Having spoken with Howard in-depth about Paymonde shutting down, and having interviewed him several times for AVN Online, I feel pretty safe in saying that he is not the kind of guy to take the money and run.

The threads on the GFY board are putrid. Everyone talks as if this was planned from the start.

People don't usually set out to swindle people. It's not like Paymonde's bank losing its acquisition rights is something that Paymonde could have controlled. OK, so they weren't totally upfront toward the end. It happens. Bill Clinton didn't tell the truth about his blowjob in the beginning either. Oh well. My feeling is that they were hoping for some kind of resolution to keep them from going out of business, and were trying to hold off clients until they knew for sure.

I also know that for most of their time in business, Paymonde actually paid out a week in advance of their due dates. They treated their customers pretty well.

I just think it's so funny how everybody always wants to assume the worst of others so damned quickly. I think that actually says something pretty profoundly telling about the people doing the assuming, rather than the company going out of business.