gamecock
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posted on September 30, 2000 10:38:44 PM new
These payment services are popping up everywhere...
I don't know about this one... Just got spammed about it. (and no I didn't sign up using thier referral link either - I reported the user for spamming me.) Anyone tried this one yet? They have $10 referals. Other than that, they look like a Paypal knockoff. The services and fees are almost identical to Paypal. Is this one legit?
http://www.paymentalt.com/
They do have a nice looking banner, but it's not Ebay compliant:
<IMG SRC="http://www.paymentalt.com/buynowsmall.jpg">
Enough is enough. How many of these companies can stay afloat? I'm not going to leave my money sitting in any of these services. And with paypal/x.com's recent actions and disasterous PR problems, I'm even beginning to wonder about them...
[ edited by gamecock on Sep 30, 2000 10:40 PM ]
[ edited by gamecock on Sep 30, 2000 10:45 PM ]
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joemama13
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posted on October 1, 2000 01:01:34 AM new
I don't think this one is legit... like you said, they are very similar to PayPal including using some of their terminology, like Web Accept, which would be some kind of trademark violation. Also, their page is poorly designed, they have no information about their funding and no executive bios. I would strongly urge you not to give these guys any of your information.
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gamecock
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posted on October 1, 2000 01:28:40 AM new
Oh, don't worry. I didn't sign up. I had the same bad feeling about this one... Looks kinda shady to me too...
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uaru
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posted on October 1, 2000 06:02:27 AM new
I signed up with so many services I've forgotten some I signed up for! I'm not signing up with any new payment services for awhile just because they are coming to fast and furious and most have nothing you can read up on them in any news source. PaymentAlt.com is one someone else will have to evaluate, I glanced at the web site, some scripting errors on the site for me (first warning). I notice they state they are 'international' but I see no explanation on how they work that (second warning). International payment is going to be a difficult manuver to pull off with exchange rates and the increased chance of fraud, so I was curious what methods they were going to use, no mention what so ever.
If someone does check them out I'd like to hear more about it, but it can't be from someone that just joined the message board 5 minutes ago 
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gourmand
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posted on October 1, 2000 11:26:43 AM new
I'm very glad to see more and more payment service appeare now. It will let me have more choices to accept payment. Also will help PayPal to improve their poor custom service, otherwise they will die very soon.
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joemama13
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posted on October 1, 2000 06:50:37 PM new
uaru -
is someone's opinion not valid because they just recently joined? is that your attempt to stimulate membership and get people to post? I was trying to contribute but will not do so any longer until i have been here a while so my opinion become valid. thanks for the feedback.
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auctionee
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posted on October 1, 2000 07:05:47 PM new
joemama13 -
I don't think uaru's post was directed at you nor do I believe it was meant to be derogatory to any new users. I think it had more to do with the people (trolls if you want to call them that) who have a tendency to post positive comments on these boards in an attempt to promote a service they either own or are affiliated with. I think everyone would agree that those posts are not the most credible.
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yisgood
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posted on October 2, 2000 10:08:11 AM new
Be very careful. This one has no info about how they plan to proceed. I emailed them and got back an immediate reply from 'customer service' (not even a first name) that did not answer my specific questions except to say 'we will follow standard regulations' whatever that means. I once had a thought. If you were a credit card thief and wanted to get thousands of accounts handed to you on a silver platter, all you had to do was start a paypal-like service and offer a referral fee.
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joemama13
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posted on October 2, 2000 10:34:01 AM new
DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR INFORMATION! Go to the "Customer Entrance" and try to log in. It will give you an error message saying login is broken. I have no doubt that they are collecting the information for fraudulent purposes. They have just built the front pages of the site and do not have a real site. Who do we report them to to get them shut down?
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uaru
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posted on October 2, 2000 10:35:48 AM new
Joemama13 is someone's opinion not valid because they just recently joined?
Yes, at times some posts are invalid. I'll offer you a prime example. Look at this thread that made a query about "Achex". In less than 90 minutes one person made an inquiry about a service nobody had heard of and 2 people that had just made up AuctionWatch accounts immediately give it glowing reviews based on actually experiences. Yeah, right!
http://www.auctionwatch.com/mesg/read.html?num=41&id=792&thread=779
Out of curiosity I checked to see how many were offering this amazing service that came out of the blue. At the time of the original post one seller was offering it as a form of payment.
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yisgood
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posted on October 2, 2000 10:41:10 AM new
As a seller, I have used achex about 6 times so far. It was the smoothest and fastest. Money was in my account in about 2-3 days. Because it uses checking account and not CC, I dont have to worry about charge backs. So why wouldnt someone give it a glowing recommendation? I joined after I saw that other post.
Are you complaining about the speed with which the recommendation was made? I lurked on this site for a while until I saw a post I felt I wanted to answer. Then I joined and made my first post. Does that make it invalid? For the benefit of those who don't know the rules, how many minutes, hours or days after you join do your posts become valid?
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joemama13
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posted on October 2, 2000 10:43:29 AM new
that's fine, but when someone makes a valid point (like I think I did), they should not be looked down upon. Did I say anything here that's not true and helpful to other users? Take a further look at the PaymentAlt site. In their terms of service, which must have been stolen from Payment, they have information about Verified vs. Unverified users. DAMON - You may want to pass this information on to get these guys shut down.
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uaru
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posted on October 2, 2000 10:50:35 AM new
Are you complaining about the speed with which the recommendation was made?
Okay, keep in mind this original post on Achex was made July 14, 2000 04:02:41 PM
The second post came on July 14, 2000 04:38:35 PM the account was created July 14, 2000 04:35:12 PM. The third post came on July 14, 2000 05:09:09 PM from an account created at July 14, 2000 04:49:52 PM.
I guess I'm suspicious when at that time the service was unheard of. So yup, given the situation of things I didn't give those validating post any credence. I'd have loved to see the originating ISP of the first 3 posts also. A tool I can employ on the usenet but not here.
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joemama13
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posted on October 2, 2000 10:53:26 AM new
uaru -
you still did not address my last point. should someone be looked down upon who posted valid comments, whether the person is new or old?
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uaru
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posted on October 2, 2000 11:10:46 AM new
"...should someone be looked down upon who posted valid comments, whether the person is new or old?"
99.99% of the time I have no idea how many posts a person has made or how long they have had an AuctionWatch account or care, but when they are praising or condeming a service it does carry some weight with me.
When I said I'd like to hear more about PaymentAlt.com from someone that had been a member for more than 5 minutes I was referring to the shill post that can and do come at times. I think I demonstrated when I referred to the 'Achex' thread from July 14th.
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joemama13
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posted on October 2, 2000 11:32:37 AM new
so answer me this... were my comments not valid? are you saying this is a real service and people should go sign up? don't you think it is better to be careful and warn our fellow board users not to sign up than keep this preposterous notion that you are the only person who can decide who is valid to post and who is not? are you the posting police?
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uaru
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posted on October 2, 2000 11:44:52 AM new
Sorry if my posts have confused you. I personally don't think PaymentAlt.com is legitimate. I went so far as to contact their hosting service and expressed my doubts on that and why.
Did my first post in this thread look like a recommendation to PaymentAlt.com???
are you the posting police?
No. Are you?
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joemama13
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posted on October 2, 2000 11:48:49 AM new
I am not the posting police, meaning i am not disparaging other people's posts unless they are commenting negatively on me being a newbie here and now on the comments i am making. and i think not recommending a company like this is not enough. it is our responsiblity to protect our fellow, less-informed comrades on fraudulent businesses by not being passive about letting them know. we should not just ask about a business we think is not legitimate, we should yell that people should take care not to enter information yet. i hope in the future you will consider the content of a message and not disregard it because the poster has not posted many times.
- Joe
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auctionee
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posted on October 2, 2000 12:02:50 PM new
That's odd...I just called both of the phone numbers listed on the website and didn't get an answer at either one, during normal business hours even.
I also find it interesting that they use a $99 a year web hosting service to run this kind of business.
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uaru
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posted on October 2, 2000 12:18:28 PM new
"I also find it interesting that they use a $99 a year web hosting service to run this kind of business."
Sort of like a bank with a trailer hitch on it? The web hosting service was a VERY bad sign, I send the hosting service some email with some other concerns on PaymentAlt.com but I've yet to hear back from them.
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abingdoncomputers
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posted on October 2, 2000 12:21:05 PM new
99.99% of the time I have no idea how many posts a person has made or how long they have had an AuctionWatch account or care, but when they are praising or condeming a service it does carry some weight with me.
Why should it matter if a poster signed up 5 minutes ago or 5 months ago? If what they have to say is interesting or relevent to the current topic, I want to hear it. Then I can evaluate what they said along with what everyone else says and form, change, or confirm my own opinion. What's wrong with that?
If this thread had not been started by a "new" poster, I might not have been clued in to this "new" service. Now I am.
And while we're on this subject, here is my opinion of trolls: I could care less. Some of the most interesting and informative threads that I've read on these boards were started as "troll" threads. Even so, I have learned a great deal by reading these threads. I say keep 'em coming!
Thank you gamecock!
Edited for speeeling
[ edited by abingdoncomputers on Oct 2, 2000 12:23 PM ]
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uaru
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posted on October 2, 2000 01:13:09 PM new
"Why should it matter if a poster signed up 5 minutes ago or 5 months ago? If what they have to say is interesting or relevent to the current topic, I want to hear it. Then I can evaluate what they said along with what everyone else says and form, change, or confirm my own opinion. What's wrong with that?"
Okay, one more time... I wasn't directing my comments toward anyone in this thread that posted before OR after me. I was making light of situations that have occurred were a service was mentioned and suddenly out of the blue new members sign up and give glowing reviews of the service. Such as in this thread:
http://www.auctionwatch.com/mesg/read.html?num=41&id=792&thread=779
One of the beauties of the usenet is shill post are much easier to spot, they aren't as easy to spot on this message board, but sometimes through carelessness or recklessness they are spotted.
I issue a blanket apology to any new members that felt I was directing my earlier comments toward them. And to those trying to make a mountain out of a molehill, keep digging.
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joemama13
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posted on October 2, 2000 01:22:07 PM new
No need to dig this mountain any further... just wanted to make my point... apology accepted and i offer one to you as well UARU, if I got out of line...
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abingdoncomputers
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posted on October 2, 2000 01:26:28 PM new
uaru:
I read the thread referenced above the first time around, and I enjoyed reading it. You didn't offend me by the way. I enjoy reading your posts very much. I don't agree with them very often, but I do enjoy them.
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gamecock
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posted on October 2, 2000 02:52:09 PM new
For the record here folks:
I'm the originator of this thread.
I have been signed up with Auction Watch for a while now. (March 14, 2000) I have 2,800+ feedback on Ebay and have been an Ebay seller since October of 1997 and sell under other user names on many of the other auction sites. I might not post here a lot. I mostly lurk and learn.
I like to offer all available payment options for my customers, so information like this is interesting to me. I got email spammed by someone with thier referrel link to this service. Out of curiosity, I went to the site to see what it was about.
I thought it might be of interest to those here, so I posted it. I thought about putting it in the other thread: "list of payment services" but I thought it would be buried in there, so I started a new thread.
I mostly lurk here and in the Usenet newsgroup alt.marketing.online.ebay. Occasionally, when I find something useful, I'll post. I have learned a lot of useful information from these boards.
I just wanted to clear up any misconception in this thread that am a new user who had just signed up to promote that service. I have serious doubts about paymentalt. I posted here as a warning about them just as much as anything else. I wanted to find out if anyone had heard anything about them.
Also mentioned in this thread: Achex. I really like Achex. They must use the same bank as I do because the money always shows up as available funds in my bank account within 24 hours of the customer paying. I have 2 or 3 customers per week wanting to use achex. They should come up with an auction banner - I would promote them in my auctions.
gamecock
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joemama13
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posted on October 2, 2000 03:06:19 PM new
Gamecock -
I just want to thank you for alerting us to this. It is important that we all take responsibility for making sure everyone is safe.
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abacaxi
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posted on October 3, 2000 05:48:04 AM new
I have serious doubts about ANY business that commits a crime while building its site: The TOS and several other pages were copied 100% from the equivalent PayPal page, with only a substitution of names. Last time I checked, that was violation of copyright and worth $50,000 a pop in federal court as well as gounds for having the pages yanked by the ISP (you can VERO another company)
They are either totally clueless or to damned cheap to hire a writer and a legal counsel and come up with their own text.
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yisgood
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posted on October 3, 2000 01:23:59 PM new
This site and domain name are registered for one year with a "cheapo" service. It was opened on Aug 24. THe only contact name is one guy with a yahoo email ID. This whole thing screams "fraud" to me. I hope no one gave him their credit card info. Is there a place where you can report suspected fraud to be investigated or do all these agencies only wait until a real fraud occurs?
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