evulvmedia

these problems with ePassporte are fucking ridiculous... and before you start flaming away, note that I e-mailed Keyser Soze about this problem two days ago... and he sends back a canned reply without actually reading my e-mail, and so yesterday morning I asked him to please address the real issue... and no response, so I try again yesterday afternoon... no response... so this afternoon I try to call ePassporte customer service...

first, i wait through 15 minutes of dead silence, not knowing if i am still on hold or if I have been disconnected...

then mr. ePassporte rep asks for my info and it takes ages for my account to come up on his computer... but it always takes ages for it to come up every time I call them! and they always act surprised about it! (is the acting surprised about the slow computer part of some customer service script?)

so here's my problem:

i used my ePassporte card for two big things over the holiday weekend... in both cases the transactions have "cleared"... but the "authorizations" for those transactions have not been removed! so i have a very large bunch of double charges to my account!

the customer service rep says yes, those cleared transactions and authorizations are from the same places...

and then he says yes, those cleared transactions and authorizations have the same authorization number...

but no, he can't drop the authorizations from my account... i have to wait 30 days (THIRTY!) days for them to fall off... or, and here is the best part:

Or I can call the merchants and have them fax over a letter indicating that they will not procress the charges... I tell mr. customer service rep "but they HAVE processed the charges and I am not disputing that they are valid charges to process..."

Nope, the logic is lost on mr. customer service rep... I have to either wait or I have to try to convince the merchant to send a fax stating that they won't process the charges that THEY HAVE ALREADY PROCESSED and that are completely legitimate!! (now what merchant would do that?)

So here is the moral of the story:

1. ePassporte customer service SUCKS and they shouldn't be relied on to get things right or even make logical sense.

2. there is ZERO usability of the ePassporte Visa Electron card as a "Visa debit card"... the fact is that ePassporte can decide randomly to "charge" you twice for things (one charge, one authorization), and it takes you 30 days to get the "held" money released...

3. ePassporte might have some people who have a significant presence on GFY on their payroll (Keyser, TassiPink), and I thought (naively) that this would help to expedite the solution of any problems that I (or my company) have with them... Not so, it seems...

So that is what I have learned! And I am writing this to share WHAT I HAVE LEARNED, mostly for newbies because I'm sure the experienced guys have already learned their lessons... I think ePassporte is GREAT for money transfers and paying affiliates and getting cash out of ATMs- but that is the extent of its usefullness and it's other feartures are JUST PROBLEMS WAITING TO HAPPEN... and if you are just starting out in this biz, you can't often afford to have- SURPRISE!- money held for 30 days for no good reason...

so, my fellow affiliates, get your money transferred to your ePassporte and then go to the ATM and TAKE IT OUT IN CASH! don't expect to do anything else without problems arising!