Ibill makes the wrong choice
 

As many of you may know, Worldcom went bankrupt and did not pay Ibill for 2.5 months or so of 900 sales.

Ibill, in its worst blunder EVER, has decided that the 20% fee they charge is not enough to actually stand behind their payouts, so they have withheld all 900 payments for nearly six weeks from the paysite owners.

Ibill doesn't seem to understand or value the trust that we place in them as a 3rd party processor. If they did, they would realize that the problem with worldcom is THEIR problem. I don't ever remember signing a deal with Worldcom, my agreement was with ibill.

Ibill now refuses to honor our trust and instead of paying the webmasters, they are sticking the loss on the sponsors, like us at Lightspeedcash, even though we have already paid OUR webmasters (so indeed we get fucked TWICE, money out, no money in)

We have paid our webmasters in good faith. I just wish Ibill would show some integrity and do the same while they resolve their issues with Worldcom.

Any opinions on this?

Steve Lightspeed

your totaly right lightspeed

if you are suppose to pay, you pay, if you have problems up the ladder, work it out or take the loss

plain and simple

Dude that really sucks since this happened to you and you are big here on the boards I HOPE every web master that has anything to do with ibill drops them faster then a runny turd.. Im so glad i stuck with ccbill and decided to syay away from ibill when they were given me the run around for 2 months lol screw IBILL SCREW THEM HEAR ME SCCCCREW THEM :321GFY

Ouch, thats a big bite to swallow.

Agreed. It is fucked up.

Im just glad Web900 has never been a major part of my income.

So in principle yes... you are absolutely right.

But I am not sweating it. Im not gonna lose my home over it.

There must be some chemicals in the ground below their new office. They do a lot of strange shit since.

infact

don't pay on #900 if its so risky

just offer webmasters other perks

Do they have a new web900 provider now, I was actually ading it to my join pages tomorrow.

Ibill never mentioned they had 'issues'.

You are suprised Steve.....? Are we talking about the same iBill?


DynaMite :eek7

Hard to trust a processor that fucks you up the ass.

Steve and I have discussed this situation before, and are pretty much in agreement.

I have always liked the guys at Ibill, I still have nothing personal against any of them over this.

HOWEVER -- for me personally, the issue is not about web900 sales. The amount they owe SIC is not huge, we're not going broke because we didn't get it, and it does not affect our business with our resellers.

The issue is about not honoring a contract and not paying your clients the money they are owed.

This is nothing new from my mouth, I've discussed it with their management in person, in Miami.

If they are telling me that they can't pay on such a small amount because they didn't get the money, what would happen if it were a larger amount of money that they didn't get paid from somewhere else?

The cardinal rule in processing -- and in running a sponsor program is that you pay what you owe, on time, in full, EVERY TIME. I dont care if your house burns down, your upstream doesn't pay you, its chinese new year, you pay what you owe. Period.

I'd rather lose my house than jack my webmasters, if it ever came down to it. You can always buy another house, you just don't pull business out of thin air.

Depends on your sexual preferences, I guess.

Well said. I'm in the 900 business.. Thank god I never picked MCI or ATT. I've got a reserve set aside so just in case my provider tells me I'm not getting paid I can at least pay webmasters through the end of the respective period.

Brad

Hella nice.

Financial redundancy.

:thumbsup

Sounds like a fuckt situation. Sorry you got ripped Steve.

im wondering what they spent that 20% on

*cough*new offices*cough*

Damn i'm sorry to hear that man. I almost got knocked out of the business all together by non-payment on 900-lines. But im slowly recovering now. Hope this all gets resolved for you guys in a timely fashion.

Sin AmericanTelnet is pulling the same shit as Ibill and holding back so much money it's not even funny below is the annoncement they made.

I understand they are not getting paid but they annonced it late when cash is already in ads for many. Thenk god im almost done with that industry.

August 5, 2002

Dear Information Provider:

We are all well aware of the recent AT&T/MCI problems and have been forced to shift our attentions and consider if, how, and when their issues will change our industry. Over the past year, we have been direct witness to their problems and difficulties in blocking CLEC and other un-billable callers and we have been anticipating their departure from the 900 billing business.

TelNet has used both of these carriers for our offnet billing guaranteed payout programs. Unfortunately, we have been victimized by their transporting of calls without any regard to the collectibility of the ANI or of the high outlay associated with processing calls that cannot be billed. Now, in addition, we have just been noticed that all MCI-billed 900 revenue payments are not being paid on all traffic from June 1st on until further notice. While we anticipate some type of resolution and compensation in the near future, we are forced to withhold our payout to you until the situation is resolved.

While we have absorbed vast amounts of operational costs, as a courtesy to you, we will keep these offnet lines up and running until the time we find the likelihood of payment impossible.

We feel it is appropriate to take this opportunity to announce that within the next few weeks, we will once again have a GTE billing arrangement back in place and will offer full 900 LEC programming and billing services to end-users in the GTE territories. These calls will be rated and paid as our current 900 LEC. This, in addition to our existing coverage, will essentially eliminate the need for any offnet programming.

By actively participating as leading members of all industry associations, we continue to work towards long-term intelligent solutions designed to control the difficulties that damage our industry so that they do not control us. American TelNet is and has always been the leader for the finest pay-per-call programming with the highest guaranteed payouts having billed over $1 billion on behalf of our clients.

Should you have any questions, please contact Client Services directly.

As always, we thank you for the opportunity to service your audiotext business and we welcome your comments and suggestions on how we can improve upon our service and your bottom line

Yo Steve,
Give me or Mike a call tomorrow. We have in house council who deals with this type of stuff. Not saying it will get you anywhere but who knows? I'll try and put you 2 together if he's got some time.
You know sometimes shit happens like the DMR crap years ago. They just have you by the balls and theres nothing you can do. Hopefully somehow they will make it right. I guess they don"t know who there fucking with!!! Anyhole, try and keep her too yourself, even though your obviously fucken pissed. Just don't want to see you blow any chance of them making it right.
I can solve your problem. Just make Twanee 49.95 a month.
Still cheaper than my x-wife!!!!!
H
[email protected]

Pipe down. How are they supposed to pay people AND move into bigger offices because they're doing such a great job?

Thanks for the advice Howard, although I have my own attorney working on the problem.

I have been very *restrained* so far in my criticism of Ibill. Dave Peterson already told me I was "acting like an 18 year old kid webmaster" and not a "businessman".

Yeah, an 18 year old with a $50,000 loss to swallow.....

Thanks Dave

All I can say is I love CCbill

Steve

I hope they fix this issue!

iBill is my main processor, 900 accounts for a small
% of sales overall but its enough to go on vacation
to Europe every month..lol

They lose usually one of my checks a month...out of 15 or so...and for my paysite they lose them and you have to pay a $30 extortion fee to get them to reissue the thing. I dont lose them, they do..but i have to pay..all the time.

Hi,

I'm sorry for anyone who is getting screwed over in this situation. If enough of you put enough pressure on Ibill, it should have an impact.
And Kimmy, I totally agree with your viewpoint on this one.

Mitch

A few months ago ibill was all screwed up... I said it then and will say it again... I would not do business with them.. Many webmasters defended them then and if it was not Lightspeed that posted this they would be doing it now... I also said if they fucked up then they would do it again... this time it's just a different kind of fuck up. And I will say it again, they will do it again... They have no ideal, what customer service is, not a dam clue.:2 cents:

we got cornholed too >:-|

ibill I hope you got something to say to this.

EscortBiz - this is an interesting commentary on American Telnet...

Agreed that it's fucking rediculous they didn't announce this sooner. Thankfully, the amounts ATN is stiffing people on are VERY VERY small or at least they were for me. The MCI contract was just for the handling of the business off their network. It's stuff they pay out shit on anyways, I think I maybe lost a thousand dollars from last month. Honestly, I know I'll never see it. None the less, I was FUCKING PISSED when I saw the announcement in my stats area. They never bothered to send out an E-mail and I had been glazing over the link for over a week. I actually had the inclination that since I have hundreds of 900 lines with them perhaps they should have called. LOL

The interesting thing is that ATN put in effect another contract (with GTE? I don't remember) that actually gives them better national coverage and will essentially make me much more then the old off-network collections ever did.

In light of changes in the whole 900 landscape everyone can expect that SinTalk will be responding with needed changes to protect it's webmasters. Fortunately, the vast amount of phone sex business is Toll Free. Honestly, 90% of the revenue that we generate is actually on Toll Free numbers where people pay by credit card.... thank god!

Cheers

Brad

ibill had something like 20 sales reps at the show. one would think they should be able to afford to do the right thing, not to mention they should do it even if they can't afford to.

in business you either pay or file for bankruptcy. they don't look like a company that is filing for bankruptcy anytime soon - so go figure.

Well, I agree, iBill does not have the right to screw sponsors like this. Sponsors have paid webmasters and now the sponsors won't get paid. I believe the words class action lawsuit come up in cases like this.

WG

Poor business move

I like iBill. They pay me on time every time since 97. Nevr a fuckup.

If I never get my money, then I will be pissed.

wow.... what a crappy situation.

it's a basic point - you honour your contracts. iBill does not seem to be doing that.

i do know that in the construction industry 'pay when paid' contracts are the norm..... but then everyone signs on knowing about that clause.

what ibill has done is change the rules in midstream....people remember that sort of stuff

How about all the spam last week... we just started using iBill as a backup processor and i'm getting emails telling me that I should switch. does the left hand know what the right hand is doing over there? makes me wonder if I'm working with the wrong company...

Smart move. It's always good to treat affiliates well, it's too bad about iBill. They seem to have been big but made quite a few mistakes the past 12 months. It doesn't make much sense.

ive seen ibill sales reps walk up and ask existing ibill customers for business. ive also seen ibill cold calls to existing ibill customers. so to answer your question....

Good post! :thumbsup

It's obvious that IBill is shitting where they eat... that's never a smart thing.

With the kind of volumes they must be doing they're obviously morons for not acting quicker and smarter on the whole situation.

It's a fucking shame... C'mon how fucking deep are their pockets. You can't tell me that a company of their size doesn't have reserves sitting around for this type of situation... oh that's right... perhaps the company that bought/merged with them stole all the cash flow that made them dependable? lmao

Brad

Speaking as a former CCBill employee... Amen Steve. I've known CCBill since they started and have been nothing but impressed with the company and their business ethics.

As for IBill... When I tell you I'm a webmaster and I need a new sub-account, that does not mean I'm a member of the site and you can't locate my membership information.<br>

That's really fucked up of them. They all part of the system.

<img src="http://home.earthlink.net/~laughingmen/ibill-logo-01.gif">

AHAHAHAH AHAHHAHA