why does stormpay seem to immature?
 

they send me off to KAGI to add funds to my account which can take 1-2 hours. their IPN/GLC documentation is horribly formatted and while it's pretty complete, it does miss some basic stuff that seems to work when i tested it out on my own.

at this point i can't even think of them for a small membership site, if the people want to join the site, they just signup for stormpay first, THEN add funds, THEN once the funds are approved can they get the subscription activated.

i guess i am now shopping for a new CVS/payment system, something that makes it *very* easy to integrate automatically into a small-time membership site. i'll need it for a few membership sites, all of them very small compared to normal size porn membership sites.

all this because paypal has decided that anything remotely APPEARING like an adult site should be frozen... can't count on them anymore. damn shame, just got them hooked up to my first site 100% perfectly..

come on you fuckers. someone has to have some experience with stormpay or opinions. or suggestions for other companies to look at.

PayPal was nothing at one time also. You have to let the market develop before you can take advantage of it. God I can't wait till there are 10 million people out there with StormPay accounts just to have a good laugh with all the posts that will be here then looking back.

Good things come to those with patience who are first in line at the new watering holes being dug on the Net.

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

well people shouldn't be spreading it like a paypal replacement. it looks like it's been around a while too, just without paypal's professionalism.

hell i just got a PHP error on one of their scripts. what kind of pseudo-financial site can have that kind of shit sitting around.

i need a no startup fee provider that can accept all major CC's, would be nice to have a 900 #, etc. must be able to integrate easily with my code in the backend.

what about probilling?

KRL: I assume from the Storm Pay link in your tag line, that you are selling Storm Pay, and that's fine.

But let's not forget that PayPal screwed MANY webmasters.

In fact, there is a post today from a webmaster who's selling his sites --- and one of the reasons is PayPal (along with other billing companies.)

http://www.teenager.com.au/sale.html

Maybe people want to avoid these kinds of problems in the future.

Hype doesn't help. People are looking for real answers, references and track records.

At this point, Storm Pay doesn't have that.

Paypal's professionalism?????

What professionalism? Surely you do not mean their awsome autoreponders ehm.... support?
Or telling Nexcash they will be fine and then freeze their account?

For the record I don't trust any of them Paypal, Epassporte or Stormpay with large ammounts of money, but I do think Stormpay should be judged by their actions and I have yet to read the first topic on a webmaster with his/her account frozen, or any problems for that matter.

We are using them now for small nickle and dime stuff and so far no problems at all.

Dunno bout you but I rather have a site with php errors, but a working system and no problems then an awsome flawless design with a system run like those assholes from paypal, freezing acounts and basically screwing people over.

So far I have no complaints about them at all, but I still wouldn't trust them with large ammounts of cash
:2 cents:

exactly.. well said.

i really dont understand why people have confidence in stormpay..like i said before they cant even afford $500
to get a decent design.. not to mention the additional $1000
to get their scripting right ;)

Well, at least we have one reference now -- albeit a small one.

Please keep us posted.

Unfortunately, there are just not a lot of options out there. The adult industry is the dark sheep of the processing world.

I'm promoting stormpay so the base of stormpay users and sites keeps increasing. Yeh its meaningless with only 6 figures of users, but once it gets into 7 figures and then 8 figures it WILL be a viable alternative as long as nothing fucks up in the process which as we all know too well can happen. So I'll never say anything is perfect or without minor flaws and glitches.

I also tell people to use Rand's and Kimmy's ePassporte and I am not a broker for them at all.

I believe its smarter to have as many options as possible on your site to close a sale. If you don't believe in that, then stay how you are with limited options, and I'll take your customers dollars gladly.

As far as I can see, StormPay is coming along incredibly in terms of rapid user base growth. And that's all I care about at this point. Obviously until it reaches millions it will be secondary, but you never know with the Net what can take off and what will fail.

There once were these 2 college guys that got frustrated trying to find things on the Net so they started a site with a dumb ass name with ZERO meaning called YAHOO. The rest as we know is Internet history.

So like I said, whatever strategy works for you go with it. I believe the more the merrier. Take it or leave it. It doesn't cost me anything to offer customers StormPay so what's the big danger?

Remember I'm just a lamer newbie and have only been playing this game for 19 years so I don't have any experiences good and bad to really be talking much anyway.

:)

:thumbsup

i saw a bunch of random people here claim it was a good paypal replacement. i went there and the first few pages were consistent and somewhat professional looking, so i signed up. their IPN/integration manual made me think it would be easy to switch over. however, once i send the user over to stormpay to make the transaction and setup the subscription, it all goes to shit. it's not like paypal, where you can easily add bank accounts or tell it "use my visa for this subscription"

i had to put funds into my account first off, which isn't done yet because it uses some third party to charge my visa, then there's a time lag from that to get the funds into my stormpay account. then what.. what happens in a month when my stormpay account is out of funds? it won't rebill my credit card, stormpay doesn't record that info...

that's the issue i see. it just isn't one integrated system.

and when i said "paypal's professionalism" i was specifically talking about their system, UI and usability. it's clean, easy to use, things don't look like they were just thrown up like a lot of stormpay's sites.

stormpay also has an "advertise with us" thing - what kind of payment program tries to put banner ads on their pages? aren't their fees they charge on all transactions good enough already?

here's the difference.

those 2 college guys didn't make a site managing people's MONEY, CREDIT CARD information, bank information, etc.

stormpay can get as many users as they like but if their payment options are shitty and the site looks like crap i personally don't feel proper sending people over there. user growth means shit if the system itself isn't ahead of the game

I've said it before but here goes. I know one of the guys that did some programming for StormPay when they first started out. They use all 3rd party methods to fund your account so the fees are more. They were a very small operation put in place for MLM schemes. They had many security problems when they first started. They are by no means some large company breaking into the online payment market.

I wouldn't trust a large amount of money with them if it was my only option. They could very well be an awesome company but with the shitty interface and funding procedure they serve very little purpose right now. Hopefully the adult webmasters will give them some much needed business and they can afford to upgrade their system etc but until then I won't touch them.

As are we, no problems as of yet.

AST 121760557

Interesting.

sounds exactly as i would expect... it just makes sense. thanks stocktrader.

now... how about some decent suggestions on paypal replacements. i read epassporte has funding delays? is there anything like paypal (universal payment system) that supports subscriptions and will charge the user's visa per month and/or try to get money from their account - NOT only rely on money in the account (thus requiring pre-deposited funds)

Professionalism from PayPal???

Visit http://www.paypalsucks.com and then come and post how professional they are.

I've never had a problem myself with PayPal so I still think they are viable for non-adult processing. I think their decision to blow off the adult industry from a strategic standpoint is a bad thing since so many people visit adult sites and will soon be seeing whatever replacements do end up on adult sites for the long haul and that will only erode PayPal's market share albeit gradually.

Like the other posts say, I agree never leave your money sitting anywhere.

I have not seen one perfect system yet. You can find flaws with everyone of these companies.

Like I said, I can't see how it can hurt anything by having ample alternatives for customers.

I believe in giving everything a chance. I recognize every company doesn't come out with the perfect system, many wing it til they get the formula just right, many fail, many succeed.

I remember when the grand daddy of AVS's now Adult Check ran into problems early on. As have most of the major sponsors from time to time.

The whole problem with the Net is we are vulnerable to all the powerhouses in money transfer, the banks, Visa, MasterCard, etc.
They all have us by the balls and they know it. At any time in the future we might see the headline saying MC and Visa are stopping all adult processing. It could happen. And I peg it at at least a 1 out of 5 probability if not higher.

So the more backups now, the better. That's my opinion and everyone should do and use whatever works best for them.

maybe you didn't see one of my replies. here is part of it:

<quote>
and when i said "paypal's professionalism" i was specifically talking about their system, UI and usability. it's clean, easy to use, things don't look like they were just thrown up like a lot of stormpay's sites.

stormpay also has an "advertise with us" thing - what kind of payment program tries to put banner ads on their pages? aren't their fees they charge on all transactions good enough already?
</quote>

i've always been wary myself of paypal just because of the random stories and such. i never keep much money there either. however their API is pretty easy to use as the site itself. it's a very ingenious idea and system and the technical side of it seems to complement it properly, unlike stormpay's at this time.

I agree. I personally think the chances are even higher.

I haven't been able to find any.

Hell, I've even been looking for non-adult processing, but anything online --- straight or not --- can be considered high risk.

Some processors say non-adult isn't high risk, but if you read articles about Visa/MC rules --- it easily can be. So there's less options, even with that.

so far, Stormpay is the best option for me, Paypal only wants my mone but not to give me some, Ep don't even answer their mails (or maybe they're very delayed, I just send a mail like 3 weeks ago) and CC processors... well, you know what. Anyway I'm stuck with Paycom and Stormpay, so far the ONLY ones that did care about me and my biz

ePassporte is working great so far for us. They've been extremely professional & very helpful. We are setting up accounts to pay our affiliates today & paying on Thursday. I just wish they'd pay us for all the referals.

NEXCASH is seriously looking at adding Stormpay as an option for payment. But I can't reach them. They haven't returned an email sent on Friday. They don't list a phone number or icq. The number on whois is "no longer in service". I want to move a head with this but it would be nice if I could actually get a response from them. I can't risk other people's money with them until I have some confidence in them.

:BangBang: PayPal are pompous bureaucrates who deserve to star in a snuff film.

Hey I'm not bitter :321GFY

We are adding Storm pay to our site to replace paypal and we will see how it works.

Oh geez, its' not enough that you guys run a hell of a program.

I'm not telling anyone that we are paying on referrals by next week, since it's going into beta then.

;)

I would liken Stormpay to a bank that only takes deposits through slow and untrustworthy 3rd parties.

I forgot to ask about this yesterday, but has anybody tried these guys?

http://www.electronictransfer.com/services.html

They're out of Spokane, Washington ...

WARNING: If you click on home/index page, there's an incredibly annoying audio message.

That alone put me off and it doesn't look very professional but, since there's few alternatives, just wondering if there's any feedback on them.

"Consumers write more than 60 billion checks in the U.S. annually. Experts believe that total will grow to 70 billion in 2001. Checks are here to stay. "

:1orglaugh

Well, they claim they accept credit cards too.

Look ... I'm not vouching for those guys by any means. Just wondering if anyone has tried them.

original way to lose your customers.