Forum Moderators: buckworks
I do Auctions sometimes through eBay and have accepted PayPal for years. I've never had a problem with them. So I decided to use them for my online stores as well. Since they only charge 2.9% and you are able to withdraw the funds immediately. That's what I have liked about them.
But then just last week eBay canceled a bunch of my auctions claiming that they violated there anti-nude policy or something. I am a photographer and yes some of my work consists of artistic nudes like many other photographers. But they are in no way "adult or sexual". The funny messed up thing is that ebay has an entire Section in there Art- Photographic Images - Nude category. This photographic nude category has over 600 current auctions that all show full nudity. Yet somehow it is not o.k. for me to sell my artistic nude editions in this same category that everyone else is selling the same thing.
Anyways on my photography site I have a few of these same pieces for sale as well along with hundreds of other regular non-nude photo editions. Everything from nature photography to landscape and fashion etc.
After 2 weeks I just finished a completely different site that has Only 100% non-nude, non-edgy, non-sexy walmart family friendly art. I put up the code and everything for all of the hundreds of products on this site to go through to paypal and used them for a shopping cart. Then I launched the site and advertising for it last night.
This morning I got an email from Paypal saying that they froze my paypal account and put limited access on it because my photography site had "nude" images on it and accepted paypal.
I took those images down temp. and replied to them. Hoping that they will lift the hold on the account. Telling them that I did not violate anything as nothing I have is "sexual" in nature. It is just nude art.
But anyways, after doing a search for PayPal alternatives I came across a bunch of very disturbing sites about them and all of there lawsuits. They come up at the very top when googling Paypal.
I was shocked to find out that they have a problem with artistic black and white nude photography but have no problem with doing transactions for Online Gambling!
I was also surprised to find out that they freeze over 2000 accounts per day an usually never give the money back from them. They seize the money. I'm sure glad that I had just emptied my account with them before they did this and only had a $2 balance remaining.
Here are some of the most disturbing ones:
[emediawire.com...]
All the other sites can be found in Google or you can Sticky me for all of the links...
So anyways, based on all these stories I have decided not to accept paypal anymore and look for another merchant processor. I just don't know which ones are the best and most trustworthy. There is the 2checkout.com but they charge 5.5% of the transaction. Way more then paypal. Any other lower % ones you would recommend?
Thanks.
I don't see anything like that. Except for 2checkout. But I heard that they close and seize people's money whenever they want for any reason as well and have the same clause in there sign up that you are agreeing that they can do this whenever they want. It really is a wild west scam out there with all these 3rd party merchants. I never had a problem with CCBill, they were great. But cost 14%.
Propay I believe you have to type in your customers credit card information for them on your member login area. That doesn't sound secure. And then you have to wait 2-3 days to find out if it was really honored by the credit card provider.
There's got to be something out there decent. I would think...
Also, Note to the moderater - I'm new and missed that there is another forum on these boards that this Thread is more appropriate for. The Ecommerce Forum. I didn't see it before. So if you want to move this thread to that forum, please do so.
I use this service for my membership purpose (www.terracro.com) and advertise payments for over 6 months and newer have a problem. I can recomend it for anyone you can check and apply on :
[ikobo.com...]
you forgot to mention ikobo website states it accepts mastercard - an outright lie.
That they do not answer emails.
That they block accounts
That they spam forums pretending to be happy customers.
That their are some extremely negative things said about their service on a large amount of forums. Excluding of course all the first time posts spouting how good they are.
suggestion for anyone considering ikobo - do a search for ikobo scam or ikobo fraud and make your own minds up - remember to disregard any 1st time posts.
As I said I didn't have any problems with Ikobo, yes some mails was slow (4-6 days waiting for answer) but allways solve my issues. Even now i have members and advertisers who payed thrue Ikobo without any reported problem.
Maybe it is just pure luck or low transfers thrue my Ikobo account (around 80-100 $ monthly)but i cannot confirm any of that mentioned scum or fraud. I entered that in Google and readed some posts to forum and most of them are waiting for I-Kard or talking about some guy from Georgia and 8000$. And after reading many of the forum posts i found that nobody did lose money, they received I-kard and again using Ikobo as payment service. Maybe you did jump to conclusion?
Well at the end sorry if I was wrong with them with this post, but once again it works for me.
Finaly read in my oppinion best decribe of current Ikobo status :
HERE [www.]
If you wish you can contact me on ICQ on 76051494
I personally do not know why your trying to defend an outfit that has such poor practices. They have nothing but problems and their support is a joke to a point where a lot of people just throw in their hands and lose their money.
for anyone else my advice is avoid them. At the very least research and make up your own minds.
Basically my advice is never beleive anything regarding third parties that has been posted on forums unless its by a long standing member.
This is common practice amongst third parties to make first time posts recommending their own product and masquerading as happy customers.
jfkcro - I am not directing this at you. You just unfortunately fall into the same suspicious categorie as numerous other posts that have a habit of doing this. ie - first time post reccomending a third party and claiming to be happy with service.
Check with other forums and you will notice patterns showing its usually the same few people doing it. especially with ikobo.
Ok, I have read a lot of "horror stories" and people drowning in a cup of tea over the anxiety after "not receiving the money" etc.
FIRST: Most of this anxiety is due to wrong wording on Ikobo's site and emails, in my humble opinion. Users should be aware that there are some delays involved (specially if it's the first time someone received money and hence an I-Kard (Visa Electron card) and the card's PIN must be sent to him via courier service (UPS) and e-mail respectivelly. In my case it took three weeks for the Visa Electron card to arrive since the first money transfer, and it was delivered by UPS from Georgia, USA.
After that, every time someone sent money I usually got the money credited into my ikobo account in 48-72 hrs.
About bad wording ("instant" when it isn't so), and delays:
For instance, the company has added a host of anti-fraud measures, and when they accept a transfer, the emails and web pages wrongly indicate that the money "has been sent" (and the person who sent the money thinks the money has been sent inmediatelly).
...But the money is actually not credited to the receiver UNTIL THE SENDER VERIFIES THE TRANSACTION. To do this, the sender has to check their online banking or credit card and take note of a random small charge made by Ikobo, then go back to the Ikobo page and enter that "random small amount". Once that is done, the money is credited to the receiver.
Ikobo does this to make sure that whoever sent money with Ikobo is the actual owner of the credit card and has access to the credit card's (or bank account's) online reporting, and it isn't some stolen credit card. I can't blame Ikobo for this, it adds security for both the sender and receiver.
SECOND:
As a writer, I have exchanged a few e-mails with the company CEO, Mr. Emeka Ohuche, and every time I encountered some problem and hit some dead end (like customer care not replying to my emails), I found him to be a very responsive and caring person, that ultimately got my account problems fixed.
Unfortunatelly it seems the company has growing pains, and some of its employees seem to be plain incompetent or overwhelmed by work (I've been sent carbon copies of emails sent by the company president to the employees, and sometimes it took two days to get a reply, both myself and the company head!).
I also helped them identify a couple problems with their systems' design. For example, it was possible and VERY easy to inadvertedly kill (block) your own account. If you selected "add a credit card" and proceeded to enter your Visa Electron I-kard number, the account was automatically auto-blocked... by an anti-fraud routine going wrong.
They have fixed the problem, and it took them a week to figure what was wrong and why the system was auto-blocking my account automagically every time they tried to re-enable it.
Here is the e-mail of the company president, and nother employee that took some of my suggestions about their system's design:
They even ended adding $50 into my account due to the hassles and interruption of service.
"Ryan Davison [tech guy]" <rdavison@ikobo.net>
"Mr. Emeka Ohuche [Ikobo President]" <eohuche@ikobo.net>
One of the things they should do is implement a system to MASS-MAIL their customers about system updates or service malfunctions. For instance, I wasn't aware of the problems with Mastercard cards, until I contacted the CEO. Why didn't they simply send an e-mail to all of their active customers saying "we're sorry but Mastercard cards will not be accepted on Ikobo for the next xx days. We're working to resolve this... etc etc "
Now on the bad side:
They have recently (last 15 days) have had to annoying problems:
-They have suspended accepting Mastercard cards to send funds. They say this will be fixed in the next 15 days.
-I started noticing that amazon.com stopped accepting my Ikobo visa electron card for online purchases. I started getting "DECLINED" transactions when attempting purchases, but there were plenty of funds into my Ikobo account. When I once again approached the CEO, I was told that Ikobo has currently suspended accepting online purchases billed to Visa Electron Ikobo cards.
So basically currently the Ikobo card is only good for extracting cash from ATMS, but not for making purchases online.
This, imho, might be due to VISA regulations, not Ikobo. I think Ikobo originally stretched the visa regulations too far. There are two types of debit cards, ONLINE cards, and OFFLINE cards. One type needs you to type the pin# on every purchase, the others can simply be swiped through a reader and the funds are automatically taken from the account balance.
Other services like epassporte.com issue TWO different cards, an "online debit card" and an "offline debit card". Ikobo attempted to use a single card for both online and offline transactions and I guess this has raised a red flag with VISA, and in turn the bank used by Ikobo must have been yelled to by the VISA folks for breaching their card issuance terms.
But this is just speculation on my part.
When I asked the Ikobo ceo about what will happen with Ikobo cards and online transactions I was told "we MAY enable online transactions again for Ikobo Visa Electron cards in the future, but we can't give you a date".
Having said that, with all these limitations, Ikobo has worked for me. I give the low-rank and tech support employees a LOW SCORE of 2/10. The top management, however, was always very responsive and accepted my POLITE complaints and suggestions, and I give them a 7/10 SCORE.
Why are you trying so hard to defend them?
unlike yourself I have nothing to sell and do not care what company people use - however as a long time member here I feel I owe it to other members who may have been good enough to help me in the past.
BEWARE!
That is my point to you also!
So... when do we get to see these pics :)
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Actualy, I'm looking for a paypal alternative at the moment. [paystone.com ] looks intresting, but I don't know much about them beyond their website.
