Originally Posted by TheMilkman (Post 17466017)

found this:

Originally Posted by baddog (Post 17465817)

You do not know what you would do. I completely understand why he did it since 99% of the people here can not comprehend the written word or are too lazy to actually read the thread. This thread would be 5 pages if people did not keep asking the same question over and over again.

Originally Posted by raymor (Post 17464855)

These are the fees that are disclosed on your page:

Visa Physical/Plastic Card Account Fees
Visa Physical/Plastic Card Account Creation Fee: US$35.00
Visa Physical/Plastic Card Account Annual Renewal Fee : US$35.00
(Applied once every year after the account creation date)
ATM WIthdrawal Via Physical/Plastic Card: US$3.00

So as far as recurring fees, it lists one fee, the $35 / year renewal.

Instead, this is what you actually charge:


> > 03 May 2009 Electron Card Annual Fee $-35.00 $0.00
> >
> >
> > 01 Feb 2010 Electron Card Renewal raymor $-35.00 $0.00
> >
> > 01 Feb 2010 Electron Card Renewal raymor $-35.00 $0.00
> >
> > 12 Jan 2010 Electron Card Annual Fee $-35.00 $0.00

That's four fees for two cards, twice what's listed on your
"fees" page. Most of my messages sent via the support center were
pretty much ignored, people saying "we'll get back to you". On the
phone, Sunil eventually clearly admitted that ePassporte is charging
"undisclosed fees", but he refused to refund those fees. I may still
have the recording of that conversation (and admission) archived somewhere.
I advised Sunil that I had spoken to Patricia Reid-Waugh, Commissioner,
St. Kitts-Nevis Financial Services Commission, and she said she would
look into it. It appears that she or Visa has in fact looked into it
and found that, as ePassporte has admitted, they have been stealing
their customers' money. I told you guys the choice was simple - refund
the bogues "fee", or lose your processing. Seemed like an easy decision
to me.

Originally Posted by TheMilkman (Post 17466017)

“The problem,” he said, “is not our bank. Our bank is perfectly fine. Everybody’s money is safe. The issue is literally with Visa. Visa functionality is the only thing that’s down, which means eCards and vCards. We are working to resolve the issue and we will have a resolution by next week, but at this point in time we don’t have any more information and we will contact everyone as soon as we do have any update at all.”

Originally Posted by Spudstr (Post 17465037)

So does this mean theres going to be a sequal to their movie they just put out?

:P

Originally Posted by PornMD (Post 17466063)

IF the problem was as simple as they keep making it out to be, then they should have moved everyone's funds in their system to the Wallet, covered it themselves, and emailed all account holders indicating there's an issue with the Virtual Visas and they will work to resolve the matter ASAP but that all funds have been moved to the Wallet and are still sendable/withdrawable. They would actually be confirming what they are saying by their actions, which they currently are NOT, and as we all know especially in this day and age with constant lying from all sides, actions speak MUCH louder than words. What has Epass done to assure that your money is safe other than say "don't panic, we'll get this straightened out soon"?

Instead they did nothing of the sort and hoped that the human nature behind bank runs would NOT prevail. They are officially fucked as a payment processor with how they've handled this, with no offense to Michael O since it obviously wasn't his call on how to handle this situation. The proper damage control was to actually control the damage, not try to tell people not to panic...that's just fucking stupid. :(

Originally Posted by AdultEUhost (Post 17464554)

After finding out I did some research on the issue and wanted to share my thoughts as it probably answers some questions.

First of all I think we should cut Michael some slack, he is clearly the messenger here and if it wasn't for him we would be completely in the dark. I am 100% sure he is trying to do whatever lies within his power. It is so easy for a company going down the shitter to just not communicate anymore and leave everything behind (well in most cases except the funds then).

I don't know the setup and structure of epassporte in detail but i do know a lot about offshore constructions and credit cards. Working with offshore companies and trust companies in between does not make it easier to get such a setup.

Visa debit cards are issued by Visa through financial institutions, mostly banks. These cards are linked to a corporate account which needs to be funded equally or more of the combined balances on the cards. So if you have 100 cards out there with a combined balance of let's say 50k, the bank who issued those cards has a bank account somewhere with a balance of 50k.

The problem with the wallet and visa "accounts" is that money in the wallet is accounted for on the bank account of epassporte self. Therefore epassporte should have no problem paying out those funds.

Your balance on the visa card is different, an equal amount of funds is located on a bank account at the St. Kitts National Bank linked to the big corporate visa account. At this moment this bank account is probably seized or suspended.

The problem is not caused by epassporte itsself, it is created by the fact St Kitts National Bank has either lost their Visa contract or has to deal with another sort of problem: funds being seized because of legal issues.

If the St Kitts national bank indeed lost their visa account that would mean that they are not allowed to issue new Visa cards or offer customers the functionality to withdraw money through visa cards. This has nothing to do with the funds though as the funds are most likely still in the bank, it is just that the option to withdraw through visa is suspended. Such actions are often communicated well in advance with several warnings, in case Visa has the impression St Kitts National Bank has other, probably legal, issues that might a good reason too.

The other option is that St Kitts National Bank seized all their accounts preventing a bank run for example. I find that unlikely. St. Kitts National Bank is part of the ECIC Holdings Ltd which a consortium of 10 banks in the area which recently were in the news for rescuing the TCI Bank which went into forced liquidation. Again your funds should still be with the bank then, the only problem is then that nobody including Visa or epassporte is able to access, in which case Visa has a good reason to suspend the withdrawal. In this case epassporte will probably try to regain access to the funds and find a new Visa issuing bank to continue operations.

The St. Kitts National Bank (or fully: St Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla National Bank Ltd) falls under the Eastern Carribean Central Bank. I couldn't find the warranties and insurances the central bank issues yet but i am pretty sure you can't compare it to western standards.

So in my opinion you can't really blame epassporte at this moment, maybe only for the fact they relied solely on the St Kitts National Bank.

Bitchting at the situation or persons is useless at this moment, the only thing you can do here it withdraw funds on your wallet and be patient till further useful information is released from epassporte (or a newspaper in case you read that the St Kitts National Bank went under supervision or filed bankruptcy which let's hope won't happen)


Please note that I am not affiliated with epassporte in any way, I am just posting my thoughts :)

More reads:
[1] http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1A1-D9DTKCK80.html
[2] http://www.eccb-centralbank.org/About/index.asp
[3] http://www.ecseonline.com/issuer_pro...ional_bank.php
[4] http://www.ecseonline.com/issuer_pro...Rpt31Mar10.pdf (unaudited quarterly report for Q1 2010 of St. Kitts National Bank)
[5] http://www.thedominican.net/2010/08/...-tci-bank.html

Originally Posted by bizz (Post 17465022)

Hello ****,

Unfortunately, we do not offer a withdraw option to a credit card.

Sorry for the inconvenience,


--
Larry Chavana

Wtf ?

Originally Posted by will76 (Post 17466080)

Why in the hell would any company be using "St Kitts National Bank ". Unless if you are doing something that prevents you from doing business with a bank in the US, Europe, Canada etc.... Epass was involved with processing for gambling right?

Originally Posted by Naughty-Pages (Post 17465540)

Listen Idiot.. When you are doing regular transactions in and out in amounts of $2,000, $5,000, $10,000 and even one nice once this year for $20,000 it is pretty difficult to NOT keep money in your virtual account.. And while my transactions average between $1k to 10k, there are a shitload of people out there that do 5x that with epass on a regular basis. Jesus who cares about $300?? LMFAO! Not to mention that there are many people from outside the USA that really have no other option.

And as far as paying taxes.. umm most of us kinda do have to pay them lol.. with 1099's being sent to the IRS, there is no way around it.Ummm.. if they have lost $200,000.. wouldn't you think that probably put them in a bad position to do anything?? Just because someone has 200k in there, that does not mean it is "fun money" lol..

Understand, if someone has 200k in their epass account, that money was probably intended to go somewhere. i.e.: paying affiliates, advertisers, employees, etc.. now that that money is tied up, they still need to pay those people.. which means to remain in business they will have to find a way to dig up ANOTHER 200k pay those bills.. Probably would not leave much extra money left-over for lawyers.. (which would probably get nowhere if dealing with Visa or foreign banks outside of US regulation).
Why??? Because of History.. History that is scary enough to make any grown man pee himself.. Were you not in this business during the iBill Fiasco?? (and aside from the iBill deal, to put salt in the wound we lost our Merchant account twice within months after paying those enormous Visa fees, because of Visa porn regs forcing 2 different banks we used out of the adult business.. both of those fees were completely lost.. this happened to us at the same time as the iBill shit was going on).

Because of the iBill shit, it financially devastated me (as well as countless others).. I mean completely devastated me. I mean forget about mortgage, vehicle and utility payments for several months, I am talking about it was to the point where I had to look through the couch to find loose change for bread... seriously, not kidding..

Luckily with this epassporte situation I had emptied my epassporte account over the past couple weeks down to just a couple hundred dollars due to an $8000+ hospital bill that needed to be paid.. And to add to my luck even though several people owe me a few thousand dollars, they had not sent the funds yet. If I had $20k in there because of a couple of payments going in at the same time just before this happened, I would be digging in the couch again... Thank F'in God the timing for me worked out this time and was not a repeat of the iBill situation.

#1 Because many people from outside the USA have no other option, therefore if we did not use epassporte we would lose out on that revenue. #2 When doing transactions in amounts of $5,000 or $10,000 paypal charges several hundreds of dollars in fees, whereas epassporte charges pennies.

This could be a huge concern...

Because for some people, like myself, money goes in and out in large amounts so fast on a daily basis that the wallet is completely useless to us.

Like I said, I lucked out this time.. I couldn't be happier to have a couple hundred in my epass virtual account.. and losing that is not at all anything I would cry about.

What I will cry about is what if this does not get resolved because Epass was (is?) the best option for our business model to send and receive large transactions on a regular basis with little or no fees.. Losing epass as an option will put a serious dent in my livelihood..

If it is related to the new Regulations regarding pre-paid credit cards I do not see much light at the end of the tunnel :( And from my experiences with Visa, they are simply assholes.. I would guess this might take weeks (or months) to resolve, if there even is a resolution at all... :( However, if it is an issue regarding pre-paid cards, what differentiates epassporte from Paypal?? Is it because epassporte is considered a credit card and Paypal is considered a debit card?

And someone in this thread mentioned that if it did get resolved, that Epass would be damaged by everyone pulling their money out at once as soon as they are able, to which someone else promptly replied that actually it would be an injection of revenue for them as they get paid for withdrawls. While this is true, in the long term (if they do survive this), this issue will probably hurt them.

The one nightmare I hope never happens is if CCBill shit the bed... Now that would be an industry-wide game changer.

And I gotta add.. I've read all 20+ pages.. and I can't believe how many goofballs ask the same exact 2-3 questions over and over that were already asked and answered time and time again.. lmao..

Originally Posted by noekk (Post 17465100)

Where exactly is our money now, in ePassporte's hands or in Visa's ?

Originally Posted by beta-tester (Post 17465105)

I don't understand why some people don't believe this will be resolved. If the VISA withdrew their licence from the bank in question that doesn't mean the money is lost, nor is it disappeared. If the funds are there in the bank and the bank is liquid then I don't see this unresolved.

Yes, it might take some time, but heck, it's better to take some time and get resolved than just all of the sudden everything shuts down. I am sure ePass is not joking around. The probably have tens of millions if not hundreds in people's accounts, so it's not easy to just decide to shut down and do nothing about the people's money. And even though it probably isn't ePass fault, they are still accountable for the money on people's accounts.

I sure for one hope this will be resolved, maybe not as soon as we think, but it'll be resolved! On one way or another!

Originally Posted by DEA (Post 17466058)

You were all fucng warned months ago and you all failed to listen and some of you cried for my banning..i dont feel sorry for any of you
http://www.gfy.com/showthread.php?t=975343&page=1


oh fucking well 1

Originally Posted by DirtyWhiteBoy (Post 17466072)

So.... lets say they fix the problem. How many of you will still use them and keep money with them?

This is a huge wake up call I believe.

Originally Posted by ********** (Post 17465189)

I tried it - it didn't work for me.

m

Originally Posted by Michael O (Post 17466094)

The money on the visa virtual is being held at St Kitts Nevis Anguilla
National Bank.

Originally Posted by Michael O (Post 17466104)

Please email me your UserID, error message you got and I will look into it.

Originally Posted by V_RocKs (Post 17465169)

If you are writing off the money you are a complete douche bag. I have been a member of many ETrade self-investment knock-offs that went bust. Every time the company either got bought out or literally closed its doors. The money they were handling was in a bank account somewhere and each and every time I was offered several ways to receive ALL of my funds... They included cutting me a check, wiring it to an alternate account or continuing on with the purchasing party.

Contrary to popular belief money doesn't just disappear. Madoff spent his inverters money and that is not the case here. Banks with bad debts lose the money to the debtors and even then your money is insured to a certain amount. And that is not the case here. Nobody took the money. Nobody spent the money. It is sitting in an account and will be dispersed one way or another when things come to a conclusion.

From what Michael O has expressed it seems Visa wants Epassporte to comply with some changes in house to conform with recent changes to debit card laws. Once those changes are made they can resume business as usual.

To the government watchdogs we all look like suspicious transactors because we are all using a card that breaks just about every rule requiring a report to be sent out. Either Epassporte will automate the reporting process or they will restructure how the card works.

Either way... you are going to have to realize that Murphy's Law states, "What can go wrong, will go wrong and all at the same time."

This didn't just happen on a Friday.... It happened on a 3-day weekend. So if shit doesn't get ironed out by tonight, it won't be until Tuesday at the earliest and I am thinking more like a week from now at the earliest. However, Epassporte may be able to work something with the bank to transfer all Virtual account monies to the Wallet account so that they can issue withdrawals to whomever requests one before then.

Originally Posted by Davy (Post 17465863)

The US have been a paper-based country for the longest time.
Here in Europe, checks have become more of an inconvenience for the banks and also the customers. Everything is paper-less. Checks have therefore become more expensive.
You'll get there eventually... :winkwink:

Originally Posted by cam_girls (Post 17466118)

Micheal, any chance of checking what happened to my Streamate FCIINC payment due 6 hours ago, and a speedy bank wire?

I'm on the streets in 24 hours. User: cam_girls

Originally Posted by TheDA (Post 17466143)

You're really living hand to mouth like that? And relying on a system like Epass?

Originally Posted by will76 (Post 17466114)

This isn't an Etrade deal.

I'm guessing you didn'r use web800, ibill, globill, or any of the several other 3rd party processors that went out of business? In every case, Visa took away their ability to process and kept the money in reserve for future charge backs. The money I am sure at some point was returned to said company, but did it make it's way back to the account holders? Never. They used it to pay off their other debts or line their pockets. Every single time. Where did all the Ibill money go once Visa released it?

There is a 95% chance this will be going on for months not days, and in the end (if history dictates anything) no matter what you do you want be paid.

Originally Posted by Davy (Post 17465836)

Is it? So everytime you moved money from your wallet to the virtual visa and vice versa an actual bank transfer was initiated and money was transfered from one bank to another?
I would not be so sure about that. :2 cents:

Originally Posted by Michael O (Post 17462371)

If the money is in your Wallet then you can withdraw it, if its on the virtual card then its not possible at this time.

Originally Posted by nettrust (Post 17466173)

no need for funds to be transferred between banks. a company like epassporte probably has one big company account with a lot of "virtual" pooled accounts (our epass accounts). since this is a "merged" account, there are a lot less funds in reality in their account then all the funds "stored" in people's virtual card, because most of the time people are holding certain amounts on their accounts when not used.

i'm pretty sure vast major part of their funds is already used for generating additional income, and it is probably invested in various funds, realty or stock market.

let's assume epass accounts store 1 million dollar altogether. i bet there are no more than $200k-$300k of real money kept in their account. the rest is already invested. i'm sure they don't make their living from the bank interest and fees only.

they are receiving wire transfers from one bank and only visa services are located in St. Kitts Nevis Anguilla National Bank. this bank but "on hold" their account (virtual visa funds) due to he new visa regulations, but "wallet" money is still available.

i'm pretty sure that's the main reason why their "wallet" money is not frozen and why we will be able to get a hold of it. just my :2 cents:

Originally Posted by DEA (Post 17466058)

You were all fucng warned months ago and you all failed to listen and some of you cried for my banning..i dont feel sorry for any of you
http://www.gfy.com/showthread.php?t=975343&page=1


oh fucking well 1

Originally Posted by tony299 (Post 17466156)

But would this be a reserve situation when its basically a debt card?