50 fucked up situations

Agreed.

Hence your comment about getting copied on their records is a good one.

I can totally see coming back and saying hey during Dec to Jan we overpiad we have to fix it. Or even saying hey in June 2008 we charged you 0% processing rate. That was a mistake the difference is this we'd like to clear out that amount. That's cool.

But 1 year and claiming because they JUST realized they didn't get paid fully from their partner? That's messed up.

Sorry Barefootsies. I just get so worked up on billing shit. Many of us are so helpless and vulnerable in the situation it's really sad.

I use them because I have never had one issue with them in years. Unlike CCBill which I have had plenty of issues with. :2 cents:

Good luck man, do use a lawyer like shap said if the money is substantial.

I was not happy when it has happened to me at all either. I feel the pain. Maybe not the extent a big guy like you, or BOSS would. But it is a serious pisser all the same.

No worries man. It's all good.

100 accountants couldn't have caught the error if Verotel is posting back valid signup data / rebill data, and paying out for them.

BOSS you should probably find out if you can seek damages for this... they did after all give out access to your premium material for free. Hosting fees, hardware fees, processing fees, content fees, etc... they've got to be liable for something.

You're right Shap.... I read it as he was not charged the correct % of fees for his processing.

It seems that its more of one of Verotels merchant accounts isnt paying them their monies, which would have nothing to do with Boss1. Perhaps they are scrambling and trying to find ways to not have to bite the loss on it.

Yep, got a meeting with my legal council later this week. I will keep you guys updated. It is strange that I am the only one who is effected by this.

CCBill is great if you're american and shoot softcore glamour :winkwink:

Some people are limited by their location or their content.

In case, wish you good luck bro!

My guess: EU Direct Debit has a "chargeback" rate of about 25% because of underfunded accounts, wrong account information or simply people charging back since it's one click in your homebanking software - without any discussion with the bank. and they forgot to pass those chargebacks on to you and paid you by accident the full amount. :2 cents:

So wait, they fuck up, and want you to pay for it? :eek7

That sounds very possible. Belgium (Mr. cash) and The Netherlands (Ideal) are guaranteed but German direct debits are "only guaranteed when the account has money on it".
Other countries I am not up to date with. But I believe Norway has it too.
There will be a uniformal SEPA before 2012 creating a universal guaranteed direct debit system across most of Europe which is user generated and confirmed by their own internet banking.

you are not imagining things.. or bullshitting for that matter

the exact same situation occurred with us..

we were debited retroactively, on ONE invoice
EU direct debit transactions going back months..

i spoke to Verotel on the telephone, to be fair they were helpful
and individually quite sympathetic to our situation, they seemed
rather embarrassed that this had occurred, but assured me that
now systems were in place to prevent this happening again..

it appears the problem occurred due to the failure of the German
bank handling their direct debit transactions, they paid out to Verotel
each month without declaring/noticing any subsequent cb's/cancellations,
Verotel still issued user/passcodes & paid site owners, who in turn paid affiliates..

luckily most of our DD sales during this period were generated in-house
so we refunded approximately the same amount that we personally received,
had the bulk of these DD sales been affiliate sales, it would have hurt far more..

am i a genius or what? :upsidedow

Yes you are Stefan :winkwink:
This is probably where the processor made a mistake (or was mis-informed about).
Direct debit=different per country (not the same for all of Europe)

Ma, ffs man, it's common knowledge that you're a fucken genius..

spoke to a human at Verotel about this issue, just chirping for the record :2 cents:

And how long ago did this happen to you KJ if you don't mind me asking?

if you were paid double on a payout from any sponsor (which happens occasionally) do you get mad when the deduct it from future payouts or ask you to send it back?

i know in this case its a years worth of fuckups, but at least work with them to see if theyll give you something like 50% or 75% and let off that other 25% and that way they still pay for their mistake

please explain

We were retro-debited early January on bad DD transactions going back approx 12 months

these type of cancellations occur, but they should ordinarily be auto-debited monthly
and not be permitted to build up like this.. like i say, if i was also refunding on affiliate
sales having paid out their 50%, i would be equally pissed off as the thread starter..

the point is man, what stinks here is being hit all at ONE time, on ONE invoice
bear in mind that smaller sites & programs have borderline cashflow situations,
so an unexpected debit of this size could cause them serious problems..

i see your point obviously, namely that we are only being asked to pay back
sums that we received.. my only issue is with unexpected retroactive deductions
that were impossible to anticipate based on the stats made available to me..

OK thanks. Was just curious if we were talking about the same timeframe or if Verotel had allowed it to happen again.

You are the third person I now of that has been 'retro-debited' for months worth of overpayments :(

And DMR before that for me :(

You would think there's a limitation on how long you can clawback for... but since they aren't regulated, your life is in their hands.

The amount to be paid back should be negotiated. This is there error after all. If you are a big player you have more room to negotiate a lower amount as they wont want to loose you.

if they ask for even 1 cent back
i think you should never deal with them again
they can't make mistakes like that and expect to be excused with $$$

This is not the same.....I paid affiliates thinking that the sales were legit. Why do they charge 15% processing fee?

Lawyer up!

Dear Customer..

We screwed up, we weren't watching, we didn't double-check our numbers, we didn't do this, we didn't do that...

Now we need YOU to pay for it... I know I'd be using this week to change processors.

That email should have gone something like this..

Dear Customer,

We screwed up, we weren't watching and as a result, we overpaid you over the course of the year. You pay us to provide you with a service and to provide you with accurate information and we obviously didn't do that for you. As a result, we're going to eat 50% of the cost because it was our error that created this issue and and make corrections over the course of the next year (which, coincidentally is the same time span of our mistake) for the remaining 50%....

While it sucks that there was an accounting error, I don't see how he was fucked. Wasn't he overpaid? Now they want their money back, but they are willing to take it in increments.

At least, that is how I interpreted it.

Based on what I am reading some of you believe that he should pay the money back to Verotel (and I am OK with that) but based on that theory I also assume it is OK for him to then deduct what he paid to his affiliates back from their payouts for those same transactions since they were overpaid, as well...right?

I mean whats good for the goose is good for the gander, right?


--T

Same here. I didn't have a paysite back then but I was pushing Karups hard. I believe I had well over 1000 members. That sucked.

I agree 100%. Thing is if any of these guys were his affiliate they'd rip him a new one here if he did that.

it is almost "strange" that you would be the only one. if it was a system flaw, shouldn't other companies be in the same boat now?

Also if you get paid out too much do you not notice that? I mean I know exactly what's coming to me and if it is more, then I will contact and confirm with the sender before I spend any of it.

If I am reading this correctly, Verotel reported the transactions and paid the cash for them. Even if he had a CPA doing the books, it would not have mattered - because a year later Verotel says they did not get paid on some of these transactions - and now he, not the bank doing the EU Direct Debit processing for Verotel, is responsible? If this is because of chargebacks, and those showed up in the control panel, fine - but how is anyone supposed to know that Verotel's bank is not fully paying Verotel, other than Verotel?

did you receive money that was more than your listed payout?

That is quite odd. Reminds me of how shady sponsors used to tell affiliates that a "problem with your account" caused the terrible ratios. As if the script that runs the whole program is going to go haywire in a way that targets one affiliate.


BUUUUUUUUUT.... If this is legit, he has to give the money back.

Again.... the transactions were good according to them for a year. We provided access to our members area and the custumers got what they "paid" for. Verotels job was to process transactions and let us know if they are good so we can give the custumers access.

They did not get proper information for their partners....While the affiliates got paid and so did the employees, hosting, content providers and so on.


Luckily we got Epoch and Segpay and they are the primary processors so the hit is not a knock out.

I will handle this "shit" inhouse and it will not affect the affiliates in anyway.

Because unlike other companies...namely Verotel...we actually take responsibility for working with incompetent companies.

What if something happened where you overpaid one of your affiliates for several months? Would you let them keep your money?

Thing is, it appears Verotel was the one underpaid - and they want him to make up for it based on transactions they told him were good.

Something dont seem right with this.

If they didn't notice it for a year they should eat it. Or try and get it from the 3rd party that underfunded them.

No...........

it seems a lot of you are not reading this correctly so I'll try to paint a picture.
Player 1: Boss1
Player 2: Verotel
Player 3: Bank (from what i can understand a German Bank that handles Direct Debit payments)

1) Player 1 sends transaction request to Player 2.
2) Player 2 queries transaction with Player 3.
3) Player 3 passes transaction and postbacks go through, member is added to Player 1's site access list and all relevant successful join info is posted to stats areas on Player 2's site.

Fastforward a year and Player 3 goes back to Player 2 and says, "We forgot to post chargebacks and credits to you for the past 12 months.

At this stage, both Player 1 and Player 2's books and accounting will show that the payments are correct for the number of joins. So how is this Boss1's problem? How exactly do any of you feel he should have known about this? He was not overpaid in the true sense of the word whereby he was meant to get $1000 but got $1500 instead. This is not what happened. What happened was he was meant to get $1000, and DID get $1000. A year later, the bank informs Verotel that credits and chargebacks were not accounted for because they never posted them so instead of being paid $1000, Boss1 should have been paid $500.

Not Boss1's fault, nor do I believe it is Verotel's fault, I'm just amused that many of you think he (Boss1) could have spotted something like this in his general accounting.

Fucked up situation indeed

Ibill bent me over too. I'd be very leary of Verotel. If we sent a letter like that to our affiliates, regardless of the circumstances, they'd be gone. CC merchants have us by the balls and they know it.

Cheyenne

When most people say "by the balls" they are speaking figuratively. You mean it!