ePassporte is FUCKING IDIOTIC and I am PISSED ABOUT IT!
 

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!

Congrats to the whiners.

you should have recorded it and pulled an AOL like stunt :)

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...

maybe a way for them to collect more intrest on the money before it leaves the acct?

30 days?
usually 2-4 days tops.. but 30?

haha epass sucks ass.
i would enver use that for anything personal.

i only use it to pay affiliates because you moron affiliates demand it.

One thing that you learn from 'epass sucks' threads - never use their ATM card anywhere but for ATMs. Just get the cash and do anything you want with it. This eliminates 99% of possible pain in the butt if something goes shit.

The fees will be released in 30 days... happened to me a lot of time.

You gotta have the mercheant send them a fax and it will be removed.

I signed up and I'm still WAITING for it to make those 2 deposits, I'm trying to pay Lykos some money and this things taken like a week...

As I have posted in every epassporte preauth thread before this one, only use the electron to withdraw cash at an ATM :) Period.

sorry to hear that.. thanks for the warning!

The point is why 30 days? EVERY other debit card I've used takes 3 days for a pre-auth to drop off. I'd love to know why epass takes 30. From what was said the crazy thing is it's not even a pre-auth any more but has been turned into a full sale.

[QUOTE=Trent Edison]One thing that you learn from 'epass sucks' threads - QUOTE]

Dont use epassport at all

Ouch, I use Epassporte and I didn't knew about that :(!,

This is why I don't use it to buy things.. I just go to the ATM and withdrawl a few grand and spend it in cash.

jesus christ- i finally got this issue partially resolved!!!

how? i kept on calling ePassporte customer service until I got a rep who had a decent head on his shoulders... and that's another item learned: if you are not getting anywhere with customer service, just hang up and call back and talk to someone else...

but:

(1) this really should have been handled before I had to spend hours on the phone (aheeemmmm... Keyser?)
(2) the hours on the phone cost me MONEY! they are hours that i'm not out pimpin' and whorin'...

so i actually feel somewhat victorious- which is a complete sham feeling- because i actually lost of bunch of time and was all stressed and I still don't have all of the double charges released...

fuck i think i need to release some tension... SexAndSubmission.com to the rescue! :winkwink:

i need to say it again for newbies: DO NOT USE YOUR EPASSPORTE CARD EXCEPT TO TAKE CASH FROM ATMS! otherwise you will get butt fucked faster than an 18-year-old in BoyAlley's house on a Friday nite...

by the way, i love you you know, and i'm gonna be promoting that little cutie you got soon at my new site www.thecuriousguy.com

Yeah, I try not to use epassporte unless I really have to.

That is why EBAY canned Epassporte.

epass has serious issues with the truth.

I transfered some money from my epass account ($300) they said 2-3 days, it took 9. I called my bank, just to find out what type of transaction takes 9 days to clear. The girly looked it up for me. It was a simple ACH transaction. They go thru instantly. The minute the transaction is submitted to AHC (Automated Clearing House) it's sent to my bank. Same day. My bank deposits same day.

So my conclusion is epass sat on my $ for 9 days. Of course they said they transfered it. It kept me from spending it. So they could sit on it for 9 days and earn a little interest. Or maybe they are having $ issues and had to borrow from Peter to pay Paul. I don't know, but I think it may be either one of those.

this may sound like im being a jerk but im not, so dont take offense but... do you have regular credit cards ?

Because i have several , and it does happen occasionally. at least once a year, and sometimes the full 30 days, if its for something larger like a car rental i will just call them up and have them manually remove the extra charge though and they usually have no problem with that ( unlike epassporte although granted epassporte is a little more vulnerable/susceptible to fraud )

that is more of a safety thing . an ach may happen instantly but you have a certain amount of time to dispute that charge , thus if its disputed after you have spent the money epassporte is out the money.

Many people are unaware of ach still and thus its ripe for fraud.. any granny will send you a check not knowing a scammer can just use the numbers from the bottom of the check to drain grannies account into fraudsters epassporte account and spend all the money. so this is to protect epassporte from being a haven for fraud and to give anyone ripped off a chance to dispute the charge without epassporte getting stuck for the bill.

it sucks they arent more transparent about these sorts of things but then again you dont wanna let criminals know how you catch them/prevent them.

OK, thats fine. Then quit lieing and say, it'll be 9 days to protect your ass. Not 2-3.

that why you get real credit card and not epass. just use them for cash and bank transfers.

when you're charged authorizations like that it's not epass doing it, it's the merchant. so you're blaming the wrong people. your merchant authorized the amount initially then they debited it later so you got two charges and the authorization drops off and the money is back after a period of time. standard stuff, happens with debit cards all the time, it's the merchant you bought from not epass that does it.

When I got your second email I forwarded the issue to someone that know a little more about pending charges than I do. We are looking into this and I will contact you as soon as I get more information about.

It can take up to 7 business days for the ACH deposits to appear.
If its been more than that please contact me.

yea epass is a bit slow but hopefully u get it resolved asap

The website have been update to reflect that it can take up to 7 business days.

if you dont like them, then stop using them.

I went over all of this with you back when I had a very similar problem. Are you trying to say that I didnt teach you well or that you werent paying attention? :disgust

Bzzzzzzzzzz! I'm sorry, thats a wrong answer!

Do a Google and learn how the VisaNet systems works. Learn about batches and how auths become charges, and you'll see why its ePassporte's issue and not the merchant's issue.

The 30 day thing really needs to be resolved. Doesnt happen to me on any of my others cards. At most Ill see a charge there for 2 or 3 days before its gone. 3 days I can handle, 30 days when making a larger purchase can fook up plans you have. Not cool. :2 cents: Its happened to me several times with epass. Still love the service, but that in my opinion is a area that needs some work.

well then genuis explain to me how it's happened to me with 4 seperate banks, as well as epass, and how it only happens when i buy with certain merchants but not with others?

No, I am too tired to do it right now and I am going to bed. If it happened at four banks as well as ePass, then those four banks are ALSO not following the rules just like ePassporte.

I could not agree more. Rediculous.

basically you dont know, so stick your google search in your ass

The same thing has happened to me and I just kept saying no take it off, no I am not going to the merchant and have them fax you as you can see it is a duplicate and finally the CSR talked to a supervisor that took it off right away. Of course, I was polite and friendly when I said no. I think that helped a lot.

In my eyes it was an epass issue but bitching to them and getting mad was not going to get me any help from them.

They hold your money because they make interest on it. It's just a scam for them to get a few extra bucks :winkwink:

i have no beef with epassporte. i use my visa electron strictly as an atm card

ePassporte rocks for me! :thumbsup

had no probs with them so far... :thumbsup

Yeah, stop using them.

sig spot..