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Zombaio was the trading name most recently of a Swedish company called Payment Network Systems Europe AB. That company filed for bankruptcy on 16th December 2020. Foolishly they continued to rebill card holders and, I think, were continuing to accept new sign ups. Obviously continuing to trade when you are bankrupt, except under the auspices of the administrator under a reconstruction plan is unlawful. The administrators were informed on 27th January and acted very quickly to shut the website down.

Zombaio had originally been the trading name of a California company, Zombaio Payment Services Ltd. That company became bankrupt in 2014 (I believe), leaving many disgruntled creditors. They subsequently set up company in Belize, Paynet Systems Inc, which purported to be the owner of the Zombaio trading name, even while they were processing payments through the Swedish company. I have some doubts as to how easy it is to set up as a card 'payment facilitator on the basis of a company registration in Belize.

In Common Law jurisdictions, where a person acts as agent to another person, and handles money or property on behalf of that other (the principal), then they cannot use or dispose that money or property without the authorisation of the principal. In civil law terms that is the tort of conversion, which might lead to an allegation of the criminal offence of theft. Sweden is not a Common Law jurisdiction and they do not necessarily have the same concepts of a fiduciary relationship. However, I believe, there are provisions in Swedish bankruptcy law to allow clawing back of money disbursed before bankruptcy from third parties and directors where such payments were 'unfair', as well as provisions to investigate financial crime. This might possibly result in the administrator recovering more money to repay some of it's debts. It might not. Don't hold your breath.

I would guess that it is extremely unlikely that persons whose debt dates from Zombaio under the California company will stand to recover anything from the Swedish bankruptcy. They should have taken action in the US courts before. I am uncertain about the position of "affiliates" because I am unclear as to whether they have a contract with the website they are directing traffic to, or whether with the payment processor. And in any case probably before any creditor receives any payment as a result of the bankruptcy there will probably be creditors with a prior claim such as the administrator and tax authorities.

On a possibly more positive note, Zombaio's website is now gone. I have a suspicion that they were making an attempt to pull the wool over the administrators eyes by claiming that the website was a "platform" owned by a third party company and planning on continuing as they had been. Although if they had been able to conduct the business without dipping into the client account then they had a viable business which served a real need, so from that perspective it's a pity.