DarkJedi

Fuck yeah, it's everyone's business.

Many people from here got fucked over by the butt pirate, and they have the right to know what the fuck caused it.

Although I suspect the whole 'personal problems' is just another bullshit excuse.

edgeprod

Sorry, I don't agree. You can tell him that his business was improperly set up for personal-life interruptions, but WHAT that interruption was is his business alone.

As much as I can't stand what he's done to me and others, it's a basic point of respect.

gooddomains

it's all about respect

dready

I have to say, any time I've had a concern or issue, James personally dealt with it and went well out of his way to take care of me.

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candyflip

I just got this in my email. Legit or just an excuse?

As you may or may not know there have been some issues with our ACH payment system.

Our ACH Merchant Gateway has now just announced that they will no longer be able to
process any ACH transactions (Credit, Debit, or Merchant Settlements). You can
follow this link (https://gateway.allianceach.com/update.pdf) for the letter I
received from them today.

The problem with them started in January but there was hope that it would be fixed.
Unfortunately it appears it will not happen.

What this means for you. If you are not using our ACH system you are not affected
by this and you can disregard this message. If you are using our ACH system you
will need to select another payout method on your acct. Wire is the obvious
solution, but if you prefer we can offer payouts via Paypal as well until a new ACH
solution is found.

I regret the problems this may have caused for you and thank you for your patience
in this matter.

Thank you
James

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dial

wow, way to keep up with what is posted in the thread

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JD

smells like burning shit in this thread

D Ghost

oh snap..... wow

marketsmart

nice why to try an deflect for your shit storm... FUCKFACE.....

mrkris

You sir, are harsh.

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edgeprod

ROFL, that's one word for it. Glad you quoted that ... all I saw was:

It's worth taking him off just to see the typo-laden meltdowns, probably.

candyflip

I see that now. I posted it the minute it hit my inbox.

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edgeprod

No worries. Information is information. Rather have it twice than not at all, right?

Still hoping Chio is okay and everyone is going to eventually get paid.

Lamis

lol, chio is over. done.

marketsmart

Why would I have a meltdown? You are a liar. You admitted to James that you have a problem lying. There's not much more to say to you.

BTW, I saw the wire receipt for the money you were sent. Care to explain that?

Barefootsies

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Enough Said.

"Would you rather live like a king for a year or like a prince forever?"

mrkris

oooooh snap.

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Brujah

did edgeprod post proof of his accusations? he claims detoxed and $5 submissions stole from him too.

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marketsmart

The guy has a problem telling the truth. I was going to sit this one out, but Dominic just had to keep poking me. Dominic basically said he didn't receive any money from Chio. I personally saw a wire receipt for a payment sent to Dominic. So, that's lie number one and I have many more examples of his lies if he wants to continue to play with me.

edgeprod

Oh SNAP! My bank must have stolen the money, I guess! Chio has probably been paying me half of everything he's made from selling my software, and I'm just making it up! It's probably not just something someone is saying to derail the thread.

Chio can use every penny I'm owed to pay Verified Charge webmasters. EVERY PENNY, and we're even 100%.

Here's the deal: if 1) EVERYONE gets paid back, 2) Chio does not EVER keep people's payments again, and 3) Marketsmart drops the hearsay and leaves it between direct accounts of Chio and I, then I will:

1) Never mention the money I wasn't paid ever again, 2) Never call Chio a scammer on a board again, 3) Never bring up the money stolen from people on Bliggo, Verified Charge, or any of the "fake" offices for Verified Charge, etc ...

and here's the big one:

4) Consider Chio and I "completely even," with nothing owed, and turn over every penny I'm owed or think I'm owed to webmasters who didn't get paid through Verified Charge. I don't think anyone else on GFY is going to make an offer like that to people he doesn't know. I agree never to bring a suit against Chio, and to totally consider our debts COMPLETELY settled if the money is used to pay VC webmasters. I'll even sign a contract to that effect, releasing him from ANY current or future liabilities or disputes.

mrkris

A generous offer.

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edgeprod

And 100% serious and backed up. If Chio lives up to his end, he will never see another post from me saying anything other than that I liked him as a person before all of this went on and miss talking to him.

I've gone to bat for him in several threads following what happened. *shrug*

Anyway, I think I'm done. He pays them and accepts me offer or he doesn't.

dial

there is so much bullshit in this thread it is sickening

this thread is a PERFECT example of why you can't trust anyone in this biz, and I am not even referring to chio and verified charge

__________________

mrkris

Welcome to Adult

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edgeprod

Bingo. Everyone has a past -- no one is free of blemishes. If you can't own up to that past or the things you've done, it says something about you. I've taken my lumps and even in this thread acknowledged them: the mistakes I made, the fact that they were my fault, etc.

Anyone who can't admit their own wrongs, learn from them, and move on ... I'd be highly suspicious of. Just my , I guess. But this thread isn't about me .. it's about people getting their money.

Marketsmart and Chio have kept up their end of the bargain so far .. once everyone is paid and the rest of the deal is honored, I'll even up the ante: I'll post a public apology to Chio.

mrkris

An apology as well?

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edgeprod

I think it's a pretty good deal.

Brujah

edgeprod and mrkris sure love to keep bumping this thread. I know edgeprod is a douchebag liar and scammer. Haven't heard anything like that about mrkris yet.

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mrkris

No, not a liar or scammer. I do think that people should get some sort of response though.

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Brujah

Apparently, the others have been receiving emails about the situation. It's like a tagteam bromance, and neither of you are verifiedcharge users that are owed any money I'm betting.

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Barefootsies

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Should You Email Your Members?

Link1 | Link2 | Link3

Enough Said.

"Would you rather live like a king for a year or like a prince forever?"

dial

all of verified charges' customers have been getting emails and are in touch with chio

nice of you two to try and stir shit though

__________________

JD

mrkris likes boys

mrkris

haha. only you.

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BadBrad

So short of the story is, Chio is a thieving butt pirate. Edgeprod is a scammer. And MrKris is a homo. And oh ya, don't trust doing business with anyone you haven't met personally and shared girlfriends with.

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Your sig chose me!

Carmine Raguso

Damn, looks like a congregated effort.

Carmine Raguso

See if you can spot the difference in the below movies. Play them all, the differences (if any) come at the end

kmanrox

cliff notes please!

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Iron Fist

Welcome to GFY... glad you finally figured it out.

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i like waffles

cherrylula

someone launched a new billing company, and when it went under people didn't get paid...

I think that is how the story goes, sounds familiar eh?

MrGuy

Hello,

First off - big apologies for the massive and somewhat belated bum, I only discovered this thread recently and felt my reply relevant. Feel free to flame away should you desire.

Most of you will have no idea who I am, a few of you may have spoken to me through Verified Charge - but I am possibly the only person who can actually answer a lot of the issues raised in this thread.

I'd like to apologise for dragging up old dirt - but after doing some midnight searching a few days ago I ended up stumbling across this thread and have been considering how to reply. In good conscience I cannot ignore it so wanted to give some answers that may not have been forthcoming elsewhere.

My name is Guy and I worked on Verified Charge with Chio for the duration of the project which originally started in late 2005/early 2006. I am based in the UK and have worked with Chio since 1999 on various projects - from his AVS (GetVerified), through a number of sites and most recently with Verified Charge. During this time I have got to know him well and would consider him a very close friend.

The Chio the pirate figure actually originally got invented around a picture of me being molested by a Spaniard in a pirate outfit from 2000... where somehow I became Lord Chio then CHio the Pirate originated thanks to the wonders of photoshopping (which is a past time Chio has spent a little too long).

It is with a heavy heart that I'm writing this post - on the basis I could possibly lose a friend over it for a few dozen people I don't even know, who are earning far more money than me and most likely just enjoy a good bit of internet flaming. That said - I feel anyone who lost money at least deserves to know some details of what happened.

Firstly - addresses and telephone numbers. The domain registration details are a fake name, registered at my old postcode in Bristol (it's not a pub... but there is a pub there too - The Hatchet I believe... very good if you like rock music, if not you won't fit in). Quite how they ended up there I don't remember but I do remember agreeing to it at some point.

The telephone numbers are indeed all Vonage ones that ring the same phone. There is no UK office. There is no Netherlands office. There is no New York office. There is, however, a Florida office... within a house. It's a nice office and the chairs are exceedingly comfortable. You Americans certainly know how to turn a dead cow into a comfortable seat in ways that us Europeans just cannot fathom for an affordable price.... I do, however, digress.

My involvement in VC was as a developer. The basis was on low-pay (I received aprox USD5000 over the course of 4 years), 50% return of profits (I saw $0 of this - it made none as far as I'm aware) and I also received 2 all-expenses paid trips to stay with Chio - in September of 2007 and 2008. You will note this was the time that new features were added en-masse and the VC Beta was initially launched. I have had the priviledge of travelling in Chio's tan Ford Expedition (which has now been replaced) and it is just as exciting as I always imagined a tank with leather seats would be.

VC was originally going to launch using a template script purchased off the internet as Bliggle (which then became Bliggo and a separate company completely unrelated). This turned out to be a steamy pile of wank and so in late '05 I agreed to start working on the initial development of VC which was finished for aprox March '06. The code then sat unused for the best part of a year whilst Chio worked on other projects - at this time all of you nut jobs were buyign ABP left right and centre. Whilst Chio definitely did not make anywhere near the huge sums projected here off ABP (that's just bullshit... I've seen accounts to know he's not got any Yachts stashed away) - it was enough that he could bring in $5k a month more than he had been doing before after expenses for paying others related to ABP.

I was originally offered to work on ABP but turned it down in favour of VC - I found the project more interesting and wanted to be behind it. I thought it had great potential and so work began... once it sat there for a year I eventually poked Chio in to finishing the web templates and then in '07 flew over to finish the site and launch it.

So whilst I was over in FL everything went fantastically - I got a crap load of dev done, the new parts of the site (person to person payments amongst them) were coded on a new .Net infrastructure over the already-now-archaic Perl one and we started taking your feedback. After I left back for the sunny shores of Blighty (some of you probably have no idea how depressing going from 100 degrees to 40 degrees is in the same waking day) I continued to provide support for a while.

Back in the UK I set up (3 months prior to my trip in '07 to Florida) a software development company that writes and sells EPOS (tills for retail shops) software and complete retail management software. As any of you know setting up a real business takes a significant investment of time - and I could not operate on the basis of no pay, yet still do all the work. I created a series of things for Chio to chase up and finalise and I would allocate 3 days a month to do my wide of it.

Things that were being worked on included:
Debit cards (fully integrated with Payoneer - but the cards have serious issues internationally, their API is more flakey and an old man's dandruff filled scrotum and after talking to their head of IT during a telco I was left pondering their most basic technical knowledge)

Moving VC's processing internationally away from US to accept other "dodgy" types of payment

Diversifying VC's portfolio to generate a return on all of your money we were sitting on

Continuing to deal with support

Paying customers

Integration with NATS so that we could actually get some market penetration (I had to use that phrase on an adult board)

Actually getting PCI/DSS acredited was quite a big one for me. That's right folks... if you check the list VC isn't on it. One person spotted it and the rest of you shot her down. I was emphasising this long before launch - along with all other legal requirements of the business. I won't be drawn on how VC was actually setup technically, legally or infrastructure wise - but it was more creative than the kind of business I'd usually like to be involved in. I'd also like to clarify that my name is on no paperwork - and I've merely worked as a contractor from a technical perspective. Point was a lot wasn't right around this. New company appears, offers to do billing. "Great!" you all said... now only a couple of people pointed out that "You agree to our T&Cs" was required - when we had no T&Cs... and I don't think a single person ever pointed out that no company called Verified Charge, Inc. actually exists. Amazing what some HTML footer will do to people. I pushed for the correct infrastructure for servers so we could have sufficient security with offline racks and online racks... and I ended up with 2 VMWare virtual servers which powered the whole lot... not quite my original request, nor compliant.

MrGuy

VC worked by generating a payout file which was e-mailed to Chio and me at the end of each pay period. Once the payout file was generated, it was split in to a wire file, a cheque file, etc. and these were to be processed by Chio.

I can promise you that every single time I heard of aproblem with payment or saw a ticket I shouted at Chio on yoru behalf. From my perspective I could see the potential in VC being dwindled and the one thing I couldn't imagine was, this early on, giving the impression (pardon the pun) that we were a bunch of pirates. I was assured, DAILY, that payments had been made. When I went over a year ago was physically, in-person, shouting on a daily basis - and was told payments had been made that day, only to see a ticket a day later. I did try for you and would refuse to work until things were sorted on many occassions.

Where things weren't processed - I'm incredibgly sorry.

There were some bugs in the software - mea culpa - but any time they were reported to me (with one exception that took a couple of weeks) they were sorted within 24 hours. I'd hope those of you who dealt with me via support know I did try to sort a lot of issues out myself - all of which was entirely unpaid on the basis that I could turn this into my baby as it had potential.

After coming back from FL last year I left a big list of things to do... and I chased them up for 2 months, and nothing got done... then my e-mails started to be ignored, along with yours. Gone had the days where Chio would call me for hours or just to talk for no reason (which generally annoys me anyway as I'm much more a fan of productivity).

A number of family issues did occur to Chio - and I will not go in to these either as I don't think it is right. I do not think they were sufficient for completely cutting off, but I also don't think my direct parents dying should distract me from work either - I can mope in my time but work still needs to get done... they are things that some people would have not been able to deal with. Due to the lack of any staffing, finances or resources and no communication with me (else I would have taken the slack) - it meant nothing happened.

During this time VC also started to bill in some very gray areas. They billed 5x a month than the rest of VC put together. Problem was chargebacks started hitting left right and centre.

The letter from ACH people you were forwarded about problems paying was absolutely genuine. This was an unexpected spanner in the works. VC suffered from this... but it was told to you all far later tan it should hae been.

In about March of this year I finally spoke to Chio, I was doing my shopping at the time in the supermarket adn got a lot of odd looks during this phone call - it was the last time I spoke to him on the phone.

VC was insolvent.... Chio didn't want to admit it but roughtly 6x more was owed than was in the bank solely due to dodgy billing and chargebacks left right and centre that could not be disputed due to their nature.

I pointed out that 1 is less than 6, and that caused a fundamental problem. I suggested the sensible thing to do was stop billing for people immediately (eventually I took the billing side down myself after not having Chio do it despite requests). The site then stopped billing.

I assume none of you got paid after this point - but I do not know as since then I've only had 1 MSN conversation and about 10 one line e-mails with Chio. I infact sent a generic "Hey hows things" when I first saw this thread... my theory was if I got a response within 3 days then I'd possibly not send this message and talk through with him first - sadly no response which has forced my hand on this as I'm not going to sit on it forever.

UK3X which some of you mentioned is nothing to do with Chio. It was an entity setup and run entirely by me. The hosting side was merely a bit of cashflow whilst the software dev for epos got established. The hosting side has actually now been shut down as it was never intende to be long running. The only affiliation was Chio provided the domain name free of charge, and hence the registration details were the same.

Chio has a great family - I think they're all fantastic (especially to put up with him sometimes lol)... and I also love him dearly. He can be a creative genius and when the mood takes him he can be one of the most productive people I know. The key words there are when the mood takes him, this may be 1% of the time versus 99% of the time consisting of smoking and phone calls and grilling burgers. They're good burgers (not the film with Keenan and Kel although that is a great stoner film considering Nickelodeon make it...) - but not enough time was ever spent running it as a business... it was more spent as a lifestyle industry that could have supported his own billing.

He has now moved away from adult and in to the financial services in a different sector - I asked for (a relatively trivial) $1000 to help develop part of system for new thing he is working on - based on the fact my time is rationed ridiculously due to other comittments anyway and VC's epic fail - after this I didn't hear a lot back.

Chio doesn't deserve your hatred... although I can see why you'd think so. It was a misguided attempt, propper business ethics, ethos, procedures, policy and management were not followed. The same applies to every one of you who signed up - don't get on your high horses when there were so many warning alarm bells on this one and not one of you did propper due diligence. I'm not defending anyone... but everyone has a degree of blame in this and it's a lot easier to blame someone else than your own stupidity. Frankly - a lot of you really are 'stoopid americans (- joke for those of you who have had your senses of humour removed).

My financial gain from this? $5k for a few hundred hours of work. My usual rate is GBP £35/hour - if you split out the hours worked I ended up with *way* less than this.

My current finances? Fucked.

I'm actually a declared bankrupt from really bad student days. For a year I didn't even have a bank account and lived out of £20 notes I kept in my box of tea (yes I'm English of course I drink tea)... after finishing all that I started my current business which is run between three directors. We all elect to put almost 100% of profits back in to business so each month I take home a whopping £750, living with one of the other directors to make ends meet. This has been the case since last October. Prior to that I took home £0 and had to crash with family for a year to launch my venture. As it stands I am still broke... I'm not going to bullshit you about my nice shiny car, my big bank balance or my huge success. I have a business that's growing in a recession and gone from £0k to £100k turnover during 24 months - I'm proud of that... but I've not got any pimpin' cars or biatches drapsed on my hood (bonet for those of us that speak correct English).

Out of this I lost a huge chunk of my time, which if you add it up and take in to account the impact it had on my other business involvements actually comes to more than any one of your individual losses that I am aware of having looked in the database. I lost out as well - and whilst several of you have been able to just chalk it up to a loss I ended up pretty fucked too.

Despite all this, I think Chio is a great person and I hope he can sort his problems out. For what it's worth his life's been pretty dicked emotionally and now financially too - you can all smile that your wishes are not in vein on that front.

For those of you who do talk to him on a regular basis on the phone (and I know who you are lol)... I'm sure one of you will mention this thread. When you do I hope you also mention that I've tried to be balanced and am doing this for the right reasons... I don't want to dick anyone over - I just felt you should all receive a degree of explanaion.

If anyone has any specific questions (not related to legal, infrastructure setup, Chio's personal life or the size of my penis... it's woefully small) - then please post them and I'll try to answer them when I check back in this thread.

On behalf of what was Verified Charge, and for my invovlement in it, I would like to express apologies to you all. I take great pride in my work, and failure is the one thing I cannot stand. VC stands out like a sore thumb of failure that shouldn't be there for me... I feel bad for how it happened and I promise you I tried constnatly along the way - and my last phone call with Chio reflected my anger and possibly why he's avoided me since (words like useless, never trust you again, unbeliavable, fucktard, etc.).

I know VC could have worked - technically and as a business model. Sadly the model in my head was not the model ever rolled out to the real world, and my attempts to fix/change it were never applied.

If I had enough in my pocket to bank roll you all back I would... but first off I need to bank roll this month's rent lol.

I hope this will at least clarify things for people... and I hope I've not dragged this up unneccessarily and someone appreciates my mini-rant.

Guy

area51 - BANNED FOR LIFE

ill have a seat right here

seeric

this should actually be a new thread.

fuzebox

Guy, just wanted to say thanks for the post, it means a lot to some of us here who have been along for the whole ride

brand0n

argh! (8 chars)

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Agent 488

good to see chio has moved into the financial services industry.

BradM

tl;dr
basically "we fucked you guys over. lol. but check out how witty I am and how much I can say one thing using 900 lines of text talking about tea and other faggoty bullshit."

there, cliffnotes for everyone

cykoe6

I am somewhat surprised that anyone trusted Chio after ABP. That should have been more than enough warning for everyone.

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бабки, шлюхи, сила

DateDoc

I wish I could get my $100 back from Bliggo

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