Still stays the question if it's appropriate to publically blame others (your own clients btw) for a flaw in your own overpriced piece of software?

You can actually disable emails that go out by NATS including rebill emails. So that is how it could go so long without anyone noticing.

Mark

It is a common problem with any program. The program has to communicate with the billers. I'm not saying it is NATS or Xclusive Cash's fault but what I was trying to say is cooperation by Xclusive Cash would of solved this problem all together.

Mark

Oh...the advertisers on GFY is loving all this drama...August has been a great month for buying ads here...

I just read the whole complaint, was pretty entertaining - especially the part where they quote people on boards like GFY, JBM, etc...

Everyone is pointing at XC for shaving and w/e, but you know it could well have been a glitch (like it happened to many programs before) where the data was not pulled correctly in NATS thus why the discrepancy between the stats reported by NATS and CCBill.

Then NATS calls XC to tell them about the problem - XC is in his car driving from FL to North Carolina because he missed his flight due to the new security measures... He's obviously pissed and has no swift access to internet.

NATS probably goes in saying that the stats are not reporting correctly and affiliates are owed (i.e) $50k in rebills . XC goes wtf, how come your shitty software didn't work properly, wtf is going on... then NATS is all pissed off and wants to rectify the problem right away and wants to adjust the affiliates stats retroactively right now so the affiliates stats show the missing rebills right away.

So XC tells NATS... hey hold your fucking horses, I want to check what's going on - wtf the affiliates gonna think if we do that, don't do fucking shit right now let me think this thru first on how to handle this (and it's his own prerogative as it is his own program and wants to handle shit in a proper way (and most importantly HIS way since it's HIS program).

Then shit happens, NATS is all pissed and is swift to make a comment on the boards because he's offended and doesn't like the fact that XC called them out on their shitty software not reporting the stats correctly - and NATS is all proud to come here and make a statement to get some fame from the community implying they're stadning strong to defend the affiliates against shaving and what not.

It was not NATS place to do what they've done and announce it publicly on forums that quick without waiting a bit to see how things would turn out. A cockfight took place (imho) between NATS and XC when the fuckup was announced to XC by NATS on the phone.

Thats pretty much the way I see it.
From their posting on the boards the NATS guys are pretty cocky and
easily throw shitty remarks when it comes to their software. I think the post
in question was made by someone that had his ego hurt.

As for XC not commenting on this issue I think they just followed the good
advice they received from their lawyer.

Or Nats hurried to be the first to make a post about it so xc can't publically call themout on their flaulty software. We don't now... and probably never will.

You could be right but that is a lot of assumptions based purely on speculation.

I think an equally likely scenario is XC getting caught red handed, NATS needs to make a statement before XC makes one trying to turn the tables, and then XC sues for a huge amount to make them look innocent...know that it will never go to court.

One thing I'm not familiar with is if Nats runs off the client server or NATS server. If it runs off the client server it COULD IN FACT be tampered with. As most of you know a lot of Bluewire's business is in the internet software industry. And I hate to admit it; but our encrypted software with remote nuking can be tinkered with by someone with strong enough skills.

Now, would that be worth it to a company like XC? I sure hope not
Also, I will note, XC is being represented by Robert Apgood, who has represented Bluewire in the past. He's one of the best from what I gather. I dont see him taking a case that was just a scare tactic.

Anyhow, the point of this ramble is that we JUST DONT KNOW ENOUGH YET

They are probably bluffing and are hoping to settle out of court... :2 cents:

whoa :eek7 :evil-laug

:1orglaugh

GFY is public, just as any restaurant you'll walk into, they might be privatly owned, but as the public has free access...

I am not going to get into this debate too much, because I do not know enough about what has gone on 'behine the scenes'..

As a program owner (granted, a very small program at the moment), who is planning to move to a nats based system in the very near future.. If I were in xclusivecash's shoes I would:

- Have been pleased that TMM contacted about the problem.
- Have been very pissed off that affilliates we being screwed.
- Wanted to work with the guys behind nats to resolve the problem.
- Contacted all of my affiliates and explained the situation.
- Made a statement on the boards that something had gone wrong and affiliates would be compensated.
- NOT verbally abuse the people who are trying to help me.
- NOT take my software provider to court, when I should have been double checking my stats myself anyway.

As far as I can see, TMM were within their rights to suspend the nats license, nobody should be subjected to verbal abuse and if someone my company deals with abused someone working for me, I would never deal with them again.

As for the public statement TTM made, it DID NOT say that xclusive case was skiming/shaving - it stated they had found that the numbers did not match. the is a VERY big difference between a fault with software and a fraud.

Reporting between billing companies and affiliate programs is far from perfect, problems with connectivity etc play a big part (I know this from dealings with mainstream companies). It happens, but can be resolved. From what I have seen the only reason it was not resolved quitely was because of xclusive cash's bad attitude.

they wont get 5 million, those numbers dont add up.

XC was never given the chance to do any of that because of the cocky, mouthy, egotistical person that owns the company.

I really doubt they will get anything... I don't know much about US law, but from what I have seen they don't have a leg to stand on.

The only true fact that CAN'T be disputed is that affiliates were not paid reagrdless of who is at fault.

The most important thing as of now for XC to do is to spend a couple of days and cross reference each rebill from CCBill with each affiliate that has not been paid and pay them.

Back in 2005 when we discovered our glitch, the first thing we did, was find out who was not compensated and pay them what was rightfully theirs.

Step up to the plate XC and do the right thing for your affiliates then let the courts decide who is at blame if anyone at all is.

John might have jumped the gun a bit by coming to the boards but at the same time you are at fault if you have not paid affiliates for rebills now knowing they have not been compensated fairly.

All this fuss over such a small affiliate program.

This is all true and I agree with you to an extent. However TMM has made it very public that they will make info public if they feel a program is using NATS to cheat affiliates. So programs know this going in.

So IMO it's common knowledge that when you buy NATS if you are caught cheating you will be outed. Now I totally agree with the fact that if this was the only time they tried to contact XC about the issue, then they shouldn't have gone public that quick.

However from insider posts, it seems that they were contacted well before this and choose not to fix the problem. So if that ends up being the case, then I think NATS was right to go public, because if they didn't and it was made public by some other party, well then NATS rep would be hurt.

thats a lot of cash

"caught cheating" is one interpretation of events. I am not talking about playing favorites. I am talking about how a court of law will percieve this and how it will be argued before a judge. NATS is not judge, jury and executioner and the prudent thing to do would obviously be to go through a warning process to the company in question and then disable the account. Its not the place of NATS to make this public.

i can state that i will make it public that you have sex with minors if i suspect you are. doing so would definately be actionable and have direct, negative consequences to your business. what i think or believe or feel or suspect has nothing to do with the simple fact that it can be argued that damages arose as a result of my actions.

the simple issue is is there an argument that NATS was negligent in their behavior and caused damages to the other company. it doesn't matter how many times anyone contacted anyone, what amount of time elapsed between contact etc. its all 100% irrelevant to whether or not damages were caused to company XYZ as the result of their actions. there is no solid reason to argue that NATS HAD TO GO TO A PUBLIC FORUM to post this information. there is a solid argument that damages were caused as a result of that action. it will probably even be argued that NATS did so out of self interest and to continue to promote their own "you can't cheat NATS" software.

this is all good and sweet until money question pops in, imagine your tracking/accounting software tells you there was a mistake occuring for the past 6 month and now YOU must pay overdue balance, how would that feel? especially if you don't have control over software & it's maintenance.
the court will determine who will pay those missing rebills - that's my understanding in a nutshell.

They may well say this upfront but that doesn't make it so they are exempt from a law suit if they actually do it.

Goddamned right that's likely the reason,, that prick has an ego the size of fucking Montana & goes around like his shit don't stink!! His staff is just as fucking bad.. cocky, mouthy, rude arrogant smug motherfuckers!

you are serious?

even if the NATS software was completely fucked the only one who is responsible for paying affiliates what they are owed is XclusiveCash - let's be totally honest here - this is a small program, they receive checks from their third party processor(s) and they also pay out their affiliates - program owners know roughly what % of their sales go out to affiliates - XclusiveCash should have known that something was amiss and investigated and they would have found the discrepancies on their own - they are either running a business half asleep or stupid or ..............

programs should be checking their numbers with the processors and not just blindly accepting the numbers NATS is reporting - i'm sure most do this - because the discrepanices could work in the affiliates favor and you'd be just giving away money.

From what I read in the court papers XC knew NATS had a rebill issue with ccbill in the tracking software. They stated various instances on various webmaster boards regarding such issues. So my question is why didn't XC get a hold of TMM to get NATS fixed?

Right

Wrong

I wonder if XC is the only nats based program with the rebill hiccup rolling atm? I push a lot of programs using nats and I never notice anything odd, but now the question is there - Now we get to wake up, check our favorite programs stats and go hmmmm I wonder if CCbill and Nats are tied in today :Oh crap

Page 17, starting at point 87 ;)

Mutt, yes XC is responsible for paying affiliates, XC dependable on Nats and Nats is responsible before XC for tracking and accounting(some sort). Nats disables access to admin XC so XC cannot pay even if wanted to do so, am I wrong?.

As I agree with you on checking discrepancies in numbers that everyone should check their numbers, generally discrepancies are unacceptable especially for any sort of financial transactional data/software. you dont think a company providing backbone transactional feeds to walll street wont get sued for false data statements?


at this point no shaving was proved - there is no hard evidence except a suspicious drop of a phone call - this is what was fed to public. i'm almost well sure TTM wouldn't start shit for nothing either. abviously anyone caught in shaving is a done toast in this industry. XC has a right to protect its business with legal action considering it was locked out of their biz and no ability to fullfil even curent payouts not to say able to check for rebill discrepancies. unfortunately affiliates will have to wait untill smoke clears before seeing money - if XC wasn't shaving the damage has been done to it and it's affiliates.

:2cents

Going to have to agree with you 100% on this one. I have no love loss for TMM. I have had my own personal experiance with them that was not good. I'm not going to get into again cause at this point it's water under the bridge but there is no way I would ever work with that company again.

As part of its lawsuit pending in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, Naked Rhino will be taking the appropriate legal steps necessary to compel TMM to reactivate the NATS software for Naked Rhino for the purposes of determining monies due to affiliates so that they may be paid. Naked Rhino has never stated that it will do anything other than determine what is owed and get it paid. As a result of TMM's improper and unilateral action, Naked Rhino is completely unable to access its records to make an accounting that would enable Naked Rhino to pay its affiliates amounts currently due and owing to them.

"Send lawyers, guns, and money"
- Warren Zevon

Looks like a lot of money is going to get spent before it is all over... and a lot of disclosures made public and permanently recorded. And egos put in check by the check book.

Been there done that and still paying attorneys for it.

George and Lenny decide to cross North America in a hot air balloon. However, neither were particularly experienced balloonists, and Lenny's mind quickly drifted from navigation to thoughts of how clouds look like cuddly little bunny rabbits. Upon realizing that they were lost, George declared, "Lenny -- we are going to have to lose some altitude so we can figure out where we are."

George lets some hot air out of the balloon, which slowly descended below the clouds, but he still couldn't tell where they were. Far below, they could see a man on the ground. George lowered the balloon, to ask the man their location.

When they were low enough, George called down to the man, "Hey, can you tell us where we are?" The man on the ground yelledback, "You're in a balloon, about 100 feet up in the air."

George Called down to the man, "You must be a lawyer." "Gee, George," Lenny replied, "How can you tell?" George answered, "Because the advice he gave us is 100% accurate, and is completely useless".

The man called back up to the balloon, "You must be a client." George yelled back, "Why do you say that?" "Well," the man replied, "you don't know where you are, or where you are going. You got into your predicament through a lack of planning, and could have avoided it by asking for help before you acted. You expect me to provide an instant remedy. The fact is you are in the exact same position you were in before we met, but now it is somehow my fault."

As far as I know, that statement is not true.. I already posted this once.. the data is accesible.. through the sql database.. Just takes half a brain to read it..

So you're trying to say if I lease a program from some company and violate their terms of service. You are going to say that company wouldn't have the right to suspend my license and make a public announcement that they had suspended the license?

That's pretty much what happened. If XC broke the NATS license agrement by using the software in a means that it was defruading affiliates then they have every right in the world to suspend that license. Even if XC didn't do it on purpose but choose not to fix it TMM could still suspend the license.

This is quite comical. You obviously have no idea about Mr. Apgood's extensive computer programming and software background. I assure you
he knows what he is talking about. Moreover, it is not he, but Naked Rhino, that would require the knowledge you so casually assume everyone must have.

No not really. They should have notified XC of breach in writing with a period to correct. You say, 'If XC broke the NATS license', and that says it all. There's a fight right there.

We can argue all day about their rights. In this case it's getting them sued. I think there's a case to answer. There are ways to do things that don't get you sued, TMM skipped that class apparently.

I cant read through 5 pages of this - Can someone post a link to the full complaint?

Thanks

nevermind

TMM has already stated on more than one occasion that they will reactivate nats so that affiliates can be paid, as long as lawyers are present

why is no one hearing that?

I like clouds that look like cuddly little bunny rabbits...

ADG Webmaster

WHAT? Thats who I was talking about.. Naked Rhino.. they can get the data if they really wanted to.. Want me to prove it? Give me access to their database ;)

jesus, isn't anyone hearing what has been said??

TMM already stated MORE THAN ONCE that they would gladly open up the NATS admin with lawyers present so that affiliates could be paid

why isn't Naked Rhino even trying to do this? hmmmmmm...

Exactly jace! But what Im saying is.. they dont even need it.. if they wanted to be hard asses and not contact TMM.. fine.. just look up the damn data themselves.. it CAN be done.. nats isnt needed to do it.

Probably because until an attorney says it and a judge agrees with it and the motion is filed and order granted there is not much to it other than potential spin doctoring.

Interesting read.

I don't even know where to begin commenting on this.
What I do know is that it seems NR is more concerned with trying to sue for 5 Mil so THEY can get money instead of worrying about their affiliates getting paid money they have already earned. Whether they shaved or there was a problem with Nats their first priority should be to make sure they pay their Affiliates.

If NR would have made a statement like this I would have a lot more respect for them and I believe there would have been no damage to their company’s name.

"We are having a problem with Nats. It was a software glitch that we were unaware of, and it is currently being investigated. I assure you there was no shaving and if there was unreported income due to our affiliates because of this glitch it will be paid once we figure this all out. For now Nats has been shut down so we can't pay our affiliates, but we will work this out as quickly as possible. Sorry for the inconvenience."

Instead they decide to sue, which in this case seems a bit much.

Oh yea. Congrats to all the winners........

The lawyers.