Spydollars switches from MPA2 to CCBill

I normally do not post on the boards that much. But this is getting out of hand, when people are directly lying about the company I have worked hard to build up for the last 8 years I get upset.

I don't think it?s a good business model going on boards trying to bad mouth anyone, that normally do not bring any good to it. But when some people are doing what ever it takes just so they can get some publicity, and are directly lying, then I cannot just sit here and watch it any longer.

Let me first start out to say that it is ok to be unhappy with a software. It is impossible to please everyone. Some like it, some don't. It?s as easy as that. But we work very hard every day to at least try to make everyone happy. But we are only humans too.

So to ?MrYellows? comments about us here.

You start out by saying that our support has been terrible.
Well this whole thing started out a month ago when you added a support ticket and said something like, ?I have been away for a month now only to find that the program is not completely setup. There are rebills missing from the stats, and for all I know there could be allot more that are not working.?
I personally answered that support ticket telling you that processors sometimes do changes to their back end, and when that happen we always send out a mass email to all customers where we tell them about this and give them a patch to update their mpa2 program. If that is not done, then issues like this can happen.

Oystein also gave you a call after this to try to make sure that everything was taken care of and so that you knew that we where here to help. We also pointed out that if there where anything that where not working the way it should all you had to do was to add a support ticket, and you would be taken good care of like all our other clients.
You also have my personal ICQ that you could have used at any time. You used it ONE time where you needed some help, but obviously I was not there right then because 20 minutes later you said " don't worry Garry, its been fixed ". This was in December last year. This is the only ICQ history I have on you, and my ICQ is always on! And I tried to contact you on ICQ back in February because you where missing 3 months of payment, but I never got a reply back from you.

You have added 12 support tickets to us in total since the 18th of Dec last year. One of them was about you being away for a month, one was about if you where to send your IP to CCBill or if we could do it for you, one was about if we could change a password for a processor for you, one was about if we could re import the missing rebills that where missing because you have added the wrong IP, 3 of them where about trying to get the correct IP from you where we finally had to provide you with a little program so that you could find out what was your correct IP, one where about you telling us that after you added the correct IP the rebills showed up, one where about you complaining that the payout reports didn't show any webmasters, and the last one where you said you figured it out your self, it is because none of your webmasters had made over the minimum pay out of $100 and that was the reason why the payout report didn't show any webmasters.
EACH and every one of these tickets have been answered, and that pretty fast too! And do NOT try to say anything else, because then you are forcing me to post the tickets WITH the answers on the board here!

You say
"Anyway now we're with CCBill you can see that we don't shave
rebills or anything and know we aren't doing anything dodgy."

That's a lie and you know it. You can shave just as easily now as any time before. You are again just trying to gain some extra webmasters by making us look bad!

You say
"I've had so many hassles with MPA2 support and their attitudes."

I will be the first one to apology if anyone from my team has given you a bad attitude! That is not something we value over here. But maybe you should look with in your self before judging others. If you are making untrue statements, and are lying then of course we will not just sit there and take it all.

You say
"Mansion has now without warning turned off our copy of MPA2.
I guess they didn't see fit to allow us to make a smooth transition
without upsetting our affiliates. I thought we would have paid
enough to allow that courtesy. Just another example of how
Mansion treats their customers...."

Well you where OWING US 3 MONTHS WORTH OF RENT. I was letting you play with the program until you where totally happy with it and was ready to start using it for real. Of course that can be hard when you go away for a month and are not working with it, but I tried to be nice. But when you are 3 months late, and then tell us to close the program down, and then to top it all go on boards and talk shit about us, of course we will have the program closed.

CONTINUED..................................

You say AGAIN
The reason we are not using MPA2 is the poor support, lack
of features and woeful attitude directed at customers

The poor support I think I have said enough about already. And say that I lie and I will post the tickets WITH the replies you got!
But the one about lack of features is new. You never posted any concerns to me about any lack of features. What exactly is missing? Or is this just another little white lie just so you have something to post about to get some webmasters over to your program?

You say
"This is his usual tack. Rather than looking at the problems and
trying to come up with solutions that make his company easier to
deal with and his software better. He'd rather blame the client."

Well couldn't be further from the truth! 50% of all the features that now are on MPA2 are added on requests from customers. I?m always on ICQ and so is Oystein. We always listen to what others say, and that is one of the reasons why I?m here today posting this.

You say
"You have no idea how much money is behind us. :-)"

Well that maybe so, but paying $300 a month was maybe a bit too much?

You say
"I think those that know me will tell you that it's beyond a doubt
that I have more programming experience and write code of a
much higher standard then those people that coded MPA2. :-)"

As far as I know the mpa2 program is encrypted, so unless you have broken the law by encrypting it you really have no way of telling this!
Also if you are such a great programmer, why do I have an email here where you ask me how to look in to a database?

You say
" must say the code itself isn't very buggy. As far as bugs the
closest thing is processor changes and things like that. These can
leave holes in the system that affiliates would never really notice."

Ok, now I?m confused. Was it buggy or was it not?
The rest of that sentence I really couldn't understand?

You say
"My main concern was support. I've never once received an
update as to the status of any of our support tickets, emails are
go unanswered or returned with cut & paste responses, and the
time zones which the programmers worked in meant we never
had a chance to discuss our problems with them. "

As I said before - Stop lying about not getting responses from us. I will post your tickets with the answers you got on the boards here! You are leaving me no other options if you keep telling this lie.

And the time zones are one other lie. All our programmers are in Europe. We have people in office 20 hours of the day. So if you want to reach us you can. But if you go away for a month it will be a little harder of course.

You say
"The first example of job status not being reported was our initial install
which I only found-out was "complete" (hardly) after contacting
Mansion to find-out what the hell was taking so long."

Well you must be the first one in the history that have not gotten our "your install are finished" email. I?m not saying you are lying here, because it have happened that emails have disappeared from my inbox too. But normally it?s just me that has deleted one to many emails when I have gone over my spams.

You say
"Their version of a "complete" is one where demo version code is left
in.... oh I could go on but there was just too many problems to
list and too many unanswered emails to go back over."

Well please go on. Maybe tell them about the missing password and the wrong IP you gave us?

You say
"Regarding not getting status updates.... I have complained about
this in just about every email to them. Instead of fixing the
problem they blame it on me. Seeing the "mass mail" feature in
MPA2 and the way the code for that works I can see their
programmers don't have very much experience with email and
this probably explains why their ticket system doesn't work. But
will they fix it? nope, It's the customers fault always the
customers fault."

Well obviously you did get our email where we informed everyone that we had to let one of our programmers go the other day here. You where very fast then to try to email all our customers telling them how much you hated us? All our customers get all our emails, but you only get this one email?

You say
"You'll notice I've kept this pretty civil and kept my distance from
posting anything personal or any direct quotes from Mansion
staff. I'm simply stating that we've switched and the reasons for
this. I haven't brought anything personal into the equation."

Well you have posted nothing then lies about us. If that is not being unprofessional I don't know what is! I tried to be professional staying away from posting any comments here, but I have to put my foot down sometimes!

I know there are people out there that have had problems with the mpa2 program. Of course there will be. We have over a 100 programs running the mpa2 program, and there will always be some that are not happy.
MPA2 are depending on outside sources for it to work 100%. That might be the server, the OS, the processors or the program owners. If any of these things are not 100% then the mpa2 program will give you errors or wrong stats!

I?m not saying that mpa2 are totally without bugs. Of course such a big program will have some errors. BUT we are always around to correct what ever issues you might have!
If a processor do a backend change, then the mpa2 program cannot catch the data dumps, and the stats will not be correct. But we ALWAYS create patches that works with what ever changes the processors does, and the data will be updated again when ever the program owner update his program with the latest patch.

We have had several customers that have had either a terrible server installation that have messed up the mpa2 program, or they have simply just gotten to big for their server so that the server couldn't handle the load and therefore died way to often. We have even had customers changing servers without telling us. All this is of course affecting the mpa2 program, making it show wrong or no stats. But we have always been there to help!

I am sorry to everyone that has read through my long post here. I am even feeling sorry for having to do this to ?mryellow? too. I really do not like to do this, but I will not just sit here and let a couple of unhappy customers dent my company with slander. I will fight and I will fight hard.

Sincerely

Garry

Not very professional Garry. Just because someone sees a situation different to you, it's no reason to accuse them of posting nothing but lies.

Thanx for the ammo Garry. I thought this thread was dead today
and was ready to leave it at that.

I'll just finish breakfast then get back to you.

Not sure if you have accused me of lying or not but I can assure
you I've gone out of my way to keep everything I've said simple
and factual.

Why? Because Oystein threatened me saying I was slandering
him in an email to [email protected]
(that open alias with no posting rules which shows your attention
to detail) when actually I was just stating facts.

-Ben

No lies... This is just my experience. You are welcome to disagree
however this has been my experience and as you can see from
other threads and posts here on GFY I'm not alone in this point of
view.

Actually it started when the initial install was left incomplete back
in December.

None of our issues have been related to this. In typical Mansion
style you didn't actually read my email and if you had you'd see
we don't use Paycom and this is not a part of any of our problems.

I have no faith in your ticket system, although I did use it.

So you're part of the programming staff? The questions an
problems I've had don't require a business development answer
they require a programmer answer.

I have no record of this.

And my several questions asking for this information to be tested
and confirmed went unanswered.

We finally were able to track the fraud by entering the database
and running simple queries that should be included in the MPA2
software. I believe that the fraudsters knew how hard it was to
track fraud with MPA2 and this made us a target. While at the
same time good webmasters avoided us because they
understand that MPA2 isn't the best place to send traffic.

I was ready to remain silent from here on in. However I will not
be threatened into silence. Your threats do not intimidate me as
I'm aware of the facts. The only thing stopping me from posting
these very details is the fact that Oystein threatened me with
slander if I made any of the emails public.

We are not using any pass-through or post-back scripts and as
such the only software in the mix is CCBill. Thus it can be said
there is no way for us to shave using this setup. It is not a lie. I
think you'd do best to stop trying to state my facts are lies.

Garry. You have been ok to deal with. Your attitude is
professional and your responses helpful. However I can't say the
same for others in your company. I believe Oystein is constantly
on the defence, I can understand this, If I was promoting
software of this quality I'd constantly be upset at the
programmers for leaving me looking foolish. I do believe Oystein
is an ok person, he is just in a hard position having to defend the
code day in day out. Mariush had an awful attitude. On several
occasions I've sent him the exact info he needed and he's chosen
to use semantics and a brief skim of my emails subject to delay
and prolong our setup. I found him very unprofessional. I hope
that now with the new support and programming staff and a
more robust customer support system that you are able to put
these problems behind you and really build MPA3 into something
that can be respected.

CONT-

This all could have been put to rest months ago if Oystein has
said: "ok there must be some reason you get all our emails but
not support ticket status info.... we'll double check all the code
and let you know if we find anything"

If he had taken the time to look into the problems I was having
with support rather then just blaming it on me, you would have
long ago fixed your problems and we'd most likely be a happy
customer.

Once again I don't appreciate being called a lier when I've gone
out of my way to keep this non-personal and factual. As far as
replies to support tickets.... I would have liked to see them
months ago rather than now.

Lets see shal we. :-)

[from emails to Mansion]
If you decrypted the pages I could actually integrate this thing
without waiting 24 hours for every tiny simple small question. I
could just look at the code and answer my own questions, like I
do with every other script I purchase that doesn't have
documentation or a user forum. I could also customise it the way
I need it, something you are not about to do for me without
charging an arm and leg.

btw I never got a welcome email. All I have to go off is my
programming experience and that's not much good when all the
code is hidden to me.

Example Changes:

A bridge table for programs, running multiple percentage
groups for different webmasters/traffic types.

A bridge table for processors, why should I be limited to one
account per processor.
This would also allow for the addition of new processors, users
could add processors that you haven't already integrated. It
would just need a flag for the various methods of transaction
submission.

Ability to change header, footer templates via admin (no more
needing to recompile the pages or whatever it is that you charge
to do). I really shouldn't have to request that you re-encrypt the
pages just to change some graphics or whatever. If you are so
keen on encryption then you shouldn't be charging for the extra
work this creates. This is the code of your choice, you should
cover that cost.

Admin for ALL emails and response pages rather than just a
select few.

Ability to Delete partners. (Yes I know this probably conflicts ith
your current code)

Class-C support for IP blacklist.

Redesign the Gallery Builder so it doesn't use 403 status codes.

Ability to design webmaster and stats pages so that referral
and paysite stats can be put on the same page, or where the
user wishes, or completely redesigned.
[/from emails to Mansion]

CONT-

I have designed and written a good number of very large
commercial systems. Including a VoIP telco management program
that handles millions of transactions per day. With my experience
I can see past the interface and into the code. I understand how
the programmers have gone about the code and I can see what
where they have made mistakes. This does not require access to
the code. As others have said to me: "I am not a programmer but
those I know said this was written by a code amateur".

I believe the coder has some talent. It appears they have written
a good amount of code for their own personal use. However it
takes a few commercial applications before you get a good
understanding of how to avoid pitfalls. I know one of your users
has been with you since 2002 and witnessed the original debug
process. Seems the coder thought it was ready, and it would
have been for personal use. However from a commercial point of
view it did and does come up lacking.

The database design shows that they didn't plan it out well
enough. A good database is the basis for everything, without it
unplanned features and changes in the way things work is often
impossible. The actual cascade part is solid enough, however
there are a lot of tables missing which would be included if there
was a little more time spent in the planning phase. I have a
design here for a billing program I am writing which is 40 tables.
This gives the flexibility needed to include the features which are
important to webmasters. You've got the basic functionality
correct, but the plan didn't include the needed information for
flexibility and unplanned future adaptations.

For some reason I though you had been secretive with the
database as well and used a proprietary database engine. Yes it
is just MySQL and I should have checked there first.

We were never setup sufficiently to be able to see what bugs
exist in a 100% working copy of MPA2. My comment says that
non-programmers could see processor changes as being MPA2
bugs. When really it's just how things go.

I get your emails. I get the emails sent to all MPA2 customers.
However I never once received an email from the support ticket
system. No ticket confirmations, numbers, responses or status
updates.

I'm guessing Mariush has his ICQ on invisible mode then and he
must just ignores my messages.

You mean the information that was provided in a timely manner,
then ignored, then never tested? I asked at least 3-4 times for
information on the status of this and never got a response. I was
then assured over the phone that we were 100% ready to rock.
Then when it turned out to be wrong I was told that was all my
fault.

Mariush told me our server was the best prepaired and setup he
had ever seen in all his MPA2 installs.

This is just my experience Garry. If you had been more interested
over the last few months then we could have resolved these
issues I'm sure. I have not lied about my experience with MPA2
this is just how it was.

I'm sorry you and Oystein have decided to keep this thread alive.
However slander doesn't come into this. I have only posted my
experience and facts.

Once again Garry. I think you've handled yourself professionally
however others in your company have let you down. I believe
you may get it right with MPA3 and include a lot of the simple
things that should have been among the first features. I hope
the old inadequate and insufficiently planned database design
doesn't hold you back too much. I do wish you all the success
with future products as I believe it isn't too late for your to
salvage a great product from the mess MPA2 has become.

May MPA3 be everything you've been aiming for and allow you to
sleep soundly at night without worrying about all the unhappy
customers.

-Ben

btw the billing program I'm writting isn't in competition to you. It's
for a very specific VAR market.

-Ben

from what i saw, mpa2 really has bad support and are stupid. customers just made a complaints on mpa2, if mpa2 ppl are professional, they should just explain nicely to those customers. Instead mpa2 spent so much time fighting with their own customers publicly.

Ummm...

Yeah.
Sure....

I read this more and more and I would almost place bet that Mansion was wise to protect thier code with encryptions in this case...

Let me tell you a little story.....

When I first developed LinkUp Pro I released it. However I hadn't
done a windows program with an installer before and those that
have done this will understand that it's really is more difficult then
the actual code. You have to make the installer work on *every*
system. Which without past experience in installers it can be
quite a challenge to find the correct methods for creating a robust
installer.

During this time Steve from Lightspeed signed up. I think
Lightspeed was in the early days, or maybe the fact I had been
working 18 hours a day on code and not looking at boards for 6
months left me in the dark a little.

Steve had some problems with my installer and the relationship
started off on a bad foot as he ordered on Friday and didn't get
his regcode until Monday. This is only a small delay in my book
but he was super keen to get up and running with the software.
I didn't know just how experienced this client was and when they
had trouble with the installer and didn't quite understand the
way the doorway generator worked I figured it was easier to just
refund him and move on.

This was a huge mistake.

If I looked after Steve the way I should have he would have
probably put the LinkUp affiliate program in his sig and I probably
would have made an extra $100k in sales from him.

I have seen Mansion show the attitude and I don't think you
realise just how much this is hurting you. Just because someone
doesn't have a smooth experience with your software doesn't
mean they are stupid liars that should be ignored.

-Ben

They were wise to encrypt...

Just the documentation didn't live up to my hopes and without
good documentation my next port of call is always the code.

-Ben

Please pull your head outta your ass, you can still shave using ccbill. The rebills was only part of the shave.

But the rest of what you said I really can't argue with, I can however say I like Oystein.

I just hope they made the right decision.....

Well there is no way to shave using our setup....

Why?

Because we don't shave and never will. :-)

If I ever shave it will be as a joke....
I'll start a program paying $1000 per free trial or something. :-P

-Ben

One person here, that will NOT be useing your program.

i'd be willing to bet the only reason you love mpshave2 so much is the shave feature they have built into it

solid program with good support... my ass

cuncur..

mryellow I'll be sinding up for your program also.

I just hope Mansion isn't blaming me for everything that's
happening. I'm not the only one that has had problems and I
tried to tell them I was having trouble communicating with them.
Shit this thread wasn't even really started to snipe them. It was
started to announce a program change and as part of that make
people aware that we were no longer using MPA2 (something
affiliates want to hear) and a brief description of why the change
was taking place. Looking around I can see there are a number
of threads where people have complained. Not like I'm trying to
promote our program at their expense, the thread may be longer
because of the people wanting to discuss that but the only
people that can put that discussion to rest is Mansion and only
with a better product and support. Something as I've said, they
are working on, I hope they make it in the long term. In the short
term it wasn't good for us.

Looking back over this thread and I actually don't see me saying
anything that bad. I thought it must be bad the way Garry was
using the word "lies". I've announced we're switching and why
without going into too much detail... Then announced the new
join links were going live sooner then planned. Then added some
details about the program cookie settings. Then responded to
shill posts. Then clarified why we stopped using MPA2. Then
responded to Oystein's personal snipes. Then explained why we
picked MPA2 in the first place and some of our experiences. Then
tried to calm some of the haters down a bit. Then posted our joke
video. Then responded to Garry.

Nothing wrong with doing that... certainly not going out of my
way to bring them grief, just everyone on the thread has so much
bad stuff to say about them.

Sorry if you're upset with disgruntled customers Garry. I hope you
can turn it around and make your program something people can
brag about. I can send you a huge list of suggestions if you like
and I won't even charge for the work.

-Ben

now eveyone knows wildcash is using mpa2, can shave ...

Lets move all shave talk to a new thread eh.

I want Garry to be able to get on with his life.

I believe that he will have a good look around GFY and see what
needs to be changed and MPA3 will be a kickass program. There
are many threads with many great suggestions for his program.
He's just added new support and programming staff while
changing some of the old guard and there is now a support BBS
where people can discuss the program. From my experience
having this kind of setup really keeps you on your toes and
informed with what users are thinking.

I hope everything goes well for you Garry, I didn't mean to cause
such a fuss and I've tried to keep discussion relating to
SpyDollars new setup and not focus too much on the past.

Lets just agree to disagree. I think you'll find that when MPA3 is
released, I'll be one of the first to chime in saying how much I like
the changes. Not to say "I told you so" or referrer to the past,
but to give you a pat on the back for turning it all around.

-Ben

Just because it's known that ' MPA 2 ' has a built in
shave feature doesn't mean that EVERY FUCKING PROGRAM
using it shaves!

Why do we pay $30 per join ? Cuz' our retention, recurring
will allow us to profit at $30 per join without needing
to shave anyone or anything.. maybe just my face :-)

I can bet big $$$$ that nearly any program paying
more then $40 per join is shaving!

If they aren't then they are loosing money!

Do the math, read the facts!


My

I'm starting to think Mansion want to keep this alive....

They must have made a few signups from the publicity.

I'm also starting to think that maybe they aren't listening afterall
and maybe they think they can ignore what the market demands.

Guys.... move on.... Show us a great product with no shaving and
better support for MPA3 and then come back and we'll talk some
more.

-Ben

the temptation is there....

First point, i agree. Just because it's there in MPA2 and a fucking idiot can do it, it doesn't mean that any program will use it.

But I'd also say that programs shave to make up for thier own incompetencies OR greed and that 's NOT uncommon.

ALSO

That magical $40 figure is not set in stone by any means, it's linked with the quality of the program.

i think mpa2 needs a good shaking up.. I was told by them that they "dont and never plan on" supporting epoch oneclick transactions. I mean... seriously. its not THAT much code to add support. I personally have added it to 5 or 6 programs, and not one of them took over 2 days, and most of them took like 4 hours.

their techs dont know the difference between oneclick (members+) and cross-sales. as a 3rd party developer, many times my emails would go days before being answered with a bewildering lack of knowledge.

good move to get away from them. your life will be less stressful

D

ok it looks to be true.... from what's going on in another thread it
seems that Mansion hates both their customers and the affiliates
of their customers.

I've been called a liar by Garry 10 times in his thread and I have
all the proof I need to show I have in-fact only stated my
experience with them.

-Ben

Check up in Mariush's email. See just how many times I've tried
to get my issues resolved.

Also check your ICQ logs and see where we talked about the
communication breakdown and how you didn't actually respond
to those parts of my questions. Note how nice I'm being to you? I
really want those answers, so much so I'm kissing ass in the
hope of getting them. I hope this isn't what all customers need to
do in order to get service.

Also check your support ticket system for where I asked a great
deal of very specific questions that were never answered.

Also remember when you told me on the system was 100% ready
to run? Remember how I asked the same question 3 times to be
absolutley sure that we were 100% ready to rock and 100%
tested by Mansion.

You should have never let Garry post.... "I normally do not post
on the boards that much." not a good time to get practice Garry...
He made you look silly with all that garbage customer bashing.

I'll ring you when you are willing to be logical about this. You
should talk to Alien to mediate a little as I?m sure we wouldn?t be
much good on the phone now things are heated, him and me had
a good chat the other night and he has a good idea of my
position. I was willing to let it die, I was willing to let you get
some promo out of it. However you will not get any promotion out
of this if you just want to bump threads which say I'm a liar, I
won't let you make me look bad as I have never lied at any stage
of this conversation. You will make yourself look bad however. I'm
willing to drop the whole thing and let you move on. As I've said,
if I like the changes in MPA3 and can see you've been listening I'll
even come out in a support of the changes which will be good for
you. However if you keep asserting that I have lied in any way
then I'll keep defending myself.

Anyone reading can see this is not how customers should be
treated even if they are unhappy and have complaints.

-Ben

Gotta remember which order to bump things :-)

-Ben

edit:

hmmm