June 1, 2010 - 11:17am
Ecurrency services come to the light and go to the dark over
and over again diversifying the scene of online payment industry and
illuminating the Internet with the bright flashes of their ups and downs. It seems
that another payment processor is going to leave its customers out of their
pockets and go dead. Starting middle May users of StrictPay are reporting the
problems with the withdrawal of their funds from the system. The company has provided
a number of explanations all of which contain virtually the same information:
it has encountered unexpected investigation related to unnamed merchants that
practiced illegal activity and thus the main bank account of StrictPay where it
holds most of its money was frozen. This, apparently, led to that the system failed
to process all withdrawals in time. But many facts and users’ complaints
suggest that the problems StrictPay is suffering are more serious than they are
presented by the company and that the losses are inevitable.
Ecommerce-Journal decided to start its independent analysis
of the situation. We studied many complaints and different views of observers
who often suggest very reasonable and much likely scenario for the following
aftermaths with the StrictPay problems.
Customers are worried
As soon as customers started experiencing problems with
withdrawal they began bombarding the Customers Support team of the company by
all the thinkable and unthinkable channels that in any way connect them with the
StrictPay staff. As it is usual the case with the firms that experience bad
times the support assistant tried to downplay the seriousness of the issue and
evade the honest acknowledgement of StrictPay’s insolvency and incompetent
approach. Here is one case:
Operator: Brent
Company: StrictPay
Started: 12 May 2010
21:29:45
Finished: 12 May 2010
21:39:35
7angels:
hows the progress of
withdrawals?
Call accepted by
operator Brent. Currently in room: 7angels, Brent.
Brent:
hello 7angels
Brent:
did you receive the
recent email?
7angels:
no i have not but
someone replied on my ticket he said that it should not take 10 days but its
the 9th business day today and tomorrow is the 10th day, i withdrawn last may
1st until now i have not received this is kinda frustrating since i needed the
money
Brent:
if you requested on
the 1st friday would be the 10th business day, please remember the day of
request does not count.
7angels:
i have requested 1st
of may its saturday, so the business day counts on monday correct? so 3rd of
may the date now is 13th of may so its 9th day
7angels:
so its 8th day now?
Brent:
correct
7angels:
so you mean tommorow
if its the 9th day and i still have not received it then i still have to wait
for monday?
Brent:
you should have it by
friday as that is the 10th. business day. i apologize for the delay however the
current delays should be resolved within the next 60 days.
7angels:
ok i really hope that
it wont take up to 60 days. Sorry about the frustration but its that its very
bad timing, i can wait of course i could wait there is nothing i could do but
wait but i really need that so i hope you guys understand and hope this should
be fixed.
Brent:
we appreciate the
understanding.
As you can see the operator tried to shift the focus to the
customer’s inability to discern the idea of what “business days” are. And it
was only later when the operator became so kind as to explain that the company
is ‘resolving’ delays. Well, it is obvious that the people behind StrictPay try
to play on the ignorance of the users and thus to prevent them from getting at
the roots of the things. The fact that this user never got his withdrawal
processed the 10th day supports this view:
and so the 10th day
has pass and have not receive anything, its Saturday now and probably no
business transaction will be made so have to wait on monday again. But the
important thing is that they have failed what they have promised. So guys be
very careful as of now.
Stupid or too clever
staff
Having accumulated loads of user complaints StrictPay was
absolutely obliged to give any official explanation to what is going on. Here is
what it said on May 21, 2010:
Many of our customers
have asked for more specifics concerning our banking issues, and this email
will serve as an update concerning those issues. For the duration of the issue
described below, we were instructed by our legal team that we could not comment
on the situation.
Recently, two of the
major merchants that accepted StrictPay as a payment option were being heavily
investigated by the authorities, and we were pulled into that investigation as
well due to them accepting us as a payment option. During this investigation,
the bank and the authorities were not allowing us access to our main reserve of
funds until we could prove that we were not affiliated with those two merchants
in any way. Our portion of the investigation is now over, as we have proven
that we were not affiliated with either of these two programs, and were only
one of the many online payment options that they accepted. The banks are
needing the final paperwork to be completed, and then within the next 30 the 45
days they will be releasing the funds to us again. The entire time this has
been going on we have still held to Panama KYC guidelines, and no customers'
secure personal information was compromised, with the exception of some
specific information we were required to release concerning only those two
merchants' StrictPay accounts. We are glad this is finally over, and we look
forward to getting back to business as usual very soon.
During the course of
this investigation, we added some options (check by mail withdraw, zero bank
wire deposit fees, and ACH deposit options) to give our customers as many
alternatives as we could during this difficult time period. We still expect the
time frames for withdraws to not be ideal until the banks release all of our
funds, but our funding department will be using any funds we get to process all
withdraw requests in the order they are received. We hope that this update will
give everyone a little more clarification on our current situation, and we appreciate
your patience and understanding during this trying time. If you wish to have a
current pending withdraw canceled, so that you may use the funds in another
manner, please submit a support ticket from inside your StrictPay account (at
the Communications link), and someone will be able to help you with that. And
as always, thank you for choosing StrictPay as your online payment option.
Either the company is indeed staffed with unqualified
personnel or it is just a mockery thrown by fraudsters as a farewell to their
victims. The letter is full with contradictions and strange things.
The investigation much promoted by StrictPay as a terrible
incident that occurred to their firm and that prevents them from serving their
customers sounds, looks and appears very very strange. As we know StrictPay is
registered in Panama. We also know that mostly this payment processor was used
by online investment projects, take Genius Funds for example. We know that the
investigation and the ban orders against the Genius Funds were issued in
Canadian provinces. So, if among those two unnamed merchants there is Genius Funds
there is a question arising: why are those payment processors that are registered
in Canada not investigated? Why do they still seamlessly serve their customers?
It should also be noted that StrictPay has never been a preferred payment
option for merchants and investment projects. It has always come as an
additional option along with other ecurrency services. Add one more thing to
this fact: many investment projects that offer StrictPay as a deposit option
are registered in other countries than Panama. So why is it that those ecurrency
services that usually come with StrictPay are not investigated by authorities
of the whatever country? And where was the investigation actually launched?
The second part of the statement looks much ambiguous
either. It is strange that in the environment of uncertainty when the company
experiences the real problems with withdrawing customers’ funds it is
introducing new Funding options. In normal business environment a company with
a qualified staff and well-planned strategy is expected to close further ways
to enter money into its accounts if it cannot guarantee the return of these
funds. As you can see StrictPay in a bold and unworried manner launches a
No-fee promotion to attract more funds inside the system. Here is what users
think about it:
They announced a NO
FEE on all bank wire deposits, which is not a good timing since they are still
having problems on their withdrawal system," its like you are asking again
for money where you cant even pay" pls. as of now dont deposit yet until
they have fixed their withdrawal problem. This is not a good sign if you all
noticed. Again i am not here to accuse Strictpay I am here to alert everyone
after the things that have happened I am just concern with others who have
already lose.
When a self funding
processor drops their fees to nil - one has to wonder about the cashflow.
StrictPay are slow on all withdrawals - and have been for some time. Sending
more money their way is not a good answer.
only excuses and no
timeframe to completion. Hope They are not going to disappear like a SCAM. I
asked for 1400$ withdraw.
However, combining the
fault of process of pending payments, the "no fees" offers, and the
new ACH deposit option - it seems like SCAM.
Say good-bye
On May 29, 2010 StrictPay provided another clarification
which cancelled its previous optimistic views on the situation when the company
expressed its euphoria caused by the nearing end of the legal issue:
We want to share more
details concerning our current banking situation, and some changes that are
going to be occurring due to that situation. It appears that the authorities
and the bank have not come to a complete understanding as we thought they did
previously. The bank is still holding onto our funds, and they are no longer
giving us any concrete time frame for when we can expect them to be released.
We have some funds in other bank accounts, but the majority of the funds are in
the bank that is currently not allowing us access to our funds, and it appears
that the situation may not be completely resolved in the near future. We
understand that many of our customers have questions concerning this situation,
but for the integrity of the investigation, and for obvious legal reasons, we
cannot go into any details at this time. We believe that one day we will be
able to speak about the whole situation, but until that time we just cannot.
We shall overcome ONE DAY! Yeah, much like in a folk song. Remember
that post “Stay on the line, your call is important to us until it is no longer
important to you”? The explanation of StrictPay sounds much the same: we will
provide you more details after you become absolutely indifferent to what is
going on. First, it said that everything is okay and FINALLY OVER, then a
support operator says the delay will be resolved within 60 days, now there is
no “concrete time frame”.
The latest letter of StrictPay offered so called solutions
to the existing situation. One is better than another:
1. Cancel all pending
withdraw requests, and all funds go back into customers' StrictPay account
balances
2. New withdraw limits
for each different withdraw option we offer
3. Remove the current
time frames for withdraw requests
4. Introduce the new
average time frame tracking option
There are new withdraw
limits in place for each different option we offer, and you can view these
limits by clicking on the Withdraw link and choosing each option. You will also
notice that on each page we have replaced the expected time frames with the
current average time frame for that option of withdraw. We cannot know if the
time frames on withdraws are going to be days, weeks, or months, but at least
we wanted to give our customers the option of monitoring the time frames as
they gradually trend towards improvement. Our funding department will then
continue processing withdraw requests in the order they are received as funds
become available to us, and this also gives all customers the option to use one
of the many exchanger services that accepts StrictPay to withdraw their funds
if they wish.
They cannot know if it will take them days, weeks or months
to completely disappear with users’ money so customers may only wait the day
when they will be able to say last good-bye to their funds.
All the problems with StrictPay are crowned with that no
merchant and no exchanger is accepting this ecurrency. Customers can neither
purchase something with StrictPay units on their accounts so as to make these
funds liquid in any way nor they can exchange the ecurrency for other units or
cash. Here is what the AurumExchange person said:
I agree that no
exchanger in their right mind would touch them. I know at least of two
colleagues that are stuck with large quantities of SP at the moment, and have
been trying to sell it for a long time at 0% with no results. This was
obviously before this last news release, and while I can appreciate that the
company is trying to keep their customers informed as per current events, I am
sure SP exchangers are not amused by these emails as it must be hurting their
business tremendously.
We were considering to
start working with them a few months ago, for both exchange and instant debit
card load. Thankfully, we didn't.
Here is what one user said after the introduction of the
above mentioned new limits on withdrawals:
Well i have received
that news too, i was a little bit excited seeing it on my email tellin me that
i have received a funds from strictpay, i thought the funds was debited on my
card. lol such a shame that i have to withdraw it again because they returned
my balance to my account because they have limited the withdrawal request to
$200 for -10-15 days (cant remember) oh my this is really irritates me, i want
to get my funds out of there so i quickly find an exchanger, exchanger.org and
almost all of the exchangers that accepts strictpay from the past put it on
hold. Geez i also tried using it to buy a dedicated server just really want to
get the funds out and make use of it before its gone, but almost every
merchants who use strictpay does not accept strictpay anymore. Too bad i have
no choice but to withdraw it again on my debit card. Oh well.
Conclusion
So what do we have now? Here you are:
·Don’t-know-when-ending investigation
·Strangely introduced new Funding options with no
optimistic withdrawal prospects
·No merchant accepting StrictPay
·No auto-exchanger who exchange StrictPay for
another ecurrency or cash
·Don’t-know-days-or-months pending withdrawals
Are we just exaggerating the facts? Are we just trying to
sex up the information? Just read the forums where users are talking about
their real problems with a hope to see their money back. Just try to see the
illogicality of what StrictPay is saying to its customers and decide for
yourselves what this company really is: a scammer or a victim…