I got a check from iBill today |couch|

Greenguy,

It is great to see the people at iBill are back in business. It appears that checks were sent out in the beginning of January to everyone.

Cheers!

The date on mine was Jan 14th or something like that. I have no idea what period it covered & I only got one (I'm signed up to a lot of iBill programs & most owe me money)

I guess we're in the old "Wait & See" mode now.

You got an ibill check? Wow. I hope I get some. They last time they paid affilates was for Sept 15.

Ramster,

New Revshare checks have been sent out, that is the good news! If you log into ibill, you will see the following messages:

RevShare Payout Check Dates 12/08/04 & 12/22/04
Please be advised that the RevShare payout for check dates 12/08/04 and 12/22/04 was processed and paid on January 5, 2005.

The statement for these check dates is currently visible in CMI. RevSharers can go to the Accounting section of CMI and select check date 12/22/04 to view the details of this combined payout.

Payout Update
iBill continues to make substantial progress and we are close to putting our September 16, 2004 problems behind us.

To this end, iBill has obtained an investment from a New York fund management company. We received the first $2 million installment this week.

It is our sincerest intent to ensure all of our webmasters that are processing with iBill are kept current on funds owed going forward.

For Wednesday, January 5, 2005, the following payouts will be made:
12/08/04 RevShare Payout

12/22/04 RevShare Payout

For Tuesday, January 11, 2005, the following payouts will be made:
12/15/04 US Payout

12/19/04 EU Payout

So no word on the money from October & November? Nice.

ditto that...

I had early on in 2004 earmarked my Oct. and Nov. checks to pay for the construction of a 2 car garage... doesn't look like I'll be breaking ground on that this Spring without the Oct. and Nov. checks...

grrrrr...

~Bell

They now have the attention of main stream newspapers [19th of January]:

http://www.newyorkdailytimes.com/home.htm?m=ibill and get compared with Emron...

Great, just we need Gearge.

I haven't received any of my checks yet. Being in Canada I expect it later as the admin does show a check so there is hope. (3 checks actually from various accounts)

Ibill: sex, lies and credit cards - a must read for peeps involved with them
 

webby posted this link on another board and I thought it contained enough relevant information to post here also

talk about to-the-point reporting .. I think that reporter must be from texas! lol

anyway, heres the link:http://www.oregonherald.com/home.htm?m=ibill

that article is wild, I can't believe any professional reporter would write something like that...hopefully it will result in a bit of publicity and maybe, just maybe, ibill will take it as incentive to start paying out their webmasters!!!

cheers,
Luke

yes, quite eloquent wasn't he lol

talk about shooting from the hip!! ;)

I wouldn't say it qualified as objective reporting. And while the reporter goes on about how they did a lot of "investigating" it's very light on for serious facts.

Nonetheless, I finally did some checking on my iBill affiliate accounts. Up until now I figured it was like Globill and I just had to write off the small amount of money owed when it first went pear shaped.

Still, the rebills have kept coming in, but I haven't had a check from them since 22nd Sept 2004 and I now have a few hundred dollars that are owed me.

GG said he got a check from them the other day. Hopefully the usual airmail delay will explain things and I might see some of my money...

To my knowlege, there have been two payments since Oct 1. One in mid december, and one around the 5th of January. The claim is that the 5th of January payment was a 'current' payment and that they were going to work on staying current.

There was nothing said about old monies that were owed other than there were monies that were owed.

While significantly different than the pump n dump of websitebilling or globill, it does have strange parallels with some of the backchannel stuff.

The downside is that the longer it takes, the more their customer base erodes, the fewer transactions they can blend to keep a reasonable chargeback ratio. This means scrub gets turned up, and its harder and harder to push sales through until one day, not enough transactions can be pumped through, the bank closes the merchant account, the funds are held for 6 months and then released -- usually to an offshore bearer share entity.

Enron kept the balls in the air for quite some time too. :)

Funny how that "reporters" name doesnt seem to exist anywhere else on the web

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Lawrence+Kiminski%22

Weird article... leaves himself open for charges of only giving half the facts the way he goes on about all the poor mom and pop businesses being hurt... I doubt that angle will bring a lot of support if the public read it as mom and pop porn operations.

This article states the following:

"Initially respected, iBill has become the most reviled, despised, mistrusted, and suspicious companies on the Internet, with business practices reminiscent of Nazi Germany".

Comparing iBill with nazis? Interesting comparison. Exaggeration is fun sometimes, but that is just silly.

I've not been paid by them since Sept., and I can no longer login to cmi, either. I use roboform, so I'm not hosing up the login attempt.

It says I am an invalid user.

CCBill checks came yesterday.

iBill checks, which usually come on the same day, did not come yesterday or today :(

I get my ccbills check every week. I STILL have not received any checks for ibill.

Well, I'm glad I didn't have any joins throught their processing..

What I don't get is WHERE does ALL the money they charge and rebill every month go? Seriously? WTF does it go??????? Old money I understand. But new customers billed this month and last are charged. Where is it???? |angry|

I have two theories:

1) they set up a new merchant account with the same acquiring bank that CCBill uses. In addition to the 10% rolling reserve and the fact it was public in the processing community that their account was terminated with FirstData, there may have been a hold placed on the initial money. I've heard, but not been able to confirm that two board members were silently replaced about the time they were applying for the new merchant account.

b) there are a number of newer 7 series Bimmers and Merc SLs in the parking lot.

Lots of questions Sparky. It makes people afraid to trust any processor. Wouldn't it be nice to get a co-op type thing going with a shared merchant account used by trusted programs?
hmmmmmm...

Is Ibill going to make another US payment?
 

It's been almost a month since the last one. Currently the CMI says 'we are not in a position to ... blah, blah, blah.

I would like to see some of what they owe me before they file for bankruptcy. Has anyone tried using a collection agency? |pink

"The 01/01/05 US payout, 01/05/05 EU payout and past due EU reserves will be funded in January. An update on payout dates will be provided on January 11, 2005".

January 11? Unless iBill is located in a very distant time zone, January 11 is way gone. What a great scam. They can continue rebilling for ages, and apparently they have no intention of paying anyone. |shocking|

They can ONLY rebill accounts that have not been canceled. I calceled ALL my rebills with them and have started over with CCBill. If I had the $$, I'd hire a lawyer and sue the pricks.

What about hiring a collection agency? Any thoughts on that?

According to a survey by the Commercial Collection Agency Section of the Commercial Law League of America, the probability of collecting an overdue account drops to 73 percent after just three months, to 57 percent after six months and to only 29 percent after one year.

Although collection agencies charge between 15 to 50 percent of what they recover, you still end up with more than you probably could have collected on your own.

:D

this is in the new york times, not sure if anyone has mentioned it yet, sounds more like the writer is personally involved rather then just reporting though.
http://www.newyorkdailytimes.com/home.htm?m=ibill

So much for subjective reporting. He really took the piss on that article.

... and they really deserved to get pissed on. They are fucking criminals.

I can't believe they are still pushing their gkard SHIT.

They still owe me 30k, which is probably not worth a lawyer's time, or mine, since the lawyer would probably pocket 90% of it, assuming he/she is successful.

I am going to try using a collection agency. I probably won't get any money, but at least I will know that someone is hounding them every day.

Assuming I DO get my money, I then plan to sue them in small claims court for the collection agency fees.

This article is really interesting. It is a bit of a read, but it is worth it:

Business Wire

There is some positive news, though not much:

"Further, and as represented to IBD by Penthouse International, Inc. ("PHSL") (the parent corporation of iBill) in January 2005, iBill and First Data reached preliminary agreement, subject to definitive documentation and general releases, to settle disputes related to deposits held by First Data. The parties have exchanged drafts of a settlement agreement and are negotiating the amount of compensation that iBill will receive"

IBill
 

Sorry to be kicking a dead horse, but has anyone heard anything about this?:

iBill Announces $41.6 Million in Client Payments in Cash and Term Notes; iBill Settles With First Data Merchant Services

Some webmasters are beginning to receive payments, according to an article in today's issue of AVN Online

I got an email 2 or 3 weeks ago because I have a processing account with them (even though I don't use it) that said we (meaning those that have processing account thru iBill) would be getting payments shortly.

As far as when they'll actually pay webmasters is unknown to me.

I'd love to get the money I'm owed. I'm only a lowly affiliate but if an ibill check arrives for what I'm owed there'll be a new bigscreen tv I have my eye on in my basement the next day. ;)

When I first started I went with IBill. Mainly they offered to wave the visa sign up fee at the time. It was a total nightmare. Configuring the billing pages was not a smooth as i had hoped. Not to bad mouth them, this whole thing was out of there control. I explained to my rep that I had to leave them and could not be sitting around waiting an hopping the court cases pan out. I felt so bad for the guy, you could tell he was fanning back the flames all day. I did not have much in the line of money that they owed me. Only like 1k. Of which I have to say was a major major pain in the ass to get from them. It trickled into my bank account on a monthly basis @ something like $5.00 a month and all it did was screw up my balence as after 3 months and going with ccbill I totally forgot about them, so i was always asking my self where this $5 bucks came from in the account. But according to the rep he was hurting most of his clients left and he was also looking for a new job. When I went over to ccbill they streamlined my sign up because I was with IBill. They wanted all IBill customers and were doing everything they could to make the transition smooth and fast. If you could show them past billing history with very little charge backs they could have you running in about 2 days. Anyway it would be nice to see that company stay around but from all the paperwork I read. I think the bank they are going up against just has the means of pushing this case back and back to the point where Ibill will either shut down, or just reopen as someone else.

Used to use iBill but bailed out with them a year go when I ran into major problems. I use CCBill and they have been wonderful. I hope they never have problems.

notice that that article doesnt mention that the bulk isnt going to be paid until two yearly installments starting in May 06

According to this, affiliates will not be paid directly. It seems like the programs that utilized iBill will get a fun job in making payments to webmasters all over the place.

http://xbiz.com/news_piece.php?id=8528

Do sponsor webmasters even have the necessary information they need to do that? My guess would be no.