other way around - we are done with your account and have suspended it already." Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 16:21:32 -0400

(2) Remember?


(3) No language problem. If you want I can speak another language (I can speak 6 languages). Anyone else who have read my posts knows that my english is legible. So....



(1) No. We do not want you to forward or respond on behalf of your customers. We want THEM to respond.

(2) Of course. Once again: You cannot terminate your account. You can disable the links OR request that our staff initiate the termination OR we can terminate an account at our disretion if we consider it an adverse risk.

(3) I did not infer that your English isn't "legible" just that there may be some points of this conversation that aren't coming through completely clear.

Honestly.
: )

Kristin

Poor Kristin..... Take a deep breathe, they do not get it....

Nobody will give a rating of "10" if they are dissatisfied. When your guy called the buyer said that "he is unhappy that we have not paid the progrmmer" and that he would mail checks to both us and the programmer (he would not say that if he is dissatisfied - have his email to prove it). I responded that "we have not paid the programmer because we not received the money from you for his transaction" and he will be paid promptly. Your staff has read that email and now you have read that email too and you have acknowledged above. You can see more buyers who have rated 10 stars here - http://rfq.programmingbids.com/

ok, i dun get it.
you 2 keep on rambling about this and that, this and that
ok, let's try to settle this

kristin, you said that you did not release the funds cos his 2checkout account is not verified. So here are the questions.

1. how do you verify a 2checkout account?
2. if you hadn't verify it, why didn't you?

the customer, why don't you wait for 2checkout to verify your account. how long will it take? a few days?

labaloba,

It is nice of you to try to settle this but.. we disabled them sunday and as you can see she then emailed me saying "no, we are suspending you" read the previous post.

With regards to verification, let me explain:
the customer, why don't you wait for 2checkout to verify your account. how long will it take? a few days?
The first transaction was processed on 05-08-2002, the funds were deposited to our bank on 5-20-2002. If verification were an issue why wait till now - it was not an issue, until this got hot and out here in the public (was not until today and there was nothing in reference to that in the earlier posts and they were telling me that they donot want to loan money - you can read the posts).

So, why would I think she is verifying our account while we have had the account for over 6 months and the first funds were already deposited. It was I, who initiated this on last Thu. after finding out that the funds processed for orders on 5-18, 5-19, 5-29 and 5-31 never went to the bank. The account panel said they were released on 6-1. No one ever said anything. When I emailed all I asked as to "why the delay and they said they are doing voice authorization" and I never asked that they should release the funds immediately. In fact, it was their support guy who said that "we are not your bank, we cannot loan you money to run your business" and this lady here also thinks the same way.

Even so, for the second set of transactions as you can see it has already been a month. Together, since the first transaction on 5-8, it has been 2 months now. How much longer does one need? Again, I was not aware that they were verifying "our own account" while we have been doing this since Dec.

How can someone withhold $1,000 and not say anything for one month? and when asked tell me that they are not a bank - all I wanted to know was why the delay was and that too because the account panel said the funds were released on 6-1.

So, to answer your question "how much time does it take to verify" - don't know. All $1,000 have been cancelled, I have asked for a refund of those little $49 (that's all I will get, I hope). The buyers already have received the projects and I have/had told them this repeatedly and both buyers have acknowledged one by email (was forwarded) and one has rated 10 stars (posted links earlier). Only the programmers have not been paid and I have said that there is no way we could pay them from our funds while we are waiting for transactions to be approved.

That's the end of it.

What the gentleman refuses to understand is that the validity of the orders themselves were NOT an issue.

Because, as a third-party processor, our merchants piggyback on our merchant account we also verify the level of customer satisfaction with the merchant themselves.

None of the customers responded to either phone call inquiries or mail inquiries which left the account in a pended status. The merchant forwarded one email to us that stated the customer had been satisifed with the service but, unfortunately, we require a direct response prior to marking an account clean for release. Funds may move from a pended status to a paid status from the merchants point-of-view but it doesn't necessarily mean they were routed.

At this point it is pure pettiness. This isn't a hard-to-understand issue despite repeated posts harping on the length of time involved. If the client had wanted to resolve the issue instead of repeatedly emailing and posting about it he could have contacted the customers and asked them to respond to our inquiries directly. At that point everything would have been fine, the money released and everyone gone on to do continued business without any future problems.

By the time one of the customers did finally speak to our representative he noted his dissatisfaction that the actual programmer hadn't been paid and G was already too irate to bother explaining that their agreement with their subcontractors required their company to receive payment first so commission could be deducted and then the programmer paid.

Account verification from a merchant perspective is generally a one-time issue. The only times it can reappear is if a merchant has generally processed sales at a fairly consistent level and suddenly experiences a tremendous increase in volume or if we begin to receive complaints regarding good, services or customer service. A few phone calls, a few emails a few positive responses and the verification is completed from our perspective.

This type of situation occurs extremely rarely. I do not know why G refuses to comprehend it but there you have it.

: )

ok, kristin and guru, both of you have made your point
now comes the big question

2checkout, so are you planning to release the $1000 to guru or are you going to keep it?

To be quite honest, I was a little surprised that PayPal ranked so low in the poll. I would like to know what concerns and issues users have with the service, or what they would like to see us do differently.

Isn't a relevant question at this point. The merchant has decided to cancel the orders and arrange for an alternate method of payment.

We wish them continued good luck with their future processor(s).

Kristin

ohhh... so in the end, guru didn't lose any money
and 2checkout didn't suffer any losses

isn't this a not so bad ending? i mean, other ppl has their accounts suspended and they are get their money.

so, let's just make peace.

ohhh... so in the end, guru didn't lose any money
Sorry, where did you get that idea. We have delivered the work already to both buyers worth $1,000, a month ago and we have not paid the programmers and now we need to deal with that.
The merchant has decided to cancel the orders and arrange for an alternate method of payment.
They started cancelling part of the order from one buyer, I had no other choice but to ask them to cancel the remaining 3/4th of the order. I did not start cancelling. Then they cancelled the remaining 3 which belonged to another buyer and suspended the account.

None of the customers responded to either phone call inquiries or mail inquiries which left the account in a pended status.
I asked you to close this. There were only 2 customers paying for 2 projects with 5 different transactions, the third person was a programmer who only paid the fee of $8. They called the first person who had the larger orders and could never reach him. When I asked what the delay was, the first time I was told that they had 2 different addresses for this guy and had different IP's and were doing "voice authorizations". The second time they said "they were not my bank". Never did they once tell me that they were waiting to verify the legitimacy of our business.

It is not that I donot refuse to accept that, it is just that you never told me to you were verifying us when I asked why the delay until this came here yesterday. You then turned the tables. You have already acknowledged that you you failed to notify when the funds were not deposited and they were kicked back - so why are you dragging this by putting a nice face in the forums. I have already asked for a closure, why don't you go screw other customers instead of dragging this. You may not give me those $49 after this, but I am sick of you beacuse it is us who have lost the money and you have the nerve to call it "pettiness". $1,000 is pettiness for you?

By the time one of the customers did finally speak to our representative he noted his dissatisfaction that the actual programmer hadn't been paid and G was already too irate
This is the only buyer you called and while said that he is unhappy that his programmer has not been paid, he said that he was going to mail checks to both us and the programmer. How can he opt to mail a check if he is unhappy? You are saying irate, I have about 10 emails in which I said, we cannot pay the programmer from our funds until the transactions are cleared from you. I am sure other business people will agree with me. How could we pay his programmer and I donot blame him for saying that he is not happy about that fact because he has waited for a month and that is because we have been waiting for you to release funds.

Why are you continuing this nonsense?

Gurudev, it seems that maybe you were so worked up about how you thought 2checkout should work that you either missed the problem (on their end), or possibly this was just a misunderstanding - ie. they said, "verify account" and you took it to mean something else).

After reading this thread, you were tracked into one thing, and were completely missing Kristin was saying. It seems you are still worked up over it, and I'm not sure you still fully uinderstand what the problem was. You need to take a second and step back from what you thought were the problems and understand what was going on from their end.

Your thinking that their job was to process the transaction and then deposit the money to your account is a bit oversimplified. There have to be a few other quality control measures inbetween there to prevent fraud.

First the transaction itself must be verifed. It appears that your clients' transactions passed this fine. Obviously stolen credit cards would have as well, so this cannot be the end of the check.

A processor must make sure that stolen cards are not being used for transactions for a fraudulent 'merchant provider'. Theoretically, you could sign up for a 2checkout account, have your buddies input $1,000 purchases with stolen cards, and then bank the money from the transaction. Something has to be done to prevent this from happening.

That 'something', is verification of the transaction beyond just making sure the card passes through. Calls/emails (whatever) made to ALL of your clients went unanswered (all in this case was just a few). The only verification they had was an email you forwarded to them. Ratings on your site are not something I'd use for verification, would you? All of this could easily be fraudulent and you have to put yourself in the shoes of the processor.

If you were a credit card processor, then you could simply process cards and deposit the money from those sales into anyone's account, but I think you'd find that some further measures are needed to combat fraud.

As I said, there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding throughout this thread, but hopefully in the end you understand all of this and what happened. If not, then you need to re-read the thread, because Krisitin's explantions seem reasonable and red flags mean something *might* be wrong. They need to verify this before going further (read: depositing money in your account).

After reading this thread, you were tracked into one thing, and were completely missing Kristin was saying.
Yes, I have agreed becuase it was only brought up here and until yesterday it was not mentioned. All they said was that they were doing "voice authorizations". I can share all emails with you or anyone else.

First the transaction itself must be verifed.
I had always thought that is what they were doing and that is what they were doing since 5-18. How long has it been?

It seems you are still worked up over it, and I'm not sure you still fully uinderstand what the problem was.
Chicken, I like you but when you lose $1,000 if there is any chance, I would like meet you face to face and see you not worked up over it. I do understand the issue now (late yesterday when they turned the tables) and until then I was under the impression that they were verifying the buyers and not me (never told me and never occured to me because the account was established in Dec., enabled in May after testing, first set of funds went thorough on 5-8).

only verification they had was an email you forwarded to them.
Because that is the only buyer verification I have and there were only 2 buyers who used them on 5 transasctions for 2 projects and paid in stages. Also, the buyer not only said that he received the project and is happy to us in the email a month ago, but the guy from 2checkout when he spoke to the buyer said that the buyer was going to mail checks to us - why would he do that if were unhappy? The only argument that 2checkout had was that we had not paid the programmer who did the work. So, where can we pay him from?

As I said, there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding throughout this thread, but hopefully in the end you understand all of this and what happened.
I do. It never had to be that way. Instead of saying "voice authorization" if they had told me that they cannot pay until they verify the legitimacy of our business, I would have simply waited. All they said was that "they were not my bank to loan money so I can run my business" - exactly in the email.


But I have already asked to close this and she is coming here again and dragging it this morning.

First of all, thank you Chicken. I can't recall ever attempting to explain something so many times and in so many ways.

Guru, I responded to someone else. As this is a thread polling WHT members for their impression of various merchant account/third-parth processors I am hardly doing my job as a representative of my company without explaining a situation that sheds a negative light on our operations.

I do consider the situation resolved to everyone's mutual satisfaction but I will never NOT respond to a direct question posed TO ME about how our company operates.

Everyone at 2Checkout takes great pride in our company. I don't doubt that the representative you were initially dealing with was equally frustrated in his attempted to explain what was going on with your account. We don't like to lose any accounts unless they've simply outgrown our niche in the market (in which case Hooray!) and do sincerely try to respond quickly and succinctly to all inquiries.

I'll let this thread 'speak' for itself. Voice authorizations encompass (as Chicken tried to explain) various aspects of quality control/anti-fraud. We attempted to contact all three of your customers (yes, an $8 charge counts as an order) numerous times and none responded before your payment was due to be released.

End of story.

Thanks to everyone for their patience and letting us wrangle the issue about here.

Kristin

Originally posted by lobaloba9
so, let's just make peace.
Not so fast.

Gurudev, I understand what you've been saying. But, honestly, it seemed as I was reading that you were at times deliberately trying not to understand what kdach was explaining to you. I think your anger and frustration began to blind you to what she was trying to tell you. Perhaps she didn't approach it correctly once she began to see that you were losing your ability to hear her. Perhaps she should have asked you to understand the kinds of very clever characters her company has to deal with and how many chargebacks and complex, fraudulent transactions it's getting these days. Perhaps she should have made you understand how bad she felt that there wasn't an easier way for her company to get to know you better so that it could easily determine that the red flags that your transactions were raising were nothing to really worry about.

Although I admit it wasn't terribly clear right at first, as I continued reading this thread, it became abundantly clear to me long before it apparently became clear to you, Gurudev (if it even has yet become clear to you), that it was you that 2checkout had doubts about and needed to verify -- or, more precisely, that it was your reliability as a vendor of services for which 2checkout was collecting payment that was a question in their minds.

In her business, kdach and her staff have precious little to go on in determining potential fraud. They must seek-out sometimes obscure red flags and then be a bit coldly impersonal and objective in following-up on them in order to sort it all out. And it makes sense that 2checkout may not have completely disclosed to you exactly what the problem was. You were, after all, the target of their investigation. I would have kept my concerns and what I was doing about them close to the vest as well -- all the while trying to walk that fine line that persons in kdach and her staff's shoes must walk when they're trying not to piss off the very person they're investigating so that if that person checks out in the end he'll still be a good customer.

She explained to you that it didn't matter that your customers were giving you 10 star ratings on your web site; that it didn't matter that you were able to forward an email from your customer wherein he stated that he was happy. She could not trust those things because you controlled them. In order to do her job, she had to consider the possibility that the emails you were forwarding, or the testimonials on your site, were fakes. She needed them to come directly from your customer, not you. She said that over and over and over again.

And when they repeatedly tried to contact your customer(s) by means of both email and telephone calls and continued to get no response, they just became more suspicious -- as any reasonable person with the appropriate level of cynicism for a job like that would have done.

Irregularities are supposed to breed suspicion in the minds of those whose job it is to determine one's voracity. Clearly, if kdach's version of the story is to be believed, there were more than just a few suspicious irregularities in your case -- including credit card holders using HotMail accounts... which, in and of itself, would be a huge red flag for me.

And the increasing shrill of your demand for quick payment probably only upped the ante in 2checkout's mind. If we consider the worst case possibility, from 2checkout's perspective, if you were conning them, then it would make sense that you'd want to be paid so you could shut down and move on. Holding on to your money while they verified that your customer A) actually existed, and, B) was the rightful cardholder, and, C) had actually made the purchase using it, and, D) had actually received the goods or services and was happy, was the only recourse 2checkout had.

Though you did apparently have a previous successful transaction with 2checkout, something obviously subsequently spooked them. And they were within their rights to exercise a little due diligence to allay their fears before parting with the funds. Unlike a merchant account, 2checkout is not merely an intermediary. In the end, it is 2checkout's merchant account that you are using. And 2checkout is within its rights to ensure that their account is not used for faudulent purposes -- pretty much by whatever means it wishes. If their means are too strident and restrictive, then the market will react and they will lost business and they will realize that perhaps they need to loosen up a bit. But they must maintain a reasonable degree of vigilance, regardless. If their merchant account provider cancels their account because of excessive chargebacks or fraud, then it's more than just you who loses. Every 2checkout customer would then be out of luck. There's a heck of a lot more at stake here than you and your customer. That's the nature (and perhaps one of the downsides) of 3rd party credit card processing.

Clearly, once red flags were raised with your account, upon closer examination, 2checkout's fears were heightened which, in turn, caused them to exercise even more due diligence -- and which probably also caused them to take the increasing pitch of your protestations with something of a grain of salt. Ask any seasoned cop: Once you get into that suspicious mindset, it's hard to back off until and unless you see clearly and convincingly that your original fears were wholly unfounded.

All that having been said, kdach, there is at least one thing about this story that concerns me very much: It seems 2checkout may have allowed at least one of its red flags to be the allegation (or perhaps more accurately, the "concern") made (expressed) by cardholder/customer that the programmer with whom Gurudev had hooked them up had not yet been paid. That, it seems to me, is a wholly irrelevant matter in this case and one that should not have influenced 2checkout one way or the other. To be blunt, it was none of the cardholder/customer's damned business (nor was it any of 2checkout's) what the agreement was between Gurudev and the programmer.

What mattered -- and the only thing that mattered, in my opinion (and probably in the opinion of a judge, had it ever gone to court) -- would have been whether or not the cardholder/customer had actually made the purchase and whether he had gotten what he paid for (or at least whether he was so completely convinced that he would that he agreed that Gurudev should be paid in any case).

Nothing else matters!

For 2checkout to make any kind of value judgement about Gurudev or his company based on the cardholder/customer's casual (and incidental) remark about the programmer possibly not having been paid yet would have been wholly inappropriate. The cardholder/customer should not have brought it up in his conversation with 2checkout in the first place. And once having been brought up, 2checkout's personnel should have had the wisdom to know that it was irrelevant in any case -- both as a practical matter, and as a matter of law -- and that all that mattered was whether or not the customer/cardholder had gotten the service for which he had paid. Period.

If he had, then Gurudev should have been paid. It's as simple as that.

And, by the way, shame on that programmer for being so unprofessional. Gurudev should give him a stern admonition to never discuss such matters with a customer again; and warning that if he ever does he will never do work for Gurudev again. In fact, so strongly do I feel about that sort of thing that, were I Gurudev, I would put a clause in all caps and bold letters in my contract between me and the programmer setting forth that if he ever pulls a stunt like that he flat-out forfeits his fees -- every last penny of them. That programmer, it seems, behaved atrociously!

It's too bad this matter ended as it did. It seems largely a misunderstanding -- on both sides, I think. 2checkout probably could have communicated a little better in the early stages. And, once having been communicated with, Gurudev probably could have been a bit more understanding and might have contacted his customer and gotten him to be more responsive to 2checkout.

And if 2checkout has support personnel with an attitude problem (and since that is a recurring allegation not only in this thread but in others), then 2checkout should probably take a giant step back and look long and hard at that. Hiring customer service etiquette professionals to come in to 2checkout's offices and conduct a day-long Saturday seminar for 2checkout support personnel might be in order.

So might a review of 2checkout's verification policies and the rigorousness with which its personnel should persue them be in order. A cost benefit analysis should probably be done. It might turn out that being a little less oppressive might let a few bad apples through, but when balanced against the business lost because customers find 2checkout to be far too restrictive, 2checkout might learn that it's better to be a little nicer all 'round.

Personally, I'm still impressed with 2checkout. But I must confess I'm a little concerned that it's going to shoot itself in the foot by tightening-up too much. Telephone verification should only be used when there are so many other red flags that it's the only logical thing to do. And 2checkout should find a way to clearly explain the problem, and the delay it's causing, in a voluntary communication with the merchant rather than making him ask where his money is. And then it should do whatever it takes to resolve it fast -- in days, not weeks... and using certified mail if it has to.

Just my opinion.

Kristin,

Let me ask you this? Since, you are debating here do you want me to post the email chain here and people here can see it?

If you agree to it, let's do it now and I will gladly accept that it was my fault and I am lamest person you have ever explained anything to. If not, it will be you. It is one of us. Your integrity and the great pride you have in your service is in question - accept it, let people decide.

If you were right and if your staff explained this then you should have no problem with my posting this here - accept it and I will post the emails here and all can see it, let me know.

To be quite honest, I was a little surprised that PayPal ranked so low in the poll. I would like to know what concerns and issues users have with the service, or what they would like to see us do differently.


Hi Damon,

Well, a lot of things make us rank paypal that way, let me tell you the ones I have found, maybe this will help you put paypal first on the rank:

- Paypal is very good to move money betwen paypal users, but as a cc processing method for a business, the biggest problem is ask every client to sign up for an account before buying something... I have a lot of clients that have bought from other provider at a higer price, just to avoid the complication of creating an account with paypal.

- Paypal accounts usually get blocked without any evident reason, and when you ask which was the problem support people respond that it was a trigger in the system and the only way is to fax a lot of papers... (Paypal have a very bad reputation on this matter)...

- There are a lot of countrys that cant pay using paypal, so, a lot of clients you are missing as a marchant... and if you are from one of this countrys (a lot of people on these forums are) you just cant use paypal...

Finally, let me tell you my case: I don't live at the US, not from any country in your supported country list... but I have a US Bank account, US bank Credit Cards, and a US mailing address that I use to be able to expand my business... I created my account, verified my bank account, verified my cc's, verified my address, made a lot legitimate transactions, get the paypal debit card, used that card, etc... I was like a perfect client... everithing withouth a single problem... One day, I logged to my account and receive a message that my account was blocked (or restricted or something)... and I simply cannot fax you a Phone or utility bill because I dont live at the US... I sent emails explaining this and all I received were automated emails with the procedure to unrestrict an account...

So... Paypal is so low in the rank because a lot of clients can't use it, a lot of business can use it and a lot of clients don't want the complication to use it ...

Incredible post, Gregg. Don't think I've ever seen one longer unless it was full of code!

To possibly assuage your posted concerns: We weren't notified as to the customer's concern over the programmer's payment until after the payment was due to be released.

While we generally frown upon merchants who are unable to process orders until after they've received payments (i.e. unable to maintain a ready inventory) you are correct in that it should not have been a concern under the type of service arrangment Guru apparently has with his subcontractors. He provided the services in good faith immediately upon notification of the orders. When his "employees" get paid is really none of our business.

Whether or not our representative understood this is really moot as the rest of the concerns were still not laid to rest. The orders from this particular customer were only the smaller part of the total amount due and the other two customers failed to respond at all.

We will be integrating a comprehensive ticket system very shortly that will enable administrators such as myself to monitor the quality of responses. I get more perturbed than anyone at reports of rudeness. It certainly isn't good P.R.

Again, we obviously regret situations of this type and I truly believe it could have been resolved and, yes, the individual involved on the front-line has been instructed to make certain he clearly explains similar situations (although in this instance I don't think it would have mattered) or forwards similar inquiries to a senior account representative for handling. We have the ability to put in the time and effort necessary in some of these instances.

----------------

Guru, I am not in this to point fingers or say who was right or who was wrong. It was obviously a misunderstanding that grew into an even larger conflict. Email histories are modifiable and the final resolution has already been reached.

I am operating now purely on the basis of concern for our reputation and to (hopefully) ensure that everyone understands the process itself and not necessarily how it affected your account in particular. We've sincerely wished you continued good luck in your endeavors and certainly don't bear any kind of animostiy towards you or your company.

Kristin

Guru, I am not in this to point fingers or say who was right or who was wrong. It was obviously a misunderstanding that grew into an even larger conflict.

No, please accept it - let people see it. It is not a conflict. What are you afraid of? Your good luck will never bring me $1,000 - only my good luck will. I have no animosity towards you too but you have repeatedly protrayed me as the one who is having problem understanding. I have agreed that only late yesterday I realized that you were verifying my account but you had turned the tables alreadly.

If there is no problem, why don't you accept it - I am begging you, I never wanted to put this in the public, but you have provoked me and you think I am not only misunderstanding of you but also "petty". What have you got to lose? I have already lost money. What have you got to lose? Your credibilty? If so, then defend your credibility. I have put together all emails until yesterday.

Let's do it.

After reading all of this thread I am really worried as I have joined 2Checkout.com a few days ago.

A few questions for kdach:
[list=1]
What if my customers don’t use a valid telephone number.

A lot of my customers will be located in the UK, will you call them even if they’re in the UK?

When you contact my customers via email what do you actually ask them i.e. any personal information? On one side I think it’s a good idea to email customers of merchants but on another note isn’t it harassing the customer?

Is it alright if a notice is put on the signup page indicating they may be contacted by 2Checkout.com in the near future to verify that they are happy with the merchant’s service?
[/list=1]
That’s all I can think of for the time being,

Thanks for any help,

Imitech

Please post whatever you want to post. I hope you include my repeated requests from yesterday to forward me the email history at that time.

Because you are obviously determined to point a finger, please post the email threads. I've explained what happened -- numerous times -- and do not blame you for any misunderstanding of the circumstances if you failed to understand the processes.

Keep in mind that Gregg is correct in his description of internal fraud procedures. If you haven't already read his post, I recommend that you do so.

Kristin

Good questions:

We'll post a comment internally if your customer fails to post a valid phone number. If it is your only charge and it causes a problem we'll certain try an alternate method of contact, including researching a possibly correct number or email (although email is hardly more reliable as it's much easier to create a dummy email account than arrange for a dummy phone number which is why we eye yahoo and hotmail accounts with extra suspicion). We have a few other tools I'll keep to myself. :)

Yes, we'll call anywhere in the world to verify orders. Recent news from MasterCard, etc should have everyone on alert as to how seriously the entire cc industry is taking cc fraud.

We've recently initiated an automated customer-satisfaction survey. Calls and emails are never, EVER to imply less than total faith in any of our merchants. We also never request any personal information or credit card information. The overwhelming majority of customers are also extremely happy that someone cares enough to verify their online purchase and their overall satisfaction. People in the businss aren't the only ones concerned about security.

You may absolutely, positively post any notice regarding contacting 2checkout.com. Our telephone number prints on the customer's cc statement and we post all comments received either via email or phone to the appropriate order/merchant -- good or bad :)

We're integrating a lot of enhancements this summer to streamline many of our internal processes - the satisfaction survey and ticket system are only two of them. No process (obviously) is perfect but that won't stop us from trying to make them better continuously. Suggestions can be emailed to me directly.

Kristin

Thanks for the Quick reply kdach, I will discourage customers from using free email addresses such as hotmail and yahoo also to encourage them to use a valid phone number. Thanks again what is your phone number? I think it’s a good piece of information put with the statement about 2Checkout.com contacting customers…

Imitech

The number is floating around this forum in several spots but here it is again:

1-614-876-5590
1-614-876-3580 (Facsimile)

We discourage merchants from posting it directly as your customers tend to assume it is a direct customer service line to your site/support. Feel free to keep it handy, however, especially for those customers who need to update their recurring billing information.

Kristin

Coming through - putting it all together.

I hope you include my repeated requests from yesterday to forward me the email history at that time.
Oh, Lord! What Nonsense. Show me your emails. It was I who told you that I have the emails and if you want to see them I will show you only if you were an officer of the company and then I gave you a brief synopsis of prior exchanges between I and Sebastian. At the same time we were debating here. Then you came back and said the account was suspended. Repeated requests? Oh, gosh! You are unbelivalble.

Don't worry, I still have all of them and so does Tom at your company, I was copying him all along and you have them if you really want to see or may be you already have - here it is (just click below):

I know Gregg is correct, I run a business too and face the same risks. I explained why we did not pay our programmer. Any person who has sense will have no problem understanding that. I never demanded that you release my funds to begin with but it had been almost 4 weeks and how much longer should it be - I wanted to know all along why the delay was.

Well, I can't wait to be done with this - anyone wants to read these - please go here (this is long and only until yesterday before it came we here). If I have been wrong tell me as it is - BUT IF NOT, TELL EVERYONE both about us and 2checkout (right or wrong).

:o http://www.programmingbids.com/misc/2checkoutemails.txt:o

We'll post a comment internally if your customer fails to post a valid phone number.

If you did - I would not start the first intiation, we would not have this problem.

Imitech,

You can either believe it or you can click on the above link and read through.


Thank you.

Originally posted by kdach
Incredible post, Gregg. Don't think I've ever seen one longer unless it was full of code!
Yeah... well... I confess that verbosity is one of my character flaws.

Originally posted by kdach
While we generally frown upon merchants who are unable to process orders until after they've received payments (i.e. unable to maintain a ready inventory)
Well, yes, but that's the nature of Gurudev's business, it seems -- and that of those with businesses like his. Not everything for which a person pays with a credit card on the Internet is a product that can be pulled from a shelf and shipped. And sometimes even when it is a product that can, theoretically, sit on a shelf, the product may be something that must me custom manufactured to specs -- and the seller won't even begin until he has his money in advance... or at least a portion thereof. And the seller may even state that clearly on his site so there is no doubt in the mind of the buyer that he's paying in advance and that the seller should get the money in advance of shipment; that that's their agreement.

And sometimes it's a service that must be performed over time, such as writing a piece of custom software or building a huge web app. And those of us who have made a living performing such services for a fee are used to such arrangements as one third down, a one third progress payment approximately halfway through the project, and the final one third upon delivery at the end of the project. Or half down and half on delivery. Or whatever.

And I, for one, would be irritated as hell if, after getting my client into a certain mindset about how much he has to pay up-front and then how much he has to pay halfway through and then how much he has to pay at the end, and how it's all going to happen, one of your people called him up and, thinking in terms of products that can be pulled from a shelf and shipped, got my client all confused about what he has or has not received for the amount he has paid and whether or not he should allow the money to come to me. Your fraud verification people should not care about such things. It's none of their business what my arrangement is between me and my client. Or, if they think it is their business, they should check my web site and see what my client agreed to before giving his credit card number. Maybe my client agreed to me getting all the money in advance before he received whatever it was he was purchasing. In such cases, your people should be very careful not to cause my client to re-think that or become confused by asking questions over the phone or via email about whether he actually received what he paid for. There's so much fraud these days that the mere act of your asking may cause him to wonder why you're asking and then he may worry that you're asking because there's some kind of problem or something. And then he may say, "oh, well... maybe I shouldn't have paid up-front, eh? Maybe I should wait until I've gotten the product or service for which I've paid before you give the money to the seller." And if that wasn't the original agreement between the buyer and the seller, then a can 'o worms has been opened-up by your fraud prevention person's inquiries.

It's a delicate, delicate thing, Kristin. And I think 2checkout should really think about that kind of stuff when its fraud prevention personnel are making inquiries.

In my opinion, what should matter -- all that should matter -- is whether the customer/cardholder intentionally made the credit card transaction willingly and with full knowledge of what he was doing. In other words, did the cardholder mean for the charge to take place? Did he voluntarily key it in to the web site or did someone else do it without his knowledge or permission? You should, it seems to me, verify that and only that.

Either that or you should require of your merchants that they carefully label their items so that it's clear to your fraud prevention people that the credit card charge was a down payment or a progess payment and that, therefore, by definition, the product or service has not been completed and/or shipped. Therefore, your fraud prevention people will be careful what they ask and how they ask it.

In fact, as I think about it, that may be a cool enhancement to your system that you could put into your development queue. Perhaps every item that a merchant puts into inventory in your system must fall into (and be specified using checkboxes) certain kinds of categories such as "down payment (for a custom product, service or project)," "deposit (for a custom product or service)," "progress payment (for a custom product, service or project)," "completion payment (for a custom product, service or project)," "full payment for a product or service payable to the merchant in advance," "full payment for a product or service payable to the merchant only after delivery," etc. I realize those are wordy categories and that there's probably a way to streamline them, but at least it gets my point across. If your people had those categories to go by, they would know what kinds of questions to ask cardholders when doing a verification.

Again, I stress, it's a very delicate matter. When your people start making inquiries, the customer's alarm bells start ringing. You must tread lightly, be professional, and be consistent with the agreement between the buyer and the seller.

Or so that is my opinion.

Originally posted by kdach
We will be integrating a comprehensive ticket system very shortly that will enable administrators such as myself to monitor the quality of responses. I get more perturbed than anyone at reports of rudeness. It certainly isn't good P.R.
This comes as no surprise to me. I've noticed an increasing number of complaints about 2checkout and its responsiveness in these forums lately. But it seems to be only lately. I'm glad to see you guys have plans to deal with it.

Originally posted by kdach
I truly believe it could have been resolved
Yes, I think you're probably right.

Originally posted by kdach
(although in this instance I don't think it would have mattered)
Hmm. Well... yes, perhaps... you're probably right there, too. But there's no way of knowing for sure. Perhaps if Gurudev had been communicated with ever-so-slightly differently in the beginning it might not have escalated to the out-of-control point that it has.

But, hey... 20/20 hindsight, right?

Personally, now that this level of understanding has begun to flow over this thread, I think Gurudev and 2checkout should consider not parting ways after all. Whether Gurudev believes it or not, he'll probably not do better than 2checkout when it comes to third party processors. And I'd say it's unlikely that he and 2checkout would ever tangle over something like this again.

Anyway, thanks, Kristin, for your thoughtful responses! Anyone who had been thinking twice about 2checkout because of the handful of negative things posted about it lately should go more by how you've handled yourself here than some of the recent postings in other threads.

That having been said, I would add this admittedly unsolicited advice: 2checkout should be really careful about maintaining its good reputation. I've been watching 2checkout just get better and better over the months. We've all witnessed so much chaos in these forums that it's refreshing to see a company take off, do well, and have lots of fans.

But that can be quickly tarnished, as you know. The prevailing complaint elsewhere in these forums lately (and I stress the word "lately" and would add the word "only" before it) seems to be that people are not hearing back from 2checkout; that inquires or support requests are falling on deaf ears; and that when 2checkout does respond the support reps are immature or give short shrift to the issue or their responses thereto.

Whether any of that's true or not, there's no substitute (as we've seen preached, and preached and preached in these forums) for top-notch, responsive, competent support -- and for having a solid reputation for same in places like this. It makes all the difference!

If you actually do have a handful of customers who are not hearing back from you as quickly as they should (or, worse, at all), and if the responses they're getting when they do hear back are short or even rude, then I would make that my highest priority for the moment. It wouldn't take long to fix so you could make something else your highest priority later. But for right now, I'd get that particular albatross out from around my neck in a New York second. I wouldn't even let it fester long enough to become tabloid rumor. I'd hunt-down every recent complaint in these forums and I'd post an unequivocal mea culpa and a resolute promise to fix it forthwith. And I'd do so and post how I fixed it...

...with the ultimate goal of getting as many people as possible to post here things like, for example, "Man... how 'bout that 2checkout, eh? They read a handful of comments about possible customer service problems in these forums and, boom, they were on it like ugly on ape! And next thing you know, voila, it's fixed. Gotta' like that!"

Spend your time however you will, but that's what I'd do. Just a suggestion.

That having been said... keep up the good work. 2checkout is still just about the best third party processor and I want to be unambiguous about that here in this thread which started out as a poll about who is best at this game, and probably would be best served to get back to that topic now that Gurudev and kdach are contemplating kissing and making up.

;) (kidding)

Thank you.

Advice well-put (and definitely taken to heart!) and the suggestions as well.

Hopefully some improvements to the user manual will definitely assist us in classifying the types of orders going through our system. While we classify every single account as soon as the affiliated website is established it still is occassionally unclear exactly what is being purchased at the time of sale. We obviously can't be intimately familiar with the ever-changing menus our many merchants offer. Encouraging merchants to use adequate and correct descriptors would certainly be a short-cut approach to your suggestion until we could integrate something such as you highlighted.

I monitor forums such as this one simply to get the "big picture" of how our service is being represented by our merchants. Hopefully now that I'm back full-time (new baby, 3 months old, they "encouraged" me to get back to work 2 days after delivery but were generous *cough* enough to let me be part-time *cough* for three months) high-level difficulties will be resolved in less time. PR is my favorite function and, believe me, everyone hears about it if I see a ton of negative posts during my daily cruise!

The ticket system is the 'baby' of two of us senior staffers and we plan on using it to do much of what you've suggested.

Bear with us!

Thanks again.

Kristin

Ok, here it is. I have added all emails now until yesterday and until it came here and Kristin took over. In my last email I asked them to refund and close though prior to that I had told them that we will not use them.

:o http://www.programmingbids.com/misc/2checkoutemails.txt:o

That's it - read it and see yourself. None of what we said here matters as both of us blame each other but remember I am their customer and they were sitting on my $1,000 and telling me that they were not a bank to loan me money to run my business.. No mention of anything to do with our "own account verification", anywhere.

But after all of this, Sebastian comes back last night and asks me to email him my credit card number so he can credit back the $49 sign-up. So, I am thinking, Oh God these people really don't know what they are doing or he would not ask me to email him the cc number.

who ALLEDGEDLY wants this to end you sure are dragging things out.

Sebbe did NOT ask you to email your CC information. To quote his email to you:
------------------------
"To get your $49 back, I need your cc information and we can credit it in linkpoint tomorrow."
------------------------

He never says "email me your cc number." Telephones and fax machines work quite as well as (better from a security standpoint) email to provide us with the required information.

Upon emailing me, I immediately told you that the information should be faxed (which should have clarified your confusion and eliminated your concern but ...). You should really stop making assumptions - it seems to lead to unending threads in support forums.

Additionally, you were NOT eligible for a refund since your account existed well before the 30 day refund period. But, being the nice people that we are and taking your frustration into consideration, we agreed to do so.

Finally, I have the copies of the email history from Tom. I cannot comprehend your overwhelming desire to come off as the injured party (I've only encountered one other case like this EVER in 15 years of customer service work) I also do not condone skewing a history so that the bias is completely on your end.

Your check has been issued, the sales refunded, the account closed -- I am beginning to believe YOU are not capable of letting this matter drop at all. Can you please drop the attempts to give us a black eye?

Kristin

Following is what Sebastian said when I asked him? I have forwarded it to you now, read it.

I want it to end (I ended it last night with you) but I don't want you coming here again and telling that I have not understood anything and that I am "petty".

You had all the emails from Tom and you still said you were repeatedly asking me - why ask if you already had it and if I am skewing the history (?), you are welcome to post the right version.

-----------
Hi,
You can call me at (877)-***-****. Or let me know if Kristin has already assisted you in the matter. I don't know what I was thinking, and I didn't answer your email last evening because the email I sent you was the last thing I did before leaving for the day. We don't have your credit card info anymore because it was back in November of last year when you signed up.
Again, let me apologize for asking for your cc info over email. That was dumb.
Thank you
Sebastian

I really have to laugh at this point.

Of course Sebbe apologized. He's under instructions to agree to almost anything you say at this point just to get this whole issue closed.

I told him (from my internal email):
--------------------------------------------

Please treat this merchant with kid gloves at this point. I am seriously beginning to believe that he will never drop any of the issues despite the fact that the account has now been terminated and we've agreed to refund his signup fee.

The old adage applies here: The customer is always right.

Agree with almost anything at this point (with the exception of reopening the account and issuing the funds without verification).

We remind all staff constantly not to request cc information via email and he believes that is what you have done. *I* know better but I'm beginning to believe it's best to agree with any accusations just to get this issue over and done with. Be humble. Be apologetic. If you want you can forward any correspondence directly to me but I'd prefer if you attempted to gain some type of closure from your end.

(end quote).
----------------------------------------------

I am glad Sebbe apologized. We discussed your entire account issue at length and clarified exactly how account verification should be presented in cases where there is obviously such a great misunderstanding.

I hope you feel better. :)

Kristin

Originally posted by kdach
I am beginning to believe YOU are not capable of letting this matter drop at all. Can you please drop the attempts to give us a black eye?
Originally posted by Gurudev
I want it to end (I ended it last night with you) but I don't want you coming here again and telling that I have not understood anything and that I am "petty".
Hooboy. Well... okay... listen, you two...

I, for one, have just read, carefully, every word of Gurudev's page (http://www.programmingbids.com/misc/2checkoutemails.txt) wherein he purports to disclose the entire email history of these sorry events. And even if that page is not completely accurate (and I'm not saying it isn't, I'm just saying "if"), it's nevertheless obvious that this whole thing is an unfortunate damn mess no matter how you slice it. And I feel bad for both of you that you've had to endure all this -- especially publicly in this thread.

Of course, what we now know from kdach's explanation earlier in this thread, 2checkout was worried about and trying to check out Gurudev's company when he wrote the following message:

Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 12:35:54 -0400
From: "Sebbe ***** ( 2Checkout.com )"

Hi,
I need to have the orders for **** ***** voice verified. I have
tried to contact ***** numerous times via phone as well as
email. I need confirmation of the 3 orders placed on line with
http://www.programmingbids.com as they total up to $1000.00.
Please contact me at your earliest convenience.
Thank you
Sebastian.

Order Number:15496 - 1307060
Order Number:15496 - 1307038
Order Number:15496 - 1302232

And, of course, Gurudev responded by asking what 2checkout needed in the way of verification -- a reasonable question under the circumstances. To which Sebastian stated, perhaps in admittedly not-so-good English, that he needed to hear from the customer/cardholder. The fact that the words "to be" are missing, and the word "from" was used instead of "by" in Sebastian's sentence "I need contacted from the buyer listed," probably wasn't enough for Gurudev to claim that he didn't understand what Sebastian wanted. It seems fairly clear, despite the grammatical problems. And if it wasn't then Gurudev should have asked for clarification. But, by his own admission, did not.

Then Sebastian finally speaks with Gurudev's customer and, as I discussed in my earlier posting, at that point Sebastian seems to have gotten himself involved in a piece of the puzzle in which he had no business: The relationship between Gurudev and his programmer.

The programmer had apparently contacted the customer and complained that he had not been paid. That was an unconscionably inappropriate thing for the programmer to have done and I hope Gurudev has ripped him a new one for it.

It was also inappropriate of the customer to get involved at that level or to make his willingness to accept and pay for the programming contingent on Gurudev's having paid the programmer. Or for Sebastian to have allowed the customer's opinion on that matter to have influenced him. Again, that was none of the customer's business -- or 2checkout's. What mattered was that the customer got the programming he requested and for which Gurudev was trying to get paid. And, if what's on Gurudev's email history page (http://www.programmingbids.com/misc/2checkoutemails.txt) is to be believed, he made that point fairly clearly in a later message.

Unfortunately, Gurudev became openly -- and to some degree understandably -- frustrated with the situation in his Sunday, June 16, 2002 6:08 PM reply to Sebastian. And, of course, we can clearly see that Sebastian didn't respond well:

Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2002 10:35:54 -0400
From: "Sebbe Jones ( 2Checkout.com )" s*****@2checkout.com>

okay, first of all I know that H**** and A***** have different
orders. A***** does have two different IPs and 2 different
phone numbers. Neither of which go to him. H***** wants his
orders refunded because his programmer has not been paid
from you. And we are not your bank. I think you misunderstand
our business. You don't get the money before fullfilling your
orders. How do we know you are going to fulfill your orders? You
could just take the money and run. So therefore, if you haven't
fulfilled any orders than maybe you should just cancel and refund
them if you can't get them done without payment from us.
Because we aren't going to release payment until the buyers get
what they paid for through you.
Sebastian

Sebastian clearly did not understand the nature of this transaction. He seemed to have been unaware that the only issue in question was whether the customer got the programming he ordered; that whether or not the programmer had been paid was irrelevant to the issue of whether the funds needed to be released to Gurudev. And his attitude, generally, was... well... let's say "less than ideal." Frankly, his reply, above, borders on being inappropriate.

But not nearly as inappropriate as his next reply (the one that followed Gurudev's clearly argumentative response to Sebastian's above reply):

Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2002 13:49:45 -0400
From: "Sebbe Jones ( 2Checkout.com )" s*****@2checkout.com>

So then if you were going through paypal for so long with no
problems then why did you come to us. I suggest you just go
back to them and clear any business that you have through us,
because we don't do business the way they do. We don't act as
a merchants loan account. That is not why we are here. I'll give
you your $49 sign up fee back if you just refund the orders you
have through us since the only ones I can verify isn't happy with
you. Not unhappy with us, unhappy with you. Let me know when
you intend to refund the orders and I will be more than happy to
turn off your account and give you back your money.

At that point, and with that reply, Sebastian clearly crossed the line. But then it got worse. Gurdev replied to the above impatiently and argumentatively again (and, by that point, perhaps understandably so) and to that Sebastian resorted to sarcasm:

Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2002 17:02:00 -0400
From: "Sebbe Jones ( 2Checkout.com )" s*****@2checkout.com>

You see this line right here?

> This is not a loan account. We do not want to take the risk of
> paying anyone without having the funds cleared - get it?
>

Do I get it? Of course I get it. Do you? This is the reason why we
aren't paying you. H***** has said to cancel because you aren't
doing what you said. You are apparently a "middle man" as we
are. We don't want to have to deal with you. You are using us
like we are your bank and giving you loans so that you can run
your business. So, if that is what you think, you are sorely
mistaken. You may as well figure something out for the existing
orders because you won't be paid for them. I don't even know if
A***** is the one who ordered seeing that I have no contact
information for him. I don't know what else to tell you except
that these orders can be and will be refunded for the fact that I
don't know if they've been fulfilled or not. And H***** said the
programmer did his part but you have not done yours.

Sebastian was so far out of line at that point that I'm having trouble expressing it in words. I'm not saying it was all 2checkout's fault or anything like that. I'm still a big 2checkout fan. But Sebastian simply went where no customer service person should ever go. He should probably have escalated the matter up to someone higher -- someone who would respond in an unemotional and professionally detached manner -- long before it ever got to this point.

And perhaps 2checkout should have been more forthcoming about its unstated and hidden agenda of checking-out Gurudev's company. Then maybe Gurudev could have contacted his customer and said, "Hey, you're keeping me from getting paid by not responding to 2checkout's inquiries and/or by talking to them about the completely irrelevant matter of whether or not the programmer got paid."

Gurudev also should have stayed calmer longer and tried to get Sebastian to take a giant step back and see where he was misunderstanding the nature of Gurudev's business and had strayed into issues regarding this payment that were irrelevant. Gurudev also clearly failed at getting Sebastian to see that the product for which the customer had paid had, in fact, been delivered, as Sebastian was demanding happen before he would release payment. As I said earlier, it's a damn mess.

But this event also helps to illustrate the point I made in my earlier posting: That third party credit card processors like 2checkout need to be very careful about not getting too mixed-up in the agreement between the buyer and the seller. If 2checkout only processed payments for hard goods, then that would be one thing. But with service-oriented businesses that sell projects performed over time, the rules are often quite different.

Personally, I think third party processors should mostly concern themselves with whether the transaction was intentional on the part of the buyer, and with his full knowledge and permission. Period. I'm not saying the third party processor should never dig deeper if it feels it needs to. I'm just saying that it should try to collect and make judgements based on the most basic of facts, and it should stay away from performance issues lest it end-up finding itself trying to interpret, and sitting in judgement of, civil matters of law that are clearly not the business of verfication personnel, nor anything that they are qualified to assess.

qutoe from 2checkout employee above:
>>>
You don't get the money before fullfilling your
orders. How do we know you are going to fulfill your orders? You
could just take the money and run. So therefore, if you haven't
fulfilled any orders than maybe you should just cancel and refund
them if you can't get them done without payment from us.
Because we aren't going to release payment until the buyers get
what they paid for through you.
>>>

This concerns me as I am planning on selling an educational service where the customer would pay first (under $50) and then it would take a month or so for the service to be completely fulfilled. The above quote seems to imply that businesses should collect their payment only after the service was performed. Is this the norm for credit payment systems?

Originally posted by Jim777
This concerns me as I am planning on selling an educational service where the customer would pay first (under $50) and then it would take a month or so for the service to be completely fulfilled. The above quote seems to imply that businesses should collect their payment only after the service was performed. Is this the norm for credit payment systems?
See what I mean Kristin? To base any part of your verification upon performance of the seller when it may not be obvious to your verification personnel precisely what constitutes performance, is a fundamentally flawed approach -- at least for some types of businesses.

It seems to me that 2checkout should probably work on my aforementioned categorization idea sooner than later. In the meantime, your idea of asking the merchants to be very specific in their product descriptions in the 2checkout system would probably help your verification personnel a lot.

Jim777 is right to worry, though... based on Gurudev's experience. But as you stated, it could be that if Jim777 simply puts right in the product description in the 2checkout system words something like "Advance payment for educational service to be performed within 30 to 60 days," and then you make sure that your employees understand that when they see that sort of language they should assume that the buyer intends for the seller to have his money before the seller actually receives the product or service, he should be okay. Right?

If you are selling an educational service directly to your client then it differs from the case above. The problem with the case above is that Gurudev processes orders but doesn't actually provide the service. He acts as a middle man between the two parties (programmer and code purchaser). This caused some problems.

First, client pays Gurudev for work to be done by programmer. Everyone agrees to the job and programmer does coding. Meanwhile Gurudev needs to have the funds delivered as he pays the programmer, the client doesn't actually pay the programmer directly.

I don't knwo how other processors handle this, however if Gurudev's clients had valid email/phone and had verified the transactions, then I don't think any of this would have been an issue. A few red flags came up which lead to a routine check which raised more red flags (and you know the rest).

If you are dealing directly with clients, I doubt you'd have the same problems.

Gregg snuck one in there between my post, but again, I think that when the situation is provider > client, the situation is different, and when none of your clients can be contacted, this creates problems.

Originally posted by Chicken
If you are selling an educational service directly to your client then it differes from the case above. The problem with the case above is that Gurudev processes orders but doesn't actually provide the service. He acts as a middle man between the two parties (programmer and code purchaser). This caused some problems.
But none that were Gurudev's fault. He may have had other culpabilities in this matter, but the "middleman" issue was irrelevant and should never have been a consideration.

Originally posted by Chicken
The problem with the case above is that Gurudev processes orders but doesn't actually provide the service.
Well, actually, in a legal sense, he does.

Originally posted by Chicken
He acts as a middle man between the two parties (programmer and code purchaser). First, client pays Gurudev for work to be done by programmer. Everyone agrees to the job and programmer does coding. Meanwhile Gurudev needs to have the funds delivered as he pays the programmer, the client doesn't actually pay the programmer directly.
Exactly. So I would caution that one does not become distracted by the "middleman" issue. That was Sebastian's mistake. Gurudev's actual role as "middleman" is irrlevant to the legalities of this matter. The customer's agreement was with Gurudev. Gurudev was the contractor and the party to whom the customer owed money for the programming services performed. The programmer was a sub-contractor -- Gurudev's employee in every legal sense. The customer was out of line to worry himself about whether the programmer got paid. And the programmer was way out of line to even bring it up to the customer.

And if Gurudev's account of the events is to be believed, he clearly satisfied his legal performance obligation to deliver the programming for which the customer contracted long before the customer and 2checkout finally spoke to one another.

Once that customer got the programming in his possession, Gurudev was due the funds. That he had not yet paid the programmer was irrelevant. And had Sebastian known that, he would have guided the customer away from that subject during his conversation with him and he would have refined it to the truly relevant issue: Had the customer gotten what he paid for? If the answer was "yes," then Sebastian should have said, "thank you," hung-up the phone, and promptly released the funds to Gurudev's bank account -- minus whatever holdback is appropriate and agreed to, of course.

Originally posted by Chicken
...if Gurudev's clients had valid email/phone and had verified the transactions, then I don't think any of this would have been an issue. A few red flags came up which lead to a routine check which raised more red flags (and you know the rest).
Well, that's another matter altogether, isn't it? There were actually several issues in this case, the two most salient of which were: 1) The middleman issue and how 2checkout should not have allowed itself to become distracted by it, and, 2) the red flags that popped-up for 2checkout when it could not reach Gurudev's customers for confirmation and/or that said customers used Hotmail accounts, etc. Those were valid concerns on 2checkout's part. And since this was Gurudev's first major transaction and the amount of money was so significant, 2checkout was justified in its caution and its desire to perform due diligence to verify Gurudev's company and his customers.

Originally posted by Chicken
If you are dealing directly with clients, I doubt you'd have the same problems.
So you're saying (and I'm not challenging, I'm just clarifying) that the very nature of Gurudev's business perhaps makes it unsuitable for third party credit card processors? Hmm. How so? I mean, in the eyes of the law, Gurudev contracted with the customer for custom code -- a service. Gurudev then turned around and found an employee to do it. Had things gone as planned, Gurudev would have collected the money and from it paid the programmer whatever Gurudev and the programmer agreed the programmer should be paid -- which was, incidentally, none of the customer's business and the programmer should never have discussed it with him... but I digress. And Gurudev would have kept the rest as his profit. That makes him a simple contractor in both a practical and a legal sense.

It seems to me that a third party credit card processor can very easily handle contractor transactions, but in order to do so the processor must stop thinking in terms of hard goods (inventory) and start thinking in terms of down payments, progress payments and payments on delivery. And for the first two types of payments, the processor must not require delivery of any products or services before it releases funds to the contractor.

Originally posted by Chicken
I don't knwo how other processors handle this...
Well, there's the rub. I know of at least one third party processor (CCNow, to be specific (http://ccnow.com/)) that flatly refuses to deal with anything other than hard goods. And though I've never discussed it with them, I suspect they would cite precisely this kind of problem as the reason.

That having been said, I hope and pray that 2checkout does not follow suit. One of the most attractive things about 2checkout for me is that it doesn't have CCNow's viewpoint (http://ccnow.com/details.html#products) and is willing to process credit cards in payment for non-tangible items like web hosting and contract services. If 2checkout throws-in the towel on this one and starts behaving like CCNow, it would flat-out break my heart.

I believe that 2checkout can easily deal with this problem by simply forcing all merchants to properly categorize all inventory items keyed-in to the 2checkout system as I described in my earlier posting. And then 2checkout would simply need to school its verification staff to learn how to understand that nature of the inventory item and the performance issues related thereto based on both the category into which the merchant placed it, and also the description the merchant gave it, in the 2checkout system.

Or so that is my far-from-humble opinion.

Hey Gregg, how do you do to post at 600 words per seccond? ;)

just a joke... great posts with a lot of usefull content... :)

Gurudev processes orders but doesn't actually provide the service. He acts as a middle man between the two parties (programmer and code purchaser).
It wasn't that way, the programmer for all practical purposes now is our subcontractor (well, almost). Orignially, when we started we would just hook them up and it was them dealing with each other. When one buyer (registered in this forum) screwed a programmer (also registered in this forum) by not paying for an installation project, we started getting involved. From then on we confirm from buyers that they got their project, first and then pay the programmer. In between we realized the credit card fraud and then we started waiting to clear the funds before making a payment. Otherwise, we realized that we have to close that site. So, it has been evolving. This programmer here caused a great deal of pain by pestering the buyer, while all he was to do was to deliver the work. It is a violation - he will not make one penny from our site in the future.

Originally, buyer directly paid the programmer and if they did not get what they paid for, then all they could do is to give a poor rating to the programmer - it is not so anymore and that has come to haunt us. The programmer and the buyer got involved, I did not want to say anything to the buyer other than explain him that his programmer will be paid, while in reality he was our programmer. So, it is complicated. Come next quarter or so, we will have all programmers executing over $500 in projects get certified by providing full personal info. on file. No one gets paid 100% until all transactions are cleared. There is no other way to do this.

Yes, for all practical purpose we are a middleman. Every single business is a middleman, the food chain goes very deep - everywhere you look. All that matters is what we are doing is legal and that we are making sure as best as we can that all get what they paid for or worked for. If a merchant processor can verify what we are doing is real then their only work is to process cards and pay us if they are good and tell us if they are not - anything else is none of their business whatsoever. They may call buyers but that is where it stops. Again, now I know that wasn't (our verification) done but without making any further comments about the past posts, I was not aware of it either.

Originally posted by Chicken
Gregg snuck one in there between my post
If you'd use the "quote" link instead of the "reply" button, it wouldn't matter, would it? ;)

I know the feeling. Earlier in this thread you got one in while I was still composing my big one. Er... well... my first big one, I mean. (They're all pretty outrageous aren't they?) (Don't answer that!)

Originally posted by Lumute
Hey Gregg, how do you do to post at 600 words per seccond? ;)
Actually, I type about 85 words per minute -- net -- when I'm on a roll... somewhere around 75 to 80 when I'm not concentrating. That helps. I'm also blessed with the ability to pretty much type it as I think it and to think it in pretty much the order that I want to say it. Not a lot of editing. That's certainly not because I'm so smart but, rather, because I'm practiced at it. I worked for a newspaper many moons ago -- first as a city desk reporter, then the labor reporter, then a copydesk editor, and finally the business page editor. And some of the "write it fast, and write it right the first time" skills learned there have pretty much stuck with me for life.

Unfortunately, as I've aged, I've learned to indulge myself a bit and to ignore my impulses to shorten and be more concise -- to the chagin of many who read here, I lament. That having been said, I can still copyfit to the word when I need to. After all, I'm coming in just below the 10,000 character posting limit in these forums -- howsoever barely -- aren't I?

Originally posted by Lumute
just a joke... great posts with a lot of usefull content... :)
It's not just me. There are a helluva lot of smart folks making good points here. Personally I love it when a thread gets like this. Lots of good information gets exchanged, opinions are formed, policies examined, and future actions planned. In fact, I suspect we're helping 2checkout work through this problem right here, right now. You can bet Kristin will be discussing this at length with her bosses and in the end 2checkout will probably be better for it. She's already pointed out that her verification personnel have been instructed in how to better deal with situations like this in the future. Aside from the inherent educational function, that sort of thing, it seems to me, is one of this forum's highest purposes.

Forget all the middle man stuff (as you said, it is irrelevant). Let's cut the fat (ignore what I said before)...

Client submitted transaction to Gurudev (the provider). 2checkout could not confirm the transaction with the client, funds were not released. If we skip everything else, this is the essence of the problem.

It doesn't really matter if 2checkout forces "all merchants to properly categorize all inventory items keyed-in to the 2checkout system" and if they "school its verification staff to learn how to understand that nature of the inventory item and the performance issues related thereto based on both the category into which the merchant placed it, and also the description the merchant gave it..."

This wasn't the problem in this case. Simply put, orders submitted by clients could not be verified as legitimate. Proper categorization wouldn't have helped. Education of the staff wouldn't have helped.

For his own sake, Gurudev might want to make sure that the information provided is accurate and that clients can be reached via phone if need be (for whatever reason). This infomation can be collected during the solicitation process. But that's just a suggestion.

I don't think anyone is overly right or wrong in this. I just think there was a problem and some things were missed by Gurudev earlier on (such as the requests for contact by the client, etc.) and some things might not have been spelled out for him so that he understood what the problem(s) were.

By his signature, it seems he is going to carry a grudge, however if that signature causes discussion about this topic in unrelated threads, it will be removed.

Originally posted by Chicken
Client submitted transaction to Gurudev (the provider). 2checkout could not confirm the transaction with the client, funds were not released. If we skip everything else, this is the essence of the problem.
There's certainly some truth to that.

Originally posted by Chicken
It doesn't really matter if 2checkout forces "all merchants to properly categorize all inventory items keyed-in to the 2checkout system" and if they "school its verification staff to learn how to understand that nature of the inventory item and the performance issues related thereto based on both the category into which the merchant placed it, and also the description the merchant gave it..."

This wasn't the problem in this case. Simply put, orders submitted by clients could not be verified as legitimate. Proper categorization wouldn't have helped. Education of the staff wouldn't have helped.
Categorically, yes, you're right. The issues, I think, are starting to get blurred and I may well be as responsible for that having happened as anyone by my having used this incident to help illustrate what I believe to be the related issue of situations wherein the criteria for the third party processor issuing payment to the merchant should necessarily be that the customer has actually received whatever it is he made a payment (be it a full advance payment, or a partial payment or deposit) toward.

Indeed, that particular issue does not directly apply here because, in fact, Gurudev's product had been delivered and the customer had accepted and was already enjoying it when this whole thing broke out. Therefore, there was no question that Gurudev was due the funds.

And, more to your point, there was no question that 2checkout was within its rights to ensure -- ne, would have been remiss not to ensure -- that Gurudev and his customer were not pulling some kind of fast one before it released the funds to Gurudev. And, clearly, 2checkout's inability to get hold of Gurudev's customer, combined perhaps with the customer's use of a Hotmail account, and what 2checkout perceived to be the increasing pitch of Gurudev's pleas to be paid, and whatever other subtle red flags 2checkout noticed, were all at the heart of the matter. So, yes, you make a valid point.

I would point out, however, that the middleman issue is what got Sebastian tripped-up. And his focus on that was, in part, what helped to keep him from seeing the other issues. And that goes straight to the heart of the peripheral issue which I have used this incident to help illustrate: The matter of verification personnel getting too bogged-down in assessing seller performance when, in fact, the agreement between the parties may be somewhat more complex than would be the case when the product in question is a tangible or hard good that can be picked from a shelf, shipped, received by the customer and then funds for same are released to the seller.

While your distillation of the relevant issues is sound, it would be a shame for 2checkout to not also derive from this event lessons learned about the peculiarities of non-tangible item or service sales -- such as what Jim777 described in his earlier post.

Originally posted by Chicken
For his own sake, Gurudev might want to make sure that the information provided is accurate and that clients can be reached via phone if need be (for whatever reason). This infomation can be collected during the solicitation process. But that's just a suggestion.
And a good one. We're of one mind on this.

Originally posted by Chicken
I don't think anyone is overly right or wrong in this.
Agreed.

Originally posted by Chicken
I just think there was a problem and some things were missed by Gurudev earlier on (such as the requests for contact by the client, etc.) and some things might not have been spelled out for him so that he understood what the problem(s) were.
Agreed. I think everyone can see that, as much as anything else, this thing was a horrible misunderstanding -- on both Gurudev's and Sebastian's parts.

Originally posted by Chicken
By his signature, it seems he is going to carry a grudge, however if that signature causes discussion about this topic in unrelated threads, it will be removed.
A warning to be heeded if I ever heard one.

2Checkout does not generally involve itself in concerns over whether or not a service has been completed at the time it is ordered. The precedent exists for those merchants who purport to sell tangible goods for which they need paid prior to ever even ordering or the merchant is capable of providing the service as advertised.

Obviously the latter situation is fraught with potential for problems. What happens if the upstream provider has difficulties or an inventory shortage of their own? It would/should have been an issue if the customers had stated their code had been paid for and not provided in a timely fashion. That was NOT the case here, however.

We DO talk to our employees. We're a fairly close-knit working community. Sebbe did cross the line and my verbal discussion (in addition to my internal email to him, his supervisor and the owner) stated as much. To Sebbe's way of thinking at that point we was in an untenable situation: .Completely unable to directly verify a single sale (his job), reluctant to OK a $1000 payment for release and in receipt of an email (from the merchant and only later confirmed via phone) that a customer expressed dissatisfaction with an aspect of the services/product performed. Again, the last bit should NOT have factored into his thinking but taken with the system's red flags, the customer non-response and an in-your-face merchant it all combined to form a very combustable mixture.

While it appears to be the aspect of this case everyone is focusing on it was NOT the only reason the funds were pended. Additionally, I add that any merchant can, at any time, request to deal with a senior support or administrative personnel if a situation of back and forth emails without resolution ever arises.

Yes, the final point above should not have entered into Sebastian's thinking and certainly should not have been the subject of his conversations with the merchant regarding his funds. But, as he explained to us, from his perspective it was the "last straw".

At this point, I am as guilty as Sebbe for continuing the discussion to the extent that we have. Mostly in an attempt to clarify to the bystanders that this is NOT a typical situation (by far most atypical!). Most merchants are never even aware of the verification processes in place - they are generally invisible and a seamless part of our services.

Company policy has been clarified on the matter of subcontractors (employees) because our concern IS a) that the order placed was valid and b) the service or item was provided in a timely and satisfactory manner. That's basically it. If the email forwarded to us hadn't mentioned the issue we never would have know Gurudev (or his direct employees) hadn't fulfilled the order himself. It doesn't change the basic fact, and the true issue from our perspective whatever the posted email history may indicate, that we still (at that time) had had no direct contact with a single customer despite numerous, documented attempts to receive a response.

Unfortunately, now we are at the "We say it is white, you say it is black" stage.


It HAS been a very good discussion. If nothing else I hope that the WHT members know that we take fraud, fulfillment and customer service very seriously and that how ( or if ;) ) you pay your employees really is not our concern.

Kristin

Geeez, I'm gonna have to quit my job in order to have time to read these long threads. :D
I think this whole situation can be taken care of by following these simple steps:
1) Gurudev, give it a rest now, drop it like you said you were gonna. :rolleyes:
b) Gregg, take deep breathes between paragraphs. ;)
III) 5 lashes with a rubber hose for Sebbe :D :stickout

Originally posted by Sesran
Geeez, I'm gonna have to quit my job in order to have time to read these long threads. :D
I think this whole situation can be taken care of by following these simple steps:
1) Gurudev, give it a rest now, drop it like you said you were gonna. :rolleyes:
b) Gregg, take deep breathes between paragraphs. ;)
III) 5 lashes with a rubber hose for Sebbe :D :stickout
Ha! Indeed. Good post.

[deep breath]

Well, one thing's for sure... ya' gotta' love Kristin's candor and directness. Seriously. It's nice to see a vendor representative here in the middle of the fray explaining things where appropriate, taking responsibility where appropriate, and generally reflecting extremely well on her employer in the process. I, for one, remain a huge 2checkout fan, and it's difficult to imagine why anyone would not be after all this. And I'd hire Kristin in a heartbeat -- not that she'd ever want to work for the likes of me, mind you -- but I'd be honored to have an employee like her. (And she'd get a longer materinty leave from me, too... but that's a subject for another thread... in another forum altogether.)

[deep breath] (Geez... I think I'm gonna' hyperventilate, here...)

Kristin, what can you say to Jim777 to make him feel better? I mean... you sort of already addressed it in your post, above. But to be more specific: Will he be okay using 2checkout to process purchases for his educational service wherein he receives payment 30 to 60 days before he actually delivers the service -- especially if he makes it clear to the buyer on his web site that that's how it will work and his buyer, by acceptance of those terms, clearly understands that?

Been trying to get back in here all day to answer his post directly.

Jim, you should be absolutely fine.

One thing all merchants should keep in mind: Disclosure is key to a happy relationship with both your customers and your third-party processor.

If we receive a complaints, hop on to the 'site and see a disclosure stating that products take 4-6 weeks to ship or service fulfillment is estimated to take 30-60 days then obviously we can respond favorably to a customer and notate the account for other employees to have ready access to the same information.

Disclosures of this nature can also go a long way in assist us with charge disputes or even chargebacks. Have a 30-day money back guarantee? Post it boldly. Have specific terms under which a contract can be cancelled? Make sure we know about it early on in your contract with us and that your customers have to acknowledge a Terms of Agreement or something similar a somepoint in the order process.

I would highly recommend contacting any of the staff at 2Checkout and requesting that your account comments include a notation about the possibility of a 60 day fulfillment period. It never, ever hurts to be proactive when it comes to disclosing information that may inpact your finances in any business relationship. This is true whether the business is casual or a serious endeavor -- and especially true in a fraud-heavy industry like online payment processing.

Hope this helps.

Kristin

(I'll keep you in mind if I'm ever job-hunting, Gregg)

:)

Chicken,

Like I have said, I am not going to make comments regarding previous posts or about them but I will reply to a couple of things:

This wasn't the problem in this case. Simply put, orders submitted by clients could not be verified as legitimate.
Yes, that's all I wanted to know to begin with - "whether or not the orders were good so we can pay or not pay".

Last night I got an email from one buyer which says he is on vaction and he will mail his checks later. If and when that happens I will be sure to let everyone know.

For his own sake, Gurudev might want to make sure that the information provided is accurate and that clients can be reached via phone if need be (for whatever reason).
I agree, but not only with regards to what we are doing but with any other online business, we can only get the information they provide. We cannot investigate the buyers.

Again, I openly asked "what I can do" to get the orders verified" and what information I had, I sent them. The address and the phone number I had was the same that they had and I gave it to them.

By his signature, it seems he is going to carry a grudge
It has been removed, I wanted everyone to see that I wan't making it up when they said that they were not my bank to loan me money to run my business. Let me see how much of the $1,000 I can recover and I don't have to carry any grudge. I will however, not make any further remarks with regards to this issue here.

Originally posted by Gurudev
Yes, that's all I wanted to know to begin with - "whether or not the orders were good so we can pay or not pay".
I errrr... wasn't talking about what you wanted, I was talking about what 2checkout experienced when they tried to check on all of this.

It has been removed, I wanted everyone to see that I wan't making it up when they said that they were not my bank to loan me money to run my business. Let me see how of the $1,000 I can recover and I don't have to carry any grudge. I will however, not make any further remarks against them.
I understand the loan thing. Cutting the fat, the person you talked to got the impression that you needed to be paid, before you could pay your expenses. Whether it really applies here or not is pointless IMHO, as I don't think it was a big deal to start with, nor do I feel it is at all an issue now.

Anywhooo.. it seems like one way or another, the issue is done with. (I think...)

DesElms,

Thanks for all of your comments and clarifications.

the person you talked to got the impression that you needed to be paid, before you could pay your expenses.
I agree. I am very well aware that he got that impression and it is clear from the emails, but it is not our fault and the programmer, our payroll and anything else is none of their/or anyones business (except IRS) - we made sure that the buyer got his work delivered. They also confirmed on the phone. Unfortunately, we are also not a bank and don't have funds to release without confirming the orders and that was the issue.

Thanks for your answers Kristen.

The thing that alarmed me was that somewhere on these threads I thought I read that 2CO sent an email to the customer asking if the fulfillment was completed. In my case the customer would answer no without necessarily implying that they have a complaint since in my case it's obvious to them that they have to complete the course first etc. They might complain if they're confused by '2CO' on their credit card bill instead of my name but if they have any real complaints I wouldn't mind if the money was refunded as I'm not out as much money as Gurudev on one sale.
So I guess in my own personal opinion it would be better if you asked the customer 'do you have any complaints?' instead of 'has fulfillment been received?'

Also - while you're here - on another thread there was discussion on whether 2CO would allow or disapprove of a situatiion where the customer calls and gives his/her credit info to the business and the business enters the info on the customer's behalf into the 2CO payment system - in cases where the customer wants to phone in their credit card info and not enter it themselves online (some amy not have convenient internet access). Is this OK?

Originally posted by Jim777
Also - while you're here - on another thread there was discussion on whether 2CO would allow or disapprove of a situatiion where the customer calls and gives his/her credit info to the business and the business enters the info on the customer's behalf into the 2CO payment system - in cases where the customer wants to phone in their credit card info and not enter it themselves online (some amy not have convenient internet access). Is this OK? [/B]
Well, I am not Kristin, but I can answer this for you. ;)
Generally we do not allow Merchants to put their buyers orders in for them, the buyer must put this information in our payment form themselves.
However, if it comes down to losing the sale because of this issue, we allow you to do this as long as you send us an e-mail first letting us know about it. Also assuming that this is once in a while and not your regular business parctice,

Originally posted by Jim777
I thought I read that 2CO sent an email to the customer asking if the fulfillment was completed.

Actually, this is a brand-new addition to our services. We're beta testing it now but, approximately one week after an order is placed, a quality assurance email will be sent to your customers asking if they're satisfied to that point.

This will soon be modifiable to be merchant-specific. To clarify, if we've notated your account (because you've been so nice to explain any possible concerns you feel we may have early on in the process:) ) or emailed us after realizing the period between the order and the QA email being sent isn't long enough, we can adjust the period of time between to order and contacting the customer.

Billy is also correct in his reply to you. Entering cc info will obviously set off fraud flags if the IPs fail the tracking quest and if you aren't letter-perfect in entering their information. I'd recommend printing the order page and using it as a template for telephone orders so you are obtaining all the info at the time you receive the call/order. And don't forget CVV codes!

Kristin