My Experience with eCommerceGlobal.com
I hope this little experience might save someone from making the mistake I made last fall. I hope its not too long of a post.
When ibill was unable to process last fall, I went on a mad search and found what appeared to be a good little fill in processor. Low fees, instant account creation, and i was up and processing within a couple of days. They were an offshore processor, located in the caribbean, Nevis to be exact (had to google that one), with sales and support in Seattle. They were spamming most all the adult boards at the time, so their name came up often, and no negative comments. This was in October, 2004.
Fast Forward to April, 2005, my first rolling reserve is due, they are paying normally on current business, so I simply asked where the reserve payout was. The reply was along the lines of "the bank hasn't released it and we're working on it, check back next month". Meanwhile, ibill resumes paying on current GKard transactions, after a few ontime payments, I put them in the cascade as backup against the mounting declines from eCommerceGlobal.
Forward to May, their scrub is a little extreme, and ibill is quickly growing in volume, while ecommerce rebills continue to have a really high decline rate. I ask again about the reserves, same answer.
Forward to June 21, an email is sent indicating that as of July 1, the following new fees would go into effect: Gateway Fee (monthly by ACH debit) $59, per transaction fee of .85, and a surcharge added to each transaction of $1.95 that the customer pays, but eCommerce keeps. My original merchant agreement specified there would be no gateway fee, a lower transaction fee, and no mention of a surcharge.
I asked if this fee would be waived for me, since my agreement specified the fees I would pay, and I was told that it will be applied to ALL merchants.
I had recently reached a settlement with ibill for the money they owed me, so I reversed my cascade, putting ibill first. The effect is to present customers with an ibill only join page. eCommerce was quicly becoming less important, and with the drastic fees, lack of reserve payouts and general feeling of uncertainty about them, they got demoted.
Forward to July 1, 1045pm.
Email arrives from eCommerceGlobal, URGENT. Our bank has refused to continue processing for your account, you need to sign up with a new processor in order to continue our business relationship. The email included a reseller/affiliate link to Etelegate. It was a little more elaborate than that, but thats the main thing. I had been cut off. If I wanted to be paid for the scheduled payouts for June sales, I had to complete the new account setup as soon as possible, and when processing began with Etelegate, then they would release my funds to me. If not, they will freeze all funds for a period of at least 6 months.
Through a series of emails, and a little research, this is what I found. eCommerceGlobal is not registered with a business license in the City of Seattle or the State of Washington. Their servers are located in Alabama. They continue to process for other adult clients, so it appears I'm special.
While the merchant agreement specifies they can discontinue service for any reason at any time, the only mention of a 6 month freeze is if I were to close my account with them.
The email gets more heated, the guy that runs the office in Seattle is Jerry Thompson, and he focuses on the fact that my join page does not include eCommerceGlobal join buttons or links, so he considers that a violation of the merchant agreement since I'm not processing with them anymore. Well, there are still rebills there, transactions to be processed, the contract doesn't specify new business as the qualification for processing, and of course they might still show up in the cascade, it had only been a few days.
I pointed out, finally, that i realized the reason was that I was not using them and the primary processor for new signups for various reasons, including outrageous fees, lack of payment of reserves and their surcharge. I also asked why they were not registered to do business in the State of Washington, Why other merchants were still allowed to process, Whether or not the affiliate/reseller link was for the benefit of Jerry Thompson or eCommerceGlobal, and continued to stress that they cut me off, I didn't violate the agreement.
I told them I expected payments, on time for the June sales, and I am not a big fan of civil action. However the King County Washington Sheriff and/or District Attorney might be interested to know about their business practices.
As of an hour ago, I can't get into my merchant account with eCommerceGlobal. I had the foresight to capture as much information there as possible, including a record of the correspondence this weekend. I had also cancelled all but 5 of the rebills with them, keeping a few around to keep the account from being closed for cause. They have this handy little tool to customize the cancellation emails, so I made sure to mention they needed to sign up again when their membership expires, since we're changing processors.
He did send me a final email, just minutes ago and reverted to calling me "FUCKING STUPID", and "YOU ARE SCREWED UP IN THE HEAD", disavowing any business location in Seattle and even sent a link with a revised "about us" page that has Seattle removed from it. LOL... he forgets he spammed every message board and sent press releases to every adult outlet he could find. All of those are still out there, indicating a location in Seattle. Silly little man.
Be very cautious of any offshore processor. Do your homework, so some research and save yourself this kind of mess. Fortunately they were responsible for less and less of my revenue. I'll survive and it will sting a little, but its not the kick in the gut from last fall. Never put all your processing eggs in one basket, and always have a plan for the worst case scenario.
