Don't use Epassporte...
 

They make you load your account with $50 off your credit card (of course they take $5 of that), and then when I called them to find out how to get that money back, I was told if I wanted a check for that amount, I would be charged a $50 fee. Or I could buy an ATM card for $35 to get my money back.

Just seems like a waste of money if you could just use something like Storm Pay for free. With my code of course: :) http://www.stormpay.com/?73921

this should be funny.

Who is Storm Pay? From their whois they're in the west indies.

Boohoo.

Go buy traffic or content or something.

They Are in west indies. They're supposed to be there though. Just to be able to run this kind of business. Check other companies like stormpay and you'll see.

Yep, Epassporte is in the Dutch Antilles :)

nice location for biz....

but do they let you deposit cash in your bank account?

I'm not saying it's the end of the world, I'm saying WHY use a site that forces you to spend $50 when you can use something else?

Since they're a start-up it's probably administrative overhead to make it worth it for them to setup the account. Weeds out the hundreds/thousands of dormant accounts that'd be created on Paypal type systems.

Epassporte is not in the check writing business. They are in the business of worldwide acceptance, shopping anonymity, and Peer-to-Peer money transfers (with more features coming soon). Why would you open an account unless you planned to use it?

If you don't want the account, spend your balance online with your Virtual Visa and that will be the end of it.

http://www.epochsystems.com/images/epass_120x60.gif

$50 is the minimum load amount. It does not cost $50 to get a card. The load fee is $5 per hundred so if you really want to get the most for your money you should load $100.

The minimum was set to $50 for a reason. Remember that EP is also a form of payment for surfers who have no other options. So, you want there to be enough funds on the card to guarantee a conversion if the surfer does not cancel. With most trial/conversion models the $45 balance on a $50 load would cover that.

And yes, Jact has a point. Who needs to open accounts that will never be used. There "is" indeed a cost to issue the Epassporte Virtual Visa as well as the Visa Electron Card. For webmasters who use EP as a means of paying affiliates, content, etc... they can get a commercial account and avoid the load fees altogether. It's a lot cheaper, faster, and easier to do a P2P than send a check to someone. That's the webmaster/sponsor advantage.

Still.... If a sponsor pays ONLY through epassporte *cough* spotbrokers *cough* theres no way to get your money besides paying 35$ for a ATM card and 2$ per withdraw. (No I don't want to spend my money I want to put my money in the bank)

Although on other threads you guys have said your going to try to implement bank transfers. (How much are those gonna cost :( )

Coming soon. :)

Care to be on the list for News from Epoch?
It's not just for Epoch clients anymore.


http://www.epochsystems.com/images/news_lite.gif

$35 dollars for a card that gives you access to your cash isn't bad when you consider that it's less than the cost of two wires -or- for some countries the penalties/fees they incur to cash a check. Most affiliates pay a $2 check processing fee anyway so it really makes no difference and saves a lot of time too. Worth it wouldn't you agree?

The transfer to bank accounts from epassporte is coming soon (no date yet) but I don't yet know anything about cost. Epassporte has kept their fees lower than competitors with like features so I think they will be fair and reasonable.



http://www.epochsystems.com/images/epass_120x60.gif

PayPal transfers to a checking accounts are free. :Graucho

Although they rip a hole in my ass for the incoming payments. :)



P.S. why do people like the person who started this thread use services without reating the terms first?

Paypal's fees are damn cheap, they only pad their transaction fees by roughly 0.8% while other IPSPs pad theirs by up to 13%. From what I saw of Epassporte's fees (While very confusing -- Located in their ToS) still seem fairly reasonable. However I'd want to be sure I could get my businesses money to my business instead of having to spend it at an ATM. :2 cents:

There are some similarities with epassporte and PayPal but each have there own merits.
Loading funds onto your epassporte account is free to commercial account holders. :Graucho

It seems that the two biggest questions for epassporte are:

1) When can I move funds from EP to my bank account?
-and-
2) When will I be able to load my personal account by any other means than credit card or P2P?

The answer to each is already in the works.


Find out First:
http://www.epochsystems.com/images/news_lite.gif

As I said... Moving $ to your bank account is a feture that's coming soon.

The risk management models are already in place to make this work.

Webmaster's have asked for this and EP is going to make it work.

.

You gotta give these guys credit for even talking to us. I mean.... Every thread with concernces about epassporte have been adressed by somone involved with EP (as far as I know).... Now we just have to see if they walk the walk.

I think Epassporte still sounds cool as hell. Everything has a cost associated with it!

Brad

Then that's cool. Can you take a moment to explain publically the difference between a corporate account and a business account? I haven't looked at the new site but the old site really didn't outline the difference in why we'd need one or the other?

Well, with all the support they're about to be getting I'm sure we're going to see some growing pains but most likely a really strong company when all is said and done at the end of the day.

I do however wish more information was available on their website, but that's true of 99.9% of all billing products/services.

epassporte looks kick ass and I have heard nothing but good things about them but since they can't take my card I am pretty much shit out of luck. Stormpay looks like a good alternative.

Here are some answers for you Jact.

The new site looks really good I think. A great improvement in look and funtionality! https://www.epassporte.com

The difference between a corporate and commercial account are easily explained. The difference is subtle but significant.

Both accounts share the following:

1) They are funded by wire transfer.

2) They can issue Virtual and Electron Visa accounts to anyone they choose to pay.

3) API's are available for creation of accounts, upgrading to Electron status, and disbursing payments to various affilaite accounts.


A commercial account holder model would be a Sponsor program which pays it's affiliates with EP. The sponsor would use their account to create Virtual account for their affiliates and use those account to move money to them. The affiliate has control of their account in all other aspects and can reload their accounts with a credit card, and make and receive P2P transactions.

A corporate account example might be a corporation who wants to provide account to employees but still be able to control what happens to the funds and be able to monitor spending. In other words, the commercial account can look into all affiliate accounts and see their balances, move balances back to the master account, block an account, monitor spending, etc.....

It's really a matter of the level of control you have over affiliate accounts.

Okay, good explaination. The flowcharts and whatnot on the old site really confused me.

Okay so I'm assuming I need a commercial account. Am I required to wire a opening balance? Am I required to maintain a balance of any kind? Can I open one without calling sales yet?

Another alternative is FirePay.com. I haven't used them but we are being courted by them. Supposedly they're big in online gaming. *shrug*

Isn't that who Quickbooks uses? If so, their system is horrid but their rates were wicked.

right on.... I might have to give it a whirl...just wish it had a deposit in bank option, that'd make it SOooooooooooooo much more appealing...


:thumbsup :thumbsup

well, it's decided. i'm going to start my own paypal clone. not going to have any debit cards or anything, that's just silly.

i'll get me a merchant account, and i'll make up some fancy buttons and a shopping cart, and you guys can put all the fancy buttons on your site, and sell stuff. the money transfer through my service will be very, very reliable.


don't worry about your money, i'll take care of it for you!:thumbsup

The design looks much better! But I'd definitely get rid of the irritating sound effects! Also, if you're going to use https it would be sensible to make all page elements secure otherwise IE issues a warning on each an every page.

I'd like to receive recurring business-to-business payments. Is that possible? And if so which account would I need?

You need to contact sales. Try [email protected] or [email protected] to open a Commercial Account. There is some documentation required to meet the "Know Your Customer" rules. After the docs are signed you will need to then wire USD500 to open the account. These are your funds and not a fee. There is no fee to open the account.

The balance required is USD25.00, I beleive (I could be wrong on this one, but not by much).

Thanks for the thoughts on the site. The sound bugs me too.

The recurring is an upgrade happening soon. However, you can get B2B now. With a Commercial Account you can generate a file that we can execute for you, on whatever schedule you want, or you can use the API and do it yourself. So in reality you can effect a recurring charge, but not in the manner we all think of it - auto pilot - yet.

Hope that answers your questions.

BTW: The EPOCH and the epassporte teams are going to be in Phoenix for the Phoenix Forum starting Thursday. We would be happy to meet with anyone there to answer questions and to make deals.

C

So this $500 transfer that's our funds.. How long do they have to stay within the Epassporte account? Is there a limitation on what can be done with them? Can I send it to you then take it back save for a $25 balance?

Jact,

I guess "technically" you could pull them back out without penalty (minus transaction fees of course). But let me clarify....

Once funds were in your account you would need to P2P them to affiliates (that's basically what a commercial account is for) or spend the money shopping online, or, withdraw your funds using an epassporte Electron Card.

Once you fall below the minimum balance, a monthly account maintenance fee would eventually kill the account unless you funded it again.




http://www.epochsystems.com/images/epass_120x60.gif

I'm so confused :) I want an account to accept P2P and B2B transfers from people, based upon those transfers, I would be transfering money to affiliates, but I have to invest $500 to be able to make money? Soooooooo confused! :1orglaugh

I think I'm starting to get your personality Jact.
Maybe. :)


The $500 is not an investment. It's a minimum funding requirement. Just like when you open a checking account in a bank you have to start with a minimum load/deposit. You can write a check out for the whole thing the same day. Right?


What do you sell anyway?

Hopefully by now you'll start to get that I'm not actually dissing you or your company 100% of the time :D

Seriously though, I can understand the $500 load, (Any bank I've dealt with in the last 15 years hasn't required me to deposit anything though, sooooo!) but anyhow. If I open a commercial account, can I get one of those Visa Electron card things on that account to withdraw a portion of the $500 load? Or do I need to get one personally and transfer a portion of it to that card (Loading it with $50 and paying $35 for the card! :1orglaugh ) or how would it work?

You've 75% sold me on the whole Epassporte thing, which was a hard sale so I'm sure you'll go far with it :thumbsup

Edit: I sell content.

Wow, I'd love to say you had to get a personal account and load it with $50.... but, that's not the case! :Graucho


A commercial account holder can have an Electron Visa tied to their account and withdraw funds from any Visa/Plus ATM.

Every account works this way. Personal, Commercial, and Corporate.

You'll be one of the guys who supports the crap out of us once you get on board cuz you'll understand it like no one else.

Good stuff.


:1orglaugh

Content heh?

If you get set up to accept epassporte for your content you can get listed here as an epassporte vendor.

http://www.epochsystems.com/content/


Oh, and anyone who is already on this list, let me know if you are taking epassporte as payment and we'll mark your account accordingly. We'll put a little epassporte logo by your listing or something. :thumbsup