The Life Of An Entrepreneur....You Get Punched A Lot!
17 years of doing things a certain way online and then....Poof! Things change...
Welcome to being in business for yourself and the roller coaster ride that is entrepreneurship!
Today I discuss a major change in the way I have to conduct business online after a certain payment processor decided to shut my account down after 17 years of being a customer.
No recourse. No appeal. No ability to recover my funds.
But alas....
The writing was on the wall and my business partners and I were semi-prepared for it. It's going to be a rough few months for us but thank goodness for...
Crypto :)
Crypto is going to change EVERYTHING about sending and receiving payments online. And the best part is, crypto can't 'shut you out'!
It's the better way to do business online and for me, a no brainer....
The centralized good ol' boys are getting scared. And for entrepreneurs in this space, it's an exciting time!
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Sounds like what happened to me a couple years ago with PayPal. No good reason and no way to appeal it. They even locked up over $24,000 of money and held it hostage for 6 months. Good news is that better and better options are becoming available thanks to crypto.
Yup that's the company that shall remain nameless LOL 17 years of being in business with them and then just poof....No recourse. No explanation. But I agree. The opportunities for real payment options are here with crypto.
My partners and I are already developing some awesome API's for accepting crypto with our products and services. Gonna be rough for a few months, but I'm more excited about the future than ever before.
I was wondering. Sorry to hear that man. But it sounds like you already have some plans in the works. It’s often setbacks like this that push us to where we want to be.
Oh I agree. I'm not even trying to be hype-hype when I say I'm more excited than ever. I almost feel like it's a ball and chain I got rid of. Literally for 17 years, I always wondered if they would shut me down....Just cause of their track record of crushing online businesses. Meh.....Forward we go :)
If that had happened to me I would have been so frustrated, I can imagine how that must have been, not a great experience at all, that's way too much time to allow someone else to hold on to your money without getting a return. Basically they got an interest free loan from you.
Absolutely
Crypto will be the great evener....
Super post!
Followed
Appreciate that. And I agree. It's how business will be done online going forward.
Indeed
OMG, they finally caught up with you?? You guys have been flying under the radar for so long. Was it stemming directly from one of the traffic exchanges? Coupled with the Payza fiasco...crypto is the way to go now. (Sorry...but not sorry, right? ;) ) Ellyn
Who knows. We assume it's because CTP is linked but they didn't say and refuse to say. Just a simple "You are done and that's it"...lol . We kinda knew this would eventually come knocking at our door because of their ignorance but alas....It still sucks.
We've got the plans in place to move forward with our in house processor as well as the crypto stuff we're messing with :)
Gonna be rough but we'll get through it!
I am wondering though...is it legal to hold your funds without any explanation or justification? I mean, you cannot refuse that is absolutely in their right to deny their services to somebody but keeping somebody's money is something altogether different!
The fact that they have been known to hold on to other peoples money for lengthy periods of a time was the first turn off I had from them and that was way back around 2005 when I sold something on ebay and they decided to hold my money for 30 days even though I had already sent the item, they have been doing it for years.
Hmmm...perhaps for eBay they can be justified in doing it because of the money back guarantee they give to customers. The guarantee, if I remember correctly, extends also to not be satisfied with the item..etc.
I suppose it was a good idea at the time and they meant well, however it still does not justify holding money which is not rightly theirs, if you are running a legitimate business or selling to the public there are all ready laws in place for guarantee's, refunds etc.
Oh they will say...You agreed to our terms and we can do whatever we like. What's sad, is that we're not the only company that has had this happen to them. Scary how much control one company has...
Jon, I don't know of course the money involved, and if it's worth it, but have you asked for a legal advice?
Even contracts can sometimes be void if they don't take into consideration the interests of both parties. I am not a lawyer, of course, and the little I know is from Cyprus law...which was based though on English law.
We're thinking about it. But honestly, they have much more powerful lawyers and could out 'counsel' us anyday.
Yes, that's true! ...it's a battle that even if you win, the victory could prove to be a Pyrrhic one! I mean financially.
This happened to me with one of my sites about 18 months ago, I spent nearly a full day sending emails back and forth to their management and the replies and response I was receiving back from them was nonsensical, I thought maybe they just have a poor management team, however looking at the bigger picture and knowing that they had already shut down at least a dozen other business accounts in our community I figured they have an agenda they don't want to share or talk about and so instead of accepting it as the paypal slap I accepted it as a blessing and glad to be free from such. Onward and upward.
Yeah it's insane. No reason at all and just one swoop they basically took away income from 3 families. No regard at all. If we did something they didn't like, all they had to say was 'change this'....You'd think after 17 years we were owed at least that much.
I would have never expected these kind of actions from a well established company and the fact that you can't recover your funds is shocking. By the way they never held my funds or anything they just asked me to remove the api and paypal logo from my site. I still have an account with them which I no longer use. I would look at the paypal agreement because the agreement protects both sides (usually). I don't think they have the right to keep or confiscate your funds.
They have this fancy part of their terms that states they can do whatever they want with your account. Shut it down at their own discretion.
Problem is, we agree to it when we sign up.
But you'd think after 17 years...A simple email to let me know what made them SO UPSET would have been the least they could do. But nada...Nothing. Just we're done and I can't do a thing.
It's a blessing in disguise though. We've already moved forward and while it's going to be rough, we have plans in place. Never doing business with PayPal or Ebay ever again. And will make sure I spread the word on how little they are to be trusted.
I wish you guys well, it will probably be bumpy for a while. But if you keep developing the crypto API, that would be awesome (if it's your first API I know of, more cryptos supported would be a great idea)!
Thanks man. Yeah I agree. The less we rely on one company especially when it comes to our livelihood, the better.
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Jon, You are taking it much better than I would. I wish you all the best of luck with trying to get your accounts back.
I agree, crypto will be the future. What that looks like in a year, 5 years or 10 years, who knows, but it is here and it is staying.
Become an investor in the exchange and get dividends. Better than Binance. Already Open!!!
https://goo.gl/DMbMmF
Flagged as SPAM.
Thanks @rok-sivante This guy has been tagging my posts lately and I tried to flag as well. Sad that this is even a thing on Steemit :(
Sad to say, it’d probably been getting worse as time has carried on, with no practical solution in sight being discussed or implemented... :-/
I hear ya. Only so much you guys can do, but we do appreciate your efforts to make this place as clean as possible.