posted on August 27, 2001 09:12:18 AM
Last year I had a buyer who up and paid me with something called eCount without asking. I looked into it, and basically, it's like Paypal, but they give you a mastercard number so that you can spend the money in your account online. If you want to withdraw it in a lump sum, they charge you out the wazoo. I figured what the heck, I can use the mastercard number to pay my eBay fees. I have, as best I remember, about $10 left in there. I had forgotten about it until I got an e-mail from them today, informing me that they had changed my account number because they suspected that it had been inappropriately accessed by a third party. The e-mail said that they had verified that there had been no actual fraudulent activity on my account; this was merely a security precaution. I tried to log in to check things out, but I got an "Invalid User ID/Password" message. It says to call a toll free number if you have forgotten your password or user name. When I called the number, I got a recording telling me to enter my PIN number. When I didn't enter anything, it hung up on me. Has anyon else had any dealings with this company?
posted on August 27, 2001 10:07:28 AM
Ecount has been around for a while. The few transactions I had with them months ago went smoothly. What I didn't like was the somewhat deceptive hype. They started out by offering $10 for opening an account. I advertised "pay me with ecount and get $10 back." No one got it. Then without any warning, they changed their terms to "spend $30 at one of our partner sites and get $10." I didnt like the idea of sending MY customers to ecount so ecount could send them to my competitor's sites. Then they started charging for both the payment and the withdrawal, but the site still said "free." You didnt see the charge until the very moment you actually made a payment or withdrawal. That's when I stopped dealing with them altogether. Since then, I havent had anyone ask about it and havent seen any seller I deal with accept it.
posted on August 27, 2001 11:07:18 PM
I dropped them when my referral bonuses NEVER showed up in my account with them---very, very early on---and they ignored my emails. I'm surprised they're still in business.
My advice to you is to forget about your $10 balance with eCount, make no attempt to reopen your account, and register another CC on eBay to pay your bill, if you have to. If they have permission to access your bank account through electronic transfers, tell your bank to block them. Write the money you have left there off on your income taxes as a business expense/loss and don't look back.
