Why we sold TrixiePixGraphics and FakeNewspapers.com: e-OnlineData (eOnline Data) SUCKS! Joe Libby,
Chargeback Processing Center, Melville, New York (NY), Chargebacks, Inquiries and Disputes, Marvie, Complaint, Problems, Incompetence

         

     

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This page was written by the ORIGINAL owners of
TrixiePixGraphics / FakeNewspapers.com,
both of which were sold on December 27, 2009.
The business was sold because rampant
customer dishonesty and fraud drove us
to the very brink of homicide.

Page Title:

Why We Sold TrixiePixGraphics.com
and FakeNewspapers.com

aka

Credit and Debit Card Chargebacks

This page includes our experiences with and opinions of Joe Libby, at eOnlineData (PowerPay), a "Merchant Account" provider, and other individuals and companies. We give some of them not only a failing grade, but we consider them to be an outright liability.

TrixiePixGraphics was started by a group of deep-sea salvage and rescue divers and rescue tugboat skippers who were getting older and becoming scared. Maybe the others won't openly admit to becoming scared, but I will because, after all, I'm scared of just about everything these days. I developed a fear of heights after being stranded on the landing skid of a helicopter as it journeyed to a mountain-top three miles away and 3000 feet in altitude. I'd thought the pilot was only going a few hundred yards, so I hadn't bothered to get a good grip. I just hung there by my fingertips thinking it was no big deal at first. My stocking cap blew off at 1500 feet and he set down so I could retrieve it; that saved my life, but I think it made me begin to consider the benefits of becoming a nerdy wimp. And I began to develop a fear of diving after a sunken shipwreck I was working on suddenly rolled over and pinned me on the bottom, with my airline running underneath the hull. Actually, I started getting scared after fifty or a hundred experiences like that. But in some circles I'm still considered a wuss and I'm fine with that.

We'd been pranking each other --and sometimes strangers-- with fake newspaper articles for decades. When I started finally getting serious about the fear thing, it was a natural evolution to start charging for those gag products, meaning that I could spend more time hanging out indoors in my slippers, instead of gagging on salt water at the bottom of the sea, or foolishly hanging underneath helicopters above the forest. I never imagined nor intended to make any money at fake newspapers. I thought of it as a hobby. But the demand grew and grew, and the products evolved, and around 1996 we offered them online. Our volume was relatively low, and our product line was small, and our customers were great, and life was good.

The company grew at the rate of about 30-60% annually for every year we owned it. At some point, probably in our third year, we began to see it as a financial opportunity. We expanded the product line and added dozens of pre-written fake news stories. Trouble was, as the demand for the products grew, and the number of orders climbed, we found less and less free time in which to create new products. Every single product we sold was original in every way. No one had ever sold anything even remotely close to anything we developed on the web. Demand for original products is always high.

As the business bloomed, so did the number of customers we interacted with. We began to experience some clinkers. Those clinker-customers represented about 1% of our total customer base, but that one percent can seem like 90%. One memorable customer was a female Realtor from Nashville who swore we were thieves for taking her money and not delivering her product, and she wanted her money back. We investigated the case and found that she DID receive the product, and had signed for it. When confronted with this documentation the woman tried to claim that her local postman had forged her signature. When that didn't fly, she finally admitted to receiving the product and signing for it, but she lamented that she had received it late. Looking up the dates we found that she'd received it four full days before it was due. She harassed us with nasty grams for months afterward, until we finally filed a police complaint of interstate electronic harassment, and also threatened to sue her boss if she used her company's computer to harass us one more time. She eventually went away. A customer like that can make a hundred good customers seem invisible. Over the years we found ourselves becoming slightly testy, then downright homicidal, regarding outrageous customers.

Sometime around 2003 we offered a series of new "fake pregnancy" products. They were hilarious. A couple of years later we stumbled upon an entire website devoted to a discussion of whether or not we were the Anti-Christ for offering those products. Even THAT was hilarious (the crowd was about evenly split). We didn't think of those products any differently than we thought of our fake newspapers, or any other item we sold. ANY product can be used for evil or for fun. Walk into a tourist shop and buy a pretty, polished rock. When you walk outside with it, you can choose to take it home and admire it for twenty years, or you can choose to throw it through a window. Same with our stuff.

But we hadn't known that those fake pregnancy products were going to attract such a staggeringly low class of human being. We assumed they'd be bought by forty-something yuppy-women who wanted to scare their husbands, lovers, ministers, the milk-man, whatever. And in fact lots of those products did go out to people (99% female) in that category. But those products also attracted some bottom feeders.

Partly because of those products, and partly due to a general fraud increase worldwide, we saw credit card fraud skyrocket in early 2007. It skyrocketed right from the get-go after Christmas of 2006, and that rocket has been climbing unabated ever since. We went from perhaps 3-10 credit card fraud attempts PER YEAR in 2005 or 2006, to 3-10 attempts PER WEEK in 2007. By the end of 2009 we were seeing 3-10 attempts PER DAY. Unfortunately, the credit card companies like Mastercard and VISA give online businesses piss-poor tools with which to deal with online scammers. They simply do not care. Our math shows that the credit card companies actually make money on fraud. They're seldom liable for it because they push nearly all of the risk off onto the merchants, yet when those merchants get hit with an instance of fraud, the credit card companies charge those same merchants a cash penalty. The merchant loses the product and the cost of shipping it, and STILL gets fined by the credit card companies for "allowing it to happen". It's absurd; it's dishonest; and no one in the industry will disagree except those making money from it.

The bad seeds that were attracted to our fake pregnancy products also bought other items such as fake newspapers. That tended to increase the number of bad customers we were forced to deal with across the board. One thing we learned in owning this company online for twelve years was that people were far, far less imaginative than we ever dreamed. And we learned that people are far more dishonest than we ever dreamed.

When a customer is dissatisfied with any product from any vendor, and they've purchased that product with a credit or debit card, there is a procedure they can follow which offers the possibility of relief. First, the customer must contact the vendor and try to resolve the problem. That was easy in our case since our contact link was prominently posted at the top of every one of our 2800+ pages and we answered EVERY inquiry within 24 hours (usually within minutes, almost 24/7). If the customer can't resolve the problem with a vendor, then the customer can contact their credit card company and file a "dispute". They must LEGALLY CERTIFY to the card company that they've first contacted the vendor and have been unable to resolve the problem. If that's the case, then the card company will instantly JERK the funds out of the vendor's account, and give it back to the customer, pending an "investigation". That investigation includes notifying the vendor of the dispute, and offering the vendor a chance to rebut it. Unfortunately, credit card companies, like any bank or financial institution, especially those online, are pretty-much idiots, and will often only notify the vendor of a dispute when there's only 24-48 hours left for the vendor to respond. The customer has uncounted MONTHS to file a dispute -- but the vendor has, usually, only hours to respond. If the vendor is one hour late, the decision automatically goes to the customer. The vendor then loses the cost of the item, the cost of shipping, and a (usually) $35 (+ or -) fee imposed by the card company upon the vendor for the "service" of processing the dispute. Obviously, any vendor wants very badly to avoid any dispute (often called a chargeback). In all of our years of business, not one single customer ever, ever contacted us in any way, shape or form, before filing a dispute. Not one. Not once. Not ever. Not one time. Remember that, before the card company can process a dispute, the customer must CERTIFY that they have contacted the vendor, or at least tried. To LIE to a card company in such a capacity would constitute, in our view, FRAUD. We've tried to prosecute many such criminals; no law enforcement agency has ever responded to a single one of our complaints.

How common are chargebacks? It depends on the product you're selling and the integrity of your company. Reputable retailers like Walmart, Sears, Pennys, etc., might average a Chargeback rate of, say, 3-4%. For every 100 items they sell, they can expect at least three of those sales to be disputed. A dispute might be filed because the customer's card was stolen, or the customer wants folks to THINK their card was stolen, or perhaps the customer never received the item, or the item was faulty, etc., etc. Of course ANY of those problems would be expeditiously taken care of by any decent retailer. But many customers (per our experience) won't even TRY to resolve the problem -- they just automatically lie and say they DID contact the company, and then file a dispute. We've heard of chargeback rates in porn retailers that ran as high as 40%. Forty out of every 100 of their customers filed a dispute. This will nearly always prompt a credit card processor to cancel that retailer's merchant account, as it should. We hear of some industries having chargeback rates that hover around 1-2%. That's the target all companies strive for. That means that, generally, the retailer is taking good care of its customers, and is selling good goods. If your chargeback rate moves up to, say, the 5-7% range, many merchant account providers will start wondering if you're a bad company that they don't want to deal with. You will ALWAYS have a certain percentage of customers who are simply scam-artists, and who will file a dispute on almost every item they buy, just hoping to play the odds and find the occasionally company who's asleep at the switch and won't fight, or won't properly fight the chargeback, meaning that the dishonest customer gets to keep the product for free. We believe the ranks of those scumbags are growing per capita in America. Our chargeback rate was about .25%. --Not twenty five percent, but one quarter of one percent. That was because we sold extremely high quality products, we were ultra-attentive to the legitimate needs of every single customer, and we actually cared that they got more than their money's worth from us. We resolved every problem instantly -- except, of course, for problems in which the customer couldn't be bothered to contact us about before filing a chargeback, or problems in which the customer was simply insane (more about that later). Note that we never, ever were hit with a chargeback due to a faulty product. Every single chargeback we were ever hit with involved scammers who were trying to say the purchases were either fraudulent (stolen card), or they never received them. Every single one.

In cases where the customer tried to claim their card was stolen and the purchase made by some nefarious stranger, we found in virtually every single case that the IP address that the order was placed from was the same IP address that the personalization form was submitted from, and that the personalization form was filled out using the card-holder's own personal information. We found that the physical address the customer wanted the goods shipped to was the same address that the credit card company had on-file for that customer, and we invariably found that the customer had personally signed for the delivery of that order, and that that signature matched the customer's signature on all other pubic documents. These were customers who were committing credit card fraud by trying to trick the system and get something for nothing. Unfortunately, some companies don't fight chargebacks, because it's incredibly time-consuming. Many dishonest customers have figured this out. They have absolutely nothing to lose by playing the odds, just to see if they can get their money back. This would only be a burden on the retailer in terms of wasted time, were it not for the $35 fine the card issuers charge the retailer for processing the dispute. The instant a customer files a chargeback, the retailer is out $35, PLUS he may get bumped into a higher-charging bracket for all other card transactions, plus he's out the 60-90 minutes it usually takes to pull together all the documentation required to contest the chargeback. Since many chargeback processing centers will routinely LIE and say they didn't receive the vendor's faxed rebuttal, even when faxed multiple times from multiple locations, you must also eat the expense of sending hard copies by registered mail. Even then, when you've faxed your rebuttal from two different locations and saved the fax job transcript, and ALSO sent your rebuttal by registered mail and you have the delivery signature card, a chargeback processing center, like the one listed below, may STILL swear they never received ANYTHING from you, the vendor, and you'll lose the case anyway. We can DOCUMENT cases in which the chargeback center listed below has done that very thing. It's lose/lose for the retailer, and win/win for the customer, and win/win for the chargeback center and card processor. American Express and Discover seem to use at least a modicum of common sense and logic in these proceedings. VISA/Mastercard is like dealing with a band of retarded three-legged poodles with mange; there is, we submit, almost no logic whatsoever in their policies and decisions. It is literally a toss of the dice when confronted with a chargeback on a VISA or Mastercard transaction. The retailer might present all of the proper documentation, proving beyond all doubt that the transaction was legitimate and that the proper customer received the proper merchandise, but the retailer will lose the chargeback anyway, because of some obscure technicality, or because the retailer didn't receive notice of the chargeback for a week AFTER the deadline, or because the chargeback simply slipped into a black hole at the chargeback processing center, or because the chargeback processing center "lost" the merchant's rebuttal documents, or.....what? Maybe the chargeback center simply doesn't "like" the retailer, and so sets out to purposefully cause them grief. The retailer is trapped. All online retailers MUST accept VISA/MASTERCARD, or close up shop because other options like Paypal are orders of magnitude WORSE! Below you'll find only one of dozens of letters we sent to one of the many chargeback processors we've used over the years. In no case, not one time, did we ever receive any acknowledgement or response from "Marvie" or anyone else at this particular center. These are the kind of people you're trusting with your business, and your income, when you set out to do business online, and this is one of the reasons we sold off TrixiePixGraphics:

Chargeback Processing Center
515 Broadhollow Rd. #100
Melville, NY., 11747                      Registered Mail Receipt:   4201174791218052139070551102 97
ATTEN: “Marvie”

Please consider this a formal complaint regarding unacceptable practices, [and] dishonesty and incompetence in your office. You will find this letter posted online at the following URL:

http://www.truth-or-consequences.com/chargebacks/chargeback_center_marvie.html

A copy is also being sent to our processor with the admonition that if we must continue to deal with your office’s incompetence and dishonesty, and lose money because of it, they will be instantaneously dumped in favor of a processor that uses a higher quality dispute center.

We’re enclosing a copy of our “boilerplate” chargeback rebuttal. You can see that it asks for (now demands) to know your name, and who your office answers to corporately and governmentally. This document, or one like it, has been delivered to your office by registered mail eleven (11) times. We have yet to receive a reply.

We have experienced many instances in which you have sent us notification of a chargeback in such a tardy manner that we did not receive it in time to fax our rebuttal. In some cases, we received your notification of a chargeback WEEKS after we had automatically lost the dispute. We have asked that you fax us; you refuse to reply. We have asked that you email us; you refuse to reply. We have asked that you snail-mail these notices ON TIME. You refuse to reply or comply.

Your latest fiasco runs like this: We received an order from one “Rhonda Larry" for several fake pregnancy items. We delivered them on time (quite early) and obtained a delivery signature as we always do. This woman filed a chargeback for no legitimate reason. We received your chargeback notification one or two days before our rebuttal was due (that’s considered EARLY, compared to what you usually do). We immediately amassed the documentation and faxed it to you. We are enclosing the actual fax log showing that it went through to you. As always, we sent a second set to you by snail mail because you are FAMOUS for saying you didn't’t receive a fax, when in fact you did. Are we calling your people LIARS? Yes. We’re calling your people liars. In any case, we forgot the matter, secure in the knowledge that we had beaten a fraudulent chargeback. Imagine our chagrin, then, when weeks later you notified us that our claim was denied because we hadn't’t submitted a rebuttal. We were exactly as PISSED OFF (incensed and enraged) as we ALWAYS are when your office pulls a stunt like this. We immediately faxed you a THIRD set of documents, and then sent a FOURTH set by REGISTERED MAIL. You STILL didn't’t set this matter right – you merely replied to say we hadn't’t submitted the docs IN TIME.

The FACT of the matter is, if facts have ANY influence on your bizarre operation, that we DID submit the original docs on time, and our fax log, attached, proves it. YOUR. PEOPLE. LIED. For whatever Godforsaken reason, your people lie ALL. THE. TIME. We have honestly never seen anything like it.

The bottom line is that we’ve been cheated out of YET ANOTHER $60 of hard-earned revenue merely because your people lied and said they didn't’t receive EITHER of the document sets we originally sent them BEFORE your deadline. We hold YOU, Marvie (your people refused to supply us your last name or, indeed, even an employee number by which to identify you) personally responsible for this. If we can figure out a way to sue you by proxy in small claims court way over there in Melville, New York, rest assured we’ll do it. We’re told it can be done; we’re researching the technicalities of it. We’ll name YOU as the defendant, and for that reason we need your last name. We have little doubt you’ll refuse to supply it; we’ll subpoena it if necessary.

The reprehensible, incompetent, dishonest practices of YOUR OFFICE are costing us far more money than we’re willing to overlook. It’s bad enough to have scurrilous customers trying to steal from us almost on a daily basis. It’s over the freaking top when YOU steal from us as well.

Once again, for the record, by registered mail, we are demanding the following:

Your last name or employee identification number
The name of the company or corporate office which oversees yours (YOUR BOSS)
The name of any government agency which your office, as a financial institution, reports or answers to, or is regulated by.

In absolute disgust,

TrixiePixGraphics
4-6-09

PS: We’re going to add a public blog on the page where this letter is posted, which invites other businesses to report their own experiences with you. Give it a few weeks, and Google it.

CC:
e-onlinedata
280 Fore Street, Suite 301
Portland, ME 04101

As stated, we NEVER received a reply from anyone at the Chargeback Processing Center in Melville, and that tells us what we're dealing with in terms of the quality of those people. We did lose that sum, plus the cost of shipping, plus the fine for the chargeback.

We did, however, receive a phone call from one "Joe Libby" at e-onlinedata regarding our issues with the chargeback processing center at Melville and our disgust with the chargeback system in general. You must understand that when you set out to do business online, using credit card transactions, it's not simply a matter of hiring a company to handle that aspect of your business (getting paid). You must hire a SUITE of little leeches, all of whom work more or less together to effect that one simple task. You'll need a company like VISA/MASTERCARD to issue credit cards to your customers in the first place; then you'll need a "credit card processor" like e-onlinedata. Those are the folks who interface somehow in the mess and who ultimately pay you what's left of your income after taking a cut. But you'll also need an outfit like Authorize.net, who also leeches some percentage of your hard-earned loot (in all of the technical problems we've had with authorize.net we never once received a reply which indicated to us that English was the first language of the responder or which solved or even addressed the problem we were reporting). All of these companies must work flawlessly together in real-time in order for a credit card transaction to go through. Unfortunately, many, or most, aren't the brightest bulbs in the string. Fortunately you have many choices in who you hire. Unfortunately, pretty-much all of them are as worthless, unprofessional, dishonest and downright dumb as all the others. We used to use a miserable outfit called Paymentec, for instance. One time we were shorted $600. We inquired. Paymentec refused to respond. We inquired again in stronger terms. Paymentec refused to respond. We sent them a registered letter. No response. We filed against them through the Washington Attorney General's office. No response. We filed a criminal complaint of theft. No response. We filed a notice of intent to file suit. No response from Paymentec. Months later we finally stumbled upon an online discussion where other people had had the exact same problem, and they had found relief by reporting it as an instance of fraud against Paymentec, to Paymentec's own fraud people! Why would this work when nothing else had? No clue. But we had our $600 in a day and a half.

We came to realize that ALL online financial outfits are run the same way: stupidly, dishonestly and badly, and meaningful recourse is nearly impossible. We increasingly began to wonder if we wanted to interact on any level for any reason with this class of human animal. When we'd finally had enough of our last card processor, e-Onlinedata, we began shopping around. The vast majority of these companies seem to be little more than back-bedroom affairs because, after all, what do you need to get started except a few bucks and a computer? We found the prospects to be unbelievably unprofessional and back-woods. On speakerphone, one of them asked what our chargeback rate was; we replied "About a quarter of a percent." The woman then nearly SHOUTED into the phone, "WHY DO YOU HAVE SO MANY CHARGEBACKS!?" We were taken aback and reiterated: "Uh, sorry, maybe you misunderstood that. We said 'one quarter of one percent'". --to which this imbecile of a woman nastily retorted that she did understand, but still wanted to know why we had so many. ANY card processor would LOVE to have a customer with a rate that low. We simply hung up the phone.

We've owned perhaps as many as 30 businesses in 11 states and 3 countries. ANYONE with that much business experience has come to understand that most people employed in financial industries ain 't the brightest bulbs in the string. They tend to greed, dishonesty, un professionalism, incompetence and downright corruption. Had we publicly made that statement a few years ago you might have scoffed.....but today, more people than ever have finally come to understand that the mentality of people who are drawn to employment in financial industries and circles usually leaves much to be desired. Just look at our 2010 economy.

A favorite story comes to mind about a general contractor in Seattle whose business was booming. It was booming because he was extremely good at what he did, he was honest, and he worked hard. He'd been using a particular Seattle bank for all of his project financing for decades. They had gotten along well. His credit was A-1. A particularly lucrative job came up and as always he went to his regular bank for a preliminary assessment of the job's financial requirements and the funds he would need. He was assured, in writing, that the funds would be no problem and would be forthcoming exactly on time. The contractor then went back and bid on the job, got it, and notified his bank that it was official and he then needed the promised funds. The bankers said "no problem". He then went out and began rounding up equipment and materials. When the funds were finally needed to consummate the agreements on all these materials and equipment, the bank stonewalled him utterly and even refused to meet with him. He was stunned. He couldn't even get a return call. And he was also ruined. He went bankrupt and lost everything, even his home and his wife. He moved into the basement of a friend and put together a "war room". He couldn't afford an attorney so he had to learn the law. He had plenty of spare time. He finally filed a suit, got subpoena authority, and began serving subpoenas. You'd think a bank as big and influential as that one would have destroyed all the evidence, but as we've asserted, bankers and financial-types simply aren't too bright. The ruined contractor was able to retrieve dozens of inter- and intra-bank communications in which the loan officers openly discussed how this contractor had really built a nice business, and they revealed their plans for ruining him so they could take that business over themselves. That isn't "kind of" what they were thinking; it's EXACTLY what they said. The contractor won the lawsuit, and bank was nearly destroyed, and we all learned a little more about the American financial sector. Only months after the lawsuit did this appear as an insignificant speck on the American news scene. It was mentioned in passing, then forgotten. This isn't an isolated case; it happens every single day in every single city. Few ever hear about it. This kind of behavior is, in our personal experience, the NORM for financial types and institutions. When we must interact with financial types AT ALL, we wear surgical gloves and wash our hands afterward. We try not to breath deeply in their presence. We document EVERY SINGLE INTERACTION with them. We contact them ONLY by registered mail or by speakerphone. We secretly and illegally record our face-time conversations with them. We class them right down there about a half step above child molesters, lawyers, prostitutes and drug dealers. Are we asserting a blanket-indictment of nearly all financial managers and employees in the country? Yes. Yes, we are. Do the research for yourselves and don't forget to check out our "Hewlett Packard Sucks site. HP spent a reported $60,000 in attorney's fees trying to shut that site down. We spent $100 to defend it.

In ten or twelve years we endured some of the craziest, most dishonest customers any business can endure. Our line of fake pregnancy products were responsible for nearly all of them. We regret ever thinking up that product line. It attracted the scum of the Goddamned earth. Here are a few examples, with many more to be added as time allows. Did YOU steal from us from 1998 to 2010, or even try to? Yes? Then you'll be featured here in time. Just Google your name.

One of the most egregious and prolific instances of chargeback fraud involves three customers living in various locales across the country. Sarah Giron (California), Bonnie Snyder (New York), and Stephen Holian. All purchased fake pregnancy items on the same day. All completed the personalization forms using their own names and current addresses. The IP addresses on all forms matched the IP addresses of the card-holders in the checkout system at the times the orders were placed. All three orders were delivered to the proper registered addresses of the card holders. All three card holders signed for their deliveries. Within days, all three customers filed chargebacks stating that their cards had been stolen and they didn't place the orders. We refuted all three chargebacks, providing proper documentation to prove our cases. All three chargebacks were then reversed in our favor and the funds for all three orders were put back into our account. Case closed. But not quite. A few weeks later, on the same day, all three customers disputed the loss of their cases. The funds for all three orders were again taken from our account (over $400). We wrote to the VISA/Mastercard chargeback center in Melville, by registered mail AND fax, asking if there was anything else they needed from us to refute the second chargebacks. We received no reply. We waited a couple of months and wrote to our card processor, Eonlinedata, asking the same question. We received no reply. After another period of time we wrote again to the chargeback center demanding to know the status of the three cases. We received no reply. We wrote two more times. We received no reply. We were never told the outcome of the cases; we never received the funds for those orders. That is TYPICAL of the utter nonsense we experienced in struggling to do business with so-called "financial" institutions on the net. In all of the chargeback cases we refuted through any VISA/Mastercard entity, we were notified of the outcome of the case only twice. Two times. That's it. Here's an example of only ONE letter sent to the chargeback center in Melville regarding the case of this trio of fraudsters. It elicited NO REPLY, ever:

Chargeback Processing Center
515 Broadhollow Rd. #100
Melville, NY., 11747
516-962-7834

Registered Mail receipt: 420 11747 9121 8052 1390 7132 773xxxx      SIGNATURE REQUIRED
Re your case number 19085107xxxxxx
We’ve received your letter of 6-17-09 stating that the amount of $212.34 has AGAIN been debited from our account due to a “pre-arbitration” attempt by this customer. You do not state whether or not you require additional data from us. Therefore, we will supply it to be safe.
Attached is a printout of our web page detailing this fraudulent chargeback. All of this data has been supplied to you with the exception of the “personalization forms” this customer completed and submitted to us in order to personalize these products. The IP address of the submitter traces back to this customer. Please especially note that all of the products purchased by this woman were personalized IN HER OWN NAME. This card holder is committing fraud. We have already submitted a criminal complaint.
FACT: This card holder filled out and completed the attached personalization forms.
FACT: This card holder placed this order.
FACT: This card holder received these goods.
FACT: This card holder SIGNED FOR these goods upon delivery.
Unfortunately, since it is proven through long experience that when we fax info to you, you claim you didn’t receive it, and since it is a fact that when we send data to you by registered mail and you sign for it, you STILL claim you didn’t receive it, we will fax this, and also send it again via registered mail, and we will call your office and track down the name of the person who received this fax and we will ask them to confirm to our telephone voice recorder that they have received this data. We don’t know any other way of doing business with you people. You have driven us to this. We are seeking another card processor that will not force us to do business with you.

TrixiePixGraphics
6-19-09

Here's another example of dozens of letters sent to the Melville Chargeback center describing our apoplexy in trying to do business with them, generally. As always, it was signed for. It received NO REPLY:

Chargeback Processing Center
515 Broadhollow Rd. #100
Melville, NY., 11747
FAX: 516-962-7834
Case # xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Registered mail, signature required: Receipt # :   912180521390706909xxxx
PAGE 1 of 3
THIS IS OUR THIRD RESPONSE TO THIS SAME CASE, ALL OF WHICH HAVE BEEN DELIVERED TO YOU VIA REGISTERED MAIL, ALL OF WHICH YOU HAVE SIGNED FOR (see attached signature confirmation for our latest submission to you of THIS VERY SAME DATA).
Per your third request for data regarding this case (your letter to us of 6-8-09), be advised that this data has been supplied to you three (3) times via registered mail. We no longer consider your professional behavior to be “accidentally incompetent”; we now consider you to be, in fact and actuality, criminal in nature and we are drafting a criminal complaint of Internet fraud against you. SOMETHING must eventually GET YOR ATTENTION. We have found you to be a consistently lackadaisical, lazy, incompetent, unprofessional, probably dishonest company in all ways and in every regard.
This all builds our case. It is a CRIMINAL case of fraud. We now believe wholeheartedly that you routinely KNOW you routinely RECEIVE the requested data from us, but that you LIE, and claim you did not. We have documented this over the past two years in about one dozen cases. Many of these cases have cheated us of money that we should normally have received. All of these cases are held in our files and will be submitted to law enforcement, to your state’s corporation commission, to your state’s attorney general, and to your local police department in the form of a criminal complaint, and will be posted online (just Google yourselves).
We have attempted to address these ongoing problems with you countless times, always by registered mail, some of which we have posted publicly at the following URL:
http://www.truth-or-consequences.com/chargebacks/chargeback_center_marvie.html
Your office has NOT ONCE responded to ANY of our requests that you SIMPLY. DO. YOUR. JOBS.
THIS letter, and all others, will now be added to that website.
There is something WRONG with you people. And THAT is a FACT.
 
TrixiePixGraphics / FakeNewspapers
6-12-09

Do all bad customers file fraudulent chargebacks? No. Some don't file chargebacks at all, but they can be just as maddening. Take, for example, our long and painful interaction with CBS' "The Guiding Light" TV show. We learned a decade ago that some customers will receive a product, then claim they didn't receive it. Sometimes this is an honest mistake. Usually it's not. The customer figures that all they have to do is SAY they didn't receive something, and they'll get a new product for free, or maybe a refund, or maybe both. And sometimes, from some retailers bent on bankruptcy, they do! But not from us. Early-on we began forcing the customer to sign for their delivery. It wasn't enough for the carrier (UPS, USPS, whatever) to simply say they delivered the item -- we had to actually get a signature for every single delivery. Even then, some customers would try to say they didn't receive the item, like the loony Real Estate broad in Kansas who tried to claim the delivery-man had forged her signature on the package. We supplied all the newspaper props for "The Guiding Light" for many years. In the first few years, props were handled by a man named, as we recall, Richard Murray. He was professional, astute, honest, and knew a good product and good service when he saw it. He wrote to us many times, unsolicited, to say how happy he was with our newspapers and other props, and how much money and time we'd saved CBS. That, of course, incited us to work all the harder on Guiding Light orders. We triple-proof read them. We made special templates for them at no extra cost. We didn't go the extra mile for The Guiding Light -- we went an extra FOUR miles for them on every single order. All was well with the world.

But suddenly Richard was promoted up the chain, and his replacement was abysmal. Immediately after she took over we began having trouble with miscommunications. Since we communicated ONLY in writing (and this is why), we had records of every miserable interaction, and they were many. It all came to a head when someone from that department emailed to say they weren't receiving their newspapers from us. For ten seconds we were appalled. It was an all-out emergency. Within 30 seconds of receiving that communication we had pulled all the delivery data and found that the Guiding Light had signed for every single delivery within a few days of their placing the order with us. Clearly, whoever was signing for the deliveries wasn't forwarding them up to the props department. But the Guiding Light just couldn't figure this out:

Message number: 506
1226943336
167.246.2.30
Megan M
megan.mcgee@telenextmedia.com
Megan McGee
212-986-5330
68926950
New York
URGENT!!
I ordered papers from you on 11/6/2008 and 11/10/2008 and have yet to receive them. The order number is 68926950, can you please inform me of if it has been sent. It is important that we receive the papers in a timely fashion because they are used on our television show, Guiding Light and it tapes on specific dates. Please get back to me about these orders as soon as possible. Thank you!

Reply from www.FakeNewspapers.com:
Megan McGee, CBS Guiding Light
We are quite familiar with your account. Your orders go to the head of the line in all cases, and we nearly always send you extra copies, other items for free, and we go to great and special lengths to make sure your papers are the very best. In this case, as in all cases, your orders were shipped exactly on time (in fact, quite early). You were sent tracking numbers, as always, at that time. Our "About Shipping" page explains that non-rush orders may not be shipped for 72 hours. However, yours are always shipped within 24 hours. Our "About Shipping" page states that RUSH orders are always shipped within 24 hours. This has ALWAYS been the case with yours. Now, we have looked up both of the orders you speak of above. The first, a Rush, was delivered and signed for many days ago. The second, a non-rush, is being held at your local post office because they have tried repeatedly to deliver it since 11-14 and for some reason cannot. They have repeatedly left notices asking that you contact them and/or pick up your order. You can view the details of these shipments yourselves by using the tracking numbers that are always sent to you by the carrier on the same day the order leaves here. Please realize that, according to our "About Shipping" page, we advise that RUSH orders may not show up for X number of days, while non-rush orders may not show up for a full ten working days. In the later case, your order is not even due yet. As it happens, we take extremely good care of your account, and the carrier has been trying to deliver this second order to you since the 14th, but, in fact, it is not even due for quite a few more days. Again, we take extremely good care of your account, and you almost always receive something extra, and you ALWAYS receive your orders well before they're due. Given that kind of care, it's difficult to hear this complaint from your office when we have more than done our duty (have bent over backwards, actually), when the items in question are not even due yet, and when, in fact, the items HAVE arrived and been signed for, or are trying to be delivered but something at your office is blocking them. Please run the tracking numbers to verify this. The USPS site will provide actual photocopies of the delivery signature(s). Thank you..

Message number: 509
1227034567
167.246.2.30
Megan M
megan.mcgee@telenextmedia.com
Megan McGee
212-986-5330
68926950
New York
Thank you for getting back to me so quickly. I have tried going to the USPS website and tracking my order but it is telling me that they have no information available on it [almost certainly went to the UPS tracking page, not USPS]. My phone number and email is the contact information but I have received no notification from you or my local post office that my delivery is being withheld for any reason. I have ordered papers from you as recently as last month and had no problems, so I am confused as to what went wrong this time. We greatly appreciate your efforts and are pleased with your product but we have now missed two opportunities to showcase these newspapers and have had to come up with last minute alternative solutions. If you have any suggestions on how we can remedy this problem and come up with a solution for future orders, please let me know what I can do on our end so that our business relationship can continue smoothly.

Reply from www.FakeNewspapers.com:
Again, the order you're referring to, 68926950 (our number 7677), was placed on the 3rd, not the 6th. It was signed for as shown below. This data is all available to you by running the tracking numbers through USPS. You state that you ran them but the USPS site doesn't tell you anything. When we run them we are shown all data including the signatures and delivery attempts. Are you running the TRACKING NUMBERS, or are you trying to run our internal ORDER NUMBERS? USPS is a government agency (called the post office). They have nothing to do with our order numbers. In order to track any package, you must run the tracking number that is issued to you by the carrier, whether it be Fed-Ex, or UPS, or, in this case, USPS. USPS sends you a tracking number for every shipment we send out. Those are the numbers you must use to track your packages. You can actually obtain a photocopy of the delivery signature. We don't know what else we can tell you. We have run into this kind of thing quite a few times with your office over the years. We receive your orders, we process them lightning fast, always correctly, we ship them out immediately, we keep records of the delivery signatures, and we convey this all to you when asked. Yet we are on two different wavelengths here. This is why we started requiring a delivery signature on your orders about two years ago.

Again:

You placed order #7698 on 11-10 with tracking number 2103 8555 7491 6715 3381. USPS is STILL trying to deliver it on 11-19, but they will soon return it to us as "unclaimed". Please run that tracking number through USPS (not UPS).

You placed order #7677 on 11-03 with tracking number EO95 3717 662U S. That item was signed for on 11-7 by R Ande. Please run that tracking number through USPS (not UPS).

You placed order #7664 on 10-30 with tracking number 2103 8555 7490 0984 9106. That item was signed for on 11-3 by D ORTIZIT. Please run that tracking number through USPS (not UPS).

[NOTE: The Guiding Light DID, then, finally pick up their order number 7698. Absolutely dog-weary of this problem, we reasoned that it was simply no longer worth the aggravation to sell to the Guiding Light, and we ceased.]

Other customer problems can wear on one's sensibilities over time as well. We used to post our physical address on our website, for example. We stopped after THIS. We came to understand, too, that some customers are simply insane. Like these (many more to be posted as time allows):

1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

If you read the above cases, your eyes are spurting blood by now. Those cases represent perhaps 1% of the asinine stunts that bad customers pulled over the course of 12 years. We don't live in a loony bin. We WON'T live in a loony bin. Therefore, we won't deal with the unwashed masses on the Internet. Simple.

One of the most irritating aspects of "being famous" (i.e. having a prominent web presence) is that you not only attract shyster customers, you attract every other type of shyster. We used to see the Internet as society's salvation. Now we see the Internet as society's festering boil, a thing to be largely avoided, like a CB radio or a case of ringworm. On a daily basis we were deluged, either by email, phone call, or snail mail, by scurrilous outfits around the world who wanted us to believe we owed them money. They figure if they hit ENOUGH people with their scams, sooner or later one will pay off, and since it costs little or nothing for them to go fishing, they make a career of it. We own about 30 domains, for instance, and not a week goes by in which we don't receive a letter via snail mail or email from some domain registrar. It's formatted like a bill, showing one of our domain names and an expiration date (real or manufactured), and an address for our "immediate remittance" of the renewal fee. They want us to pay them for the renewal of a domain. Since we renew our domains only every ten years, we automatically know these are bogus. But they keep coming like clockwork, year in and year out. We experienced the same problem with our registered trademarks. We also routinely receive "bills" for all other services that we use, 99.99% of which are bogus and which do not even originate from the companies we contracted with in the first place. These are scams, just playing the odds. We receive realistic looking "bills" for our business insurance, which say things like "Please remit payment immediately to continue coverage..." etc. etc. etc. ad nauseam. Regular private citizens receive these too -- chances are YOU have. But probably only at the rate of a few per year. If you're a business on the Internet, particularly a high-profile business, you'll receive these day in and day out forever, and it will eventually make your eyes bleed. It can consume HOURS sorting the legitimate from the bogus. How could so many wannabe crooks be SO stupid? If they'd just GET A JOB, they'd make three times as much money for half as much work, but then no one ever said crooks were bright. Here's a classic example of some sleazy outfit fishing for business. We'd been online searching for a new merchant account as we were tired of what we viewed as gross un professionalism at eOnlinedata. We'd researched a dozen new card processors but dismissed them all as "probably problematic". Still, they continued pestering us with appeals to contact them:

 

Please contact me as soon as possible regarding your Eonlinedata merchant account.

Thank you so much

Kori Marolf | Loss Prevention
280 Fore Street | STE 301 | Portland, ME 04101
t: 207-228-6000 | tf: 877-877-3737 | f: 877-235-8794 kmarolf@bankcardhelp.biz

 

That was an easy one, since the email wasn't even sent from Eonlinedata, and we'd never heard of any outfit called "bankcardhelp.biz", and Eonlinedata could have easily just called us up, as they had done a few weeks prior, or sent a letter to the same address they used for our monthly statements, or used our contact link listed on all of our 2800+ pages. A quick trip to "bankcardhelp.biz" showed the outfit didn't even have a webpage. Nice.

.

This was clearly one of those back-bedroom merchant account vendors who was "going the extra mile" to try to get us to switch to them. This was a particularly scuzzy one, clearly, because they didn't even have a website. Do these idiots actually think they're going to get business that way? Our policy has always been, "Don't call us, we'll call you." This kind of crap came in at least several times per day and it grew very, very old over the course of a decade. It is for this reason that many online businesses try to keep their contact data somewhat confidential.

If financial entities on the web are the scum of the earth, then web hosts must be the building blocks of those scummy, bottom-feeder life-forms. We struggled for two decades to find a reliable web host -- six or eight years for personal websites, and a full twelve years for business web hosting. It very nearly does not exist. The first problem has to do with human stupidity -- nerds are almost NEVER competent businessmen. Cheap hardware plays a roll; poorly chosen server software plays probably a bigger roll (Linux vs. Microsoft). Here's a tip: If a company you plan on doing big business with, or upon whom you intend to rely in any semi-critical professional manner, has chosen to use a Windows server product, run far and fast. The company is stupid; it has not done one iota of research; it's decision-making capabilities are compromised; it is almost certainly doomed to failure. We'll go so far as to say that you can adjust your stock investment strategies based on whether a company uses a Linux or Unix-based system, or any Microsoft product. If the latter, find another company to invest in.

Consider this: We have seen situations in which employees at server farms made a routine of rebooting all the Windows servers on their ways to or from the bathroom or lunch areas. On servers equipped with a front-facing and protruding reset button, you would hold your finger out and reboot every server as you walked down the rows. You did this even if the servers were up and running, because if you didn't, you'd have to make more trips down the aisles later, to individually reboot each Windows server WHEN it crashed throughout the day. Outside of boots for upgrades, Linux boxes were rebooted PERHAPS once per year, though no one really knew why they were doing it even then. If you've ever run Windows ME, Vista, or even early Windows 7, you know this to be true. Microsoft's "commercial" applications aren't really any better than the junk they toss out to consumers, and corporations can go broke learning this lesson. A particular major aluminum processor comes to mind.

Beyond hardware and software, though, you must assess the actual personal mentality of those in charge at your chosen server farm. We've concluded that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Actually, someone smarter than us said that long ago and we've accepted it as fact. People are drawn to particular professions for many reasons, and often the WRONG reasons. Most cops are drawn to law enforcement not so much to "help" people, as they'd like you to believe, but to impose their will on people. They start out wanting to impose their will on bad guys, but far too many lose their ability to make the distinction. Ask any psychiatrist: Wannabe cops are passed through the psychological screenings not so much because they convinced the examiners that they have good people's best interests at heart, but because the shrinks conclude that their energies can be DIRECTED to do more good than harm, even if that's not what's really in their hearts. The psychology of cops is so close to the psychology of criminals that often the two are indistinguishable. Don't believe it? Do the research.

We found that many web hosts got into business because they liked technical things, but a secondary motive was often to CONTROL. Control what? The flow of information, and thereby PEOPLE. Web hosts have absolute control over almost all information in the US today. If a webhost doesn't like any particular bit of information, he/she can simply click a few keys and that information no longer exists. If a customer (disseminator) objects, there's always the host's nebulous TOS. The host can interpret their own Terms of Service in any way they like, and the customer is hard pressed to fight the issue. After all, the First Amendment doesn't apply to private firms -- only to the government. We found host after host after host who objected to various bits or pieces of our content. Rackspace was a classic example. Another host objected to our review of the Channelbind (book cover) product and unceremoniously shut down our commercial website without notice. We scrambled and moved the business, but the host called a week later to say he was sorry and that he should have thought it through and that he hoped there were no hard feelings and he wanted to know if we still wanted to use his services. Of course we would have just as soon killed him with our bare hands by then, and that's a deep desire we grew wearing of fighting to control. We found, over the years, that many, and perhaps even the majority, of people who gravitated toward occupations in financial areas and information services, were drawn to those areas because deep down, their little subconsciousnesses had the idea that somewhere along the line there'd be an opportunity to CONTROL, and CONTROL is something they deeply wanted in their lives whether they knew it consciously or not. Just look at the mentality of almost any banker in the world today.

Our disgust with the VISA/Mastercard people at the chargeback center in Melville was surpassed only by our disgust with the various merchant accounts we'd held through various card processors throughout the years. Those were the folks we were PAYING to be on our side, yet they seemed to be about as backwards and clueless as the VISA/Mastercard people. It seems that these folks set up a "process", then they feel they can kick back and watch the machinery produce dollars for them. It doesn't seem to occur to them that they are still expected to run their business in a hands-on manner. In any case, we were growing weary of what we saw as incompetence in our card processor, Eonlinedata, and we figured we'd write them one last letter in an attempt to get things running more smoothly. You can't email these outfits -- we have yet to see a single card processor that has a webpage with which its customers can actually interact. Most offer no  simple email or contact links; in most cases they ask that you fax your request to a phone number, and a representative will call you back. Maybe. But even if they do, this is an absurdly outdated method of communication. American Express and Discover card each offer modern websites through which you will be notified of chargebacks, and through which you may rebut a chargeback, settle a chargeback, respond to a chargeback, track investigations of chargebacks -- it's marvelously professional. We find NOTHING to do with the VISA/Mastercard system to be professional or, even, really very functional. It's like go back to 1950. Here's our letter, sent via registered mail as always, to Eonlinedata:

e-onlinedata
280 Fore Street, Suite 301
Portland, ME 04101

Attached please find a copy of a complaint sent to “Marvie” at the chargeback processing center that seems to be the default for our eOnlineData account (#00027150025xxxx).
We’ve had it with them. It’s bad enough to lose money to fraudulent customers; it’s utterly unacceptable to lose money on chargebacks we would ordinarily win if not for the incompetence and dishonesty of this company.
If this is the only chargeback processor you can route our chargebacks through, we have no choice but to dump you in favor of finding a vastly more competent and honest chargeback processor.
Please advise.
And while we have your attention, we can find NO METHOD by which we can access chargeback data, or any other data associated with our account through you, online. Are you going to tell us that you simply don’t make this data available through your website? That would be positively medieval.
For the record (ONCE AGAIN): Our contact info is as follows:
Fax: 206-783-1891
Email: customerservice567710ba@usa.net

[signature]
[address]
TrixiePixGraphics
4-6-09

Other matters redirected our attention for a few months, but after even more problems, and still NO REPLY from Eonlinedata, we were reminded to get rid of them in favor of a card processor that could at least be enticed to BLOODY WELL REPLY, and so we set out to find such a company. But first, in order to set up a new merchant account with a new card processor, we needed to have copies of our previous three months statements from our current processor, so we called Eonlinedata to ask if they would fax those to us. The girl on the phone wanted to know why we needed them and we told her. She then suggested she have one of her "big shots", a guy named Joe Libby, call us back. She indicated that Joe had been "trying" to call us, but that he didn't seem to have a number that worked (right). We advised her that our number hadn't changed, nor had our fax number, nor had our address to which Eonlinedata sent our statements every month, nor had our CONTACT US link on every one of our 2800+ web pages, so why was it impossible for Joe Libby to contact us? She didn't know.

A few days later Joe Libby did call us. We expected a calm and professional conversation. Instead Joe launched into a tirade regarding his dislike of some content on our website, specifically that we had publicly disseminated details of chargebacks perpetrated by fraudsters. He claimed those were "actionable". As it happens, we keep one of the finest First Amendment attorneys in the country on retainer and we've weathered many First Amendment battles with the likes of Hewlett Packard and others, and come through them completely unscathed. We know more than a thing or two about the First Amendment and we repeatedly suggested that he spend an hour with a First Amendment attorney before continuing to make a fool of himself in trying to quote to us what was allowable under the First Amendment and what was not. But Joe was adamant that HE knew what he was talking about. In point of fact, even if we WERE publishing something that was actionable (but not violating our contract with VISA/Mastercard), it was none of Joe Libby's business! He was NOT in control of the content of our website or anyone else's. We had expressed our discontent with Eonline data on our site as well, and Joe was quick to claim THAT was actionable TOO, and that if we didn't remove the content that offended him, he would, in his words, "shut down your merchant account immediately". We saw that as pure, stupid, and unadulterated extortion. Our content describing our dissatisfaction with Eonlinedata was absolutely clean from any First Amendment standpoint, just as is any other review of any other company or service or product which tells the truth and represents opinions as opinions. For Joe Libby to try to intimidate us into removing our opinion of his company or he would punish us financially was outrageous. It was beyond the pale. It was fightin' words. It was very nearly a declaration of war. Our opinion of this jackass was cemented in that one moment for all time. Joe Libby will not EVER dictate the content of our website. Period.

--Except......when a contract we have entered into allows that content to be controlled.

While Libby was off base by a thousand miles with his threat of shutting down our merchant account if we didn't remove our opinion of Eonlinedata (the threat itself is actionable), he finally gave up on that tack and told us that we couldn't publicly disseminate ANY information about our customers who happened to be also customers of VISA/Mastercard. And in part he was right. When you sign up to accept VISA and Mastercard, you agree not to publicly disseminate details of any data you gather through the VISA/Mastercard system. That would include customers' names and addresses IF GATHERED USING THE VISA/Mastercard SYSTEM. In our case, customer info was first gathered using our own forms on our own website. Then, and only then, was the customer sent along to the shopping cart where they would choose a payment method, be it VISA, Mastercard, Paypal, eCheck, direct payment by mail, bank transfer, etc. etc. But Libby argued that even data gathered in this way was against the VISA/Mastercard rules and if we didn't stop disseminating it he would, you guessed it, shut down our merchant account immediately. It was beyond outrageous.

During this disgusting conversation with Libby we asked that eOnlinedata instruct the chargeback center in Mellville to start sending chargeback notifications by fax instead of by mail. Libby agreed, and painstakingly took down our fax number. He was asked to repeat it. He did so, correctly. Done deal. He explained it would take a few days for the change to go into effect. Well, whatever.

The remainder of our conversation with Joe Libby was equally as absurd. In our view the man was just another imbecile who craved a bit of power over others. We found him pompous, legally clueless, arrogant, obnoxious, pushy and overall objectionable in just about every way. He was a man who should have been, and could have been, simply backed down and put in his place. That, however, would have required several hours of work on our part, and we were just too busy to fool with it. We win virtually every battle we engage in. But sometimes a battle, even though it could be, and should be won, just isn't worth the amount of effort required to effect it. Most people's lives are plagued to varying degrees with stupid little people who exist, seemingly, for the sole purpose of trying to push the buttons of others. That's how we saw Joe Libby. But sometimes those personalities are SO little that they don't even deserve the time required to shut them down. Rather than enter into a battle with Joe Libby, we decided to merely side-step his obnoxious charge. Perhaps some other day we'd have time to deal with him. At that particular time, however, we didn't have the time or the patience. At the conclusion of our talk with Joe Libby we informed him politely that we were going to acquiesce to his demands and remove the offending content from our website. Joe then stated, "And maybe you could include a paragraph describing what a nice guy I am." We found that request delightfully perverse. So we did it. It stung a little, but not much. This guy was SO far out of whack that it just wasn't worth trying to engage him. When you're accosted by a homeless nut-job on the street who claims you owe him twenty dollars, you don't engage him in an argument about it. You side-step him and keep walking. That's what we decided to do in this case.

Per Joe Libby's own assertions and admissions, we were finally convinced that changing chargeback centers would not alleviate the systemic problems within the VISA/MASTERCARD chargeback system. Only a general overhaul can accomplish that, and since there's no incentive for VISA/MASTERCARD to institute a system that even vaguely resembles "fair" (or perhaps even 'legal'), we don't see that happening. If you're going to accept VISA/MASTERCARD charges, there will be times when you will be defrauded and stolen from by the bottom-feeders of society, and you will have no recourse except to file a civil suit and criminal complaints against the customers who perpetrate these crimes. VISA/MASTERCARD will not help you. It's a peculiar arrogance that we find absolutely disgusting. You can change card processors, and we planned to. But changing chargeback processing centers probably won't help you; they all seem to be crackpots.

Our final online entry about eOnline Data and Joe Libby was this:

"Our conversation with Joe Libby was quite contentious. Interestingly, however, in the end we found him to be mostly looking out for our own best interests, and we thank his for his time and insight -- extended to us over and above the call of duty. It was a productive conversation and we've changed some of our policies as a result."

We figured that would simply get rid of the guy and we could then, at a later date, when we had time, pick up a new merchant account and be done with eOnlinedata. We see now that we should have done that straightaway. It's exceedingly rare that we treat any idiot as nicely as we treated Joe. Normally we eat people like that for lunch. It seems that in virtually every case that we are diplomatic, it comes back to bite us in the ass and make us regret the courtesy. So too, in this case. We vow to stop making that mistake.

We worked along over the next few months, struggling with fraudster after fraudster after fraudster. We continued to post details of the fraudsters who tried and/or succeeded to steal from us through the Paypal system, but we curtailed all reporting of fraudsters who had screwed us using the VISA/Mastercard system.

Around the middle of December, we discovered that the chargeback center was STILL sending chargeback notifications by snail-mail. Once again we had to call eOnlinedata and wade through their ridiculous phone system, being transferred here, and there, and everywhere else. Finally someone assured us they knew what they were talking about and checked on the fax number they had on file for us; it was a number we'd never used and had never even heard of. Not only had it been entered into their system incorrectly, it had apparently not even been submitted to the chargeback center. We were renewed in our decision to dump eOnlinedata after the Christmas season. It appeared that this company was incapable of properly executing one single transaction, no matter how damned dog simple or straightforward. Enough was enough.

On December 28th we came into the shop and pulled up the "board" which shows the orders received so far for the day. There were none. Alarmed, we then looked for some glitch in the system (maybe the website was down, for instance). But that wasn't the case. We began testing various systems, and after more than two hours of digging (we charge $55/hr for such work) and testing and calls to our shopping cart vendor and Authorize.net, we ended up finally finding a live person at eOnlinedata. We were transferred here, and there, and left on hold, and transferred some more -- the typical bullshit that caused us to want to purge ourselves of eOnlinedata all the more. But finally a terse and fairly unpleasant woman came on the line and stated that after "consulting with Joe Libby" our merchant account had been shut down. We had received no warning whatsoever. Obviously we were incensed. We had not been warned of any problem in any way. We had complied with Joe Libby's absurd demands, and even choked down a half hearted and insincere compliment to him. Yet here he was, pulling a monkey-brained, cowardly stunt like this. Kori Marolf then stated that she had been "trying to reach out to us" over the past month or more, but that we had never replied. We informed her that our phone numbers had remained the same, our fax number was unchanged, the "Contact us" link prominently posted at the top of every one of our 2800+ web pages worked every single day for our customers, and, alas, our physical address had remained unchanged for about a DECADE -- witness the fact that we received every statement from eOnlinedata at that address. So, it seemed, eOnlinedata had not tried VERY FUCKING HARD to contact us, if at all. Kori Marolf wouldn't address any of those issues, but stated that she had sent us "three emails" asking that we contact her. Suddenly we flashed back to the ONE email we had received weeks before from bankcardhelp.biz. We asked if eOnlinedata had any association with a company called "bankcardhelp.biz". She stated that eOnline data was also "PowerPay". We asked what the hell "PowerPay" had to do with anything, and that we had never even HEARD of a company called "PowerPay". We were informed that PowerPay and eOnlinedata were one and the same. We asked how in God's name we were ever expected to know THAT, and Kori Marol retorted, "Well, MOST people just know that!"

Well, NOT US! And the email had come from "Bizcardhelp.com" in any case!

Kori Marol had no reply for that.

In the end we simply informed Kori Marol that she had effectively shut down our business without warning, and that we considered her a fucking bitch -- a sentiment we held then, and one which we hold, in spades, today. She was yelling, "Excuse me?!" as we hung up the phone. We don't need idiots like this in our lives, and if you're going to do business online, idiots like this will permeate your lives. We elected to stop going through it.

Listening in to this conversation on speaker-phone was a man who had long coveted our business. At that very moment he reiterated his standing offer to buy the company. We agreed and shook hands. The following day the documents were drawn up and signed. We couldn't be happier.

We probably lost thousands of dollars on December 28 and days subsequent due to the loss of our merchant account, but we can only document $311 of the loss because we posted a note on the website header advising customers that the credit card processing portion of our website was down, and they then stopped trying to order. The $311 in lost revenue is owed to us by eOnlinedata because no court in the land will rule that eOnlinedata made ANY reasonable attempt to contact us regarding any problem with our merchant account. Let's say Smith Brothers Farms receives one spammy-looking email from Gardner Machinery, stating that Gardner Machinery would like to speak with Smith Brothers Farms. Smith Brothers Farms has never heard of Gardner Machinery, doesn't do any business with Gardner Machinery, never has, never desires to, and so Smith Brothers ignores the request. Two months later Smith Brothers Farms discovers that the feed for their cattle never got delivered and their cattle are starving. Smith Brothers contacts ABC Feed company, who had been supplying Smith Brothers with feed for years, and Smith Brothers inquires about the missing feed. ABC Feed retorts rudely that it had contacted Smith Brothers months before, but that Smith Brothers had never replied, so ABC Feed had simply stopped shipping feed. In the end it turns out that ABC Feed had used the name of Gardner Machinery when it asked Smith Brothers to give them a call. Any judge, even a loony judge, of which the overflowing toilet that is our judicial system abounds, would rule that ABC Feed had broken its contract with Smith Brothers because it didn't use any even marginally intelligent method of trying to contact Smith Brothers to say it wasn't going to deliver any more feed. Smith Brothers then sues ABC for breach of contract, and asks for damages. Smith Brothers wins. Period.

We've seen the kind of stupidity, arrogance and malfeasance that eOnlinedata exhibited to us over and over and over ad nauseam in every other type and strata of "financial services" enterprises. Everyone has. Look again at the state of our economy in 2009/2010 and how we got here. The kind of stupidity you see in the gargantuan financial enterprises is far worse in smaller and lesser financial enterprises because few people are looking at those little outfits.

On 3-28-2010 we received the following foolish letter from PowerPay / eOnlinedata. Our reply to that letter is this website, which has now been mailed to eOnlinedata. All further developments in this case will be appended below:

 

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eOnlinedata / PowerPay
280 Fore Street
Portland, ME
04101

Registered Receipt # 420 04101 9410 8036 9930 0005 xxxxxx

Re your bill for 50.45 of March 24, 2010

Your bill is herewith disputed.

We are enclosing a copy of a website which will serve as a bill to you in the amount of $311.00, due immediately. A full explanation is included in that document. If not paid in full within 30 days we reserve the right to increase the amount to any the court deems fit.

You state that our merchant account was terminated at the time you billed us (3-24-2010). In point of fact, you terminated this account on 12-28-2009 and we are liable for no further billing past that point. You will not be paid the sum of $50.45, nor any other sum, nor are we willing to deduct that amount, or any other amount, from the $311.00 you owe us.

You state that your efforts to collect the fifty bucks have been unsuccessful. You are liars. Your letter of 3-24 is the FIRST time you have contacted us in this regard and you know that to be true. We're tired of liars. We don't like liars. We have methods of dealing with liars.

An accounting of our experiences with you is posted at the following URL: It is subject to frequent edits and updates:

http://www.truth-or-consequences.com/chargebacks/chargeback_center_marvie.html

We have found you to be one of the dumbest, most incompetent businesses we have ever struggled to interact with.

Do not contact us again except to remit payment. Any further contact except to remit payment will be construed as an act(s) of criminal harassment and will be processed as such.

There is now a method by which we can sue you in Small Claims court even across the country. It depends on whether or not your particular local courthouse is properly equipped. We'll look into it.

In profound disgust,

[signature]
[address]

2-29-2010

 

 

To be continued...........