Stormpay: WHERE DID THE FUNDS GO??????

Latest communication from 12DailyPro confirms suspected Stormpay misdeeds and leads one to doubt the credibility of anything Stormpay has to say about itself or NETIBA (yes, they are indeed one and the same.):

You have received a message from 12DailyPro:

We wanted to take this time to update everyone on the status of the program and the recent happenings. We know you are all anxious for information. We have spent the entire day trying to forumlate the best strategy for how we deal with the current issues facing the 12DailyPro family.

1. Stormpaydid finally respond to our attorney's request for information. They informed him that the reason they have suspended our account was at the behest of their bank. This is completely different than the reason they released to the Stormpay members, being that they were concerned about autosurf business models.

2. Stormpay also made additional false statements in their email to users. The email claimed that we refused to provide information on our business model. This is false. Mr. McConnell of Stormpay fully understood our business model from the day we began processing transactions with them, in May of 2005. In fact, Mr. Connell just this past Monday asked if he could fly down to meet us and explain why we should choose StormPay as our only payment processor. And as we posted in a member news item a a couple of days ago,

Mr. McConnell blatantly attempted to blackmail us by threatening to freeze our account if we did not remove our other payment processor within 45 minutes.

3. We have also become aware of some very disturbing news about Stormpay, including the fact that they have a very negative rating with the Tennessee Better Buiness Bureau, with dozens of claims against them. They company was also issued a cease and desist order by the State of Tennessee for financial related misdeeds. Stormpay has also begun randomly seizing funds from user accounts, and are currently not honoring some users withdrawal requests. We believe that this is for the same reason they refused to release our funds, because they do not have the funds.

4. In a conversation we had with Stormpay and their attorney this past Monday, Mr. McConnell revealed to us that Stormpay acts as a lender, which is not what they state in their terms of service.

He went on to exlain that they money in users accounts in not ompletely backed by real funds. When I inquired where all of our funds were, he changed the subject

5. At this point, it seems that Stormpay may have begun to randomly refund some members money. Unfortunately this puts us in a very difficult situation. As they have blocked us completely from access to our account, we have no way of knowing who is receiving refunds and who is still owed.

They are creating a situation by where we cannot accurately determine which pending withdrawals need to be cancelled because they have already received refunds from StormPay. In essence they are creating a situation by where they are spending our company money at their own discretion and not providing us with the information we need to meet our obligations to all our members. If indeed our account is frozen, Stormpay should not have access to spend those funds until after an investigation is completed.

6. That said, we are actively trying to determine what legal actions may be at our disposal to try to retrieve our funds so we can issue refunds to all members with any pending withdrawals or active upgrades. In order to insure that as many people can be paid as possible, we will only be paying refunds, not any surf earnings or commissions. At this point with Stormpay holding our funds, we are unable to provide a time schedule for this refunds.

7. Until that time, we will continue EMO payments as we are able starting with the oldest expirations, this would be members who chose to receive their previous E-Gold payments to EMO. Again, we cannot promise any timetable on how fast this payments will be made, but know we will make them as we are able.

8. You will notice that we have suspended new membership and upgrades. We need to take this time to focus on solving our issues with StormPay and getting you all back the money that they are holding under false pretenses. We will continue to update you here as we have more information.

Admin 12DailyPro
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I believe it is time to file with Attorney General of Tennesse and the feds. Funds not backed by real funds? Like - WHERE DID THEY GO?????!!!

Every single Stormpay member has to ask this question: WHERE DID MY FUNDS GO????!!!

Stormpay publishes libelous and self-indicting statement:

I received the following email from Stormpay today in which they make scandelous and libelous (as well as completely unfounded) statements against traffic sites, and then go on to use their statements as justification for interfering with the legitimate business of hundreds of honest venues AND freezing monies belonging to HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of stormpay members.
You can read their statement and make your own decisions. Keep in mind that Stormpay is a PROCESSOR, they are a holding pen for funds only. It is their duty to hold our funds and then transfer them from our account to whomever we choose to transfer funds to and then back again.

The only way a processor can legally freeze any account is ONLY after a complete and thorough investigation has been conducted involving A SPECIFIC COMPANY OR ORGANIZATION and wrong doing has been legally established without doubt against A SPECIFIC COMPANY OR ORGANIZATION. You cannot simply blanket apply a vague statement or suspicion against multiple sites claiming they all somehow violate Stormpay's policies. Stormpay has not conducted any thourough or conclusive investigations into ANY of the sites it targeted and then froze.

It is interesting to note that they targeted high-volume venues in which large amounts of money moved quickly between the members and the site. The fact that they froze large volume accounts indicates that funds are not available as they should be.

Every venue and member affected by Stormpay's irrational and uncalled for actions recently should be calling for an audit of Stormpay to determine why they are suddenly freezing accounts.

It is also interesting to note that the owner of Stormpay has indictments against him and Stormpay by the State Of Tennessee for fraud, scam and Ponzi and that they themselves operate a Paid to Click/Surf program within Stormpay itself.

This is an exact reprint of the article sent to Stormpay members 02-03-06:
StormPay Inc. Important message from StormPay Inc. Fri Feb 03, 2006 6k

Dear StormPay Member,
Please read this news update as it contains important information concerning your StormPay account as well as spends from your account to the Auto-Surf industry.

Traditionally auto-surf is a traffic exchange industry as to where persons gain traffic credits for promoting their URL (website address) in exchange for viewing websites offered by others. Any monies taken in on these types of traffic exchanges are normally for upgrades to have your URL (website) shown at a higher rate of exposure. For an example of how a true auto-surf works, you can visit http://www.autohits.dk/ or other sites comparable.

Paid to click, or Paid to Read types of sites are normally where an advertiser pays to have his/her ad displayed and the end user gets paid a portion of the advertiser dollars for clicking on and reading/viewing the ad. The end user who is being paid for reading/viewing the advertisement does not spend any monies to participate. An example of this type of service is StormPay's own StormClix where participants are not charged to view advertisements and are rewarded an account credit for viewing the advertisement.

It has recently been brought to the attention of StormPay Inc. that the current rash of new Auto-Surf and Paid to Read accounts are NOT operating in the traditional manner. Further investigation by both StormPay and other outside investigational organizations/law enforcement agencies have have drawn early conclusions that these types of programs are nothing more than well hidden Ponzi or Pyramid schemes. While many of you may not agree, or wish to agree that these programs or illegally operated ponzi's, there are many facts that that are unavailable to you, or that may have been hidden by the operators of these programs. Please note that StormPay's user agreement has always banned merchant accounts for these types of activities.

Throughout the investigations into these programs, StormPay has asked the Merchant(s) to provide a detailed explanation of the workings of these programs including how profit margins and customer payments are made. These questions were asked point blank by StormPay while on a conference call with the owner/operator and their attorney. The requests for information from the "merchant" were simply denied leaving StormPay no choice other than to report those findings to the other organizations who required the information from StormPay. These findings and reports caused the seizure of funds of the merchant(s) StormPay accounts until all legal matters are resolved. Please be reminded that this could have been avoided if the merchant(s) could have, or would have provided information proving no illegal pyramid or ponzi activity.

Furthermore, investigations and calculations show that these merchants were already at an upside down point where they are/were not able to meet the financial obligations made to their program participants. These merchants who were already failing to make good on their claims seem to now be using StormPay as their Scape Goat for the failure of their own pyramid or ponzi scheme. These programs are always doomed to failure and for that very reason, deemed illegal. Please site the following from StormPay's user agreement:

17. Get Rich Quick Schemes: Get Rich Quick Schemes are prohibited resell items by StormPay. Get Rich Quick schemes include any type of self-employment, start-up businesses, or investment opportunity where the claims of profit or returns on investment are unrealistic or unsupported. By law, if a business opportunity costs $500.00 USD or more, the promoter is required to support any claims regarding earnings or profits with written documentation.
Pyramids don't pay. StormPay Inc. and the Federal Trade Commission caution consumers about clubs or programs that promise quick money for recruiting new members. Don't bank on the pyramid promise that someone else will pay you. For more information on get-rich-quick schemes, visit the FTC at www.ftc.gov

We know that the most prominent question in your mind is What happens to the money I sent these programs? Answer: At the moment any funds frozens in these merchant's accounts are frozen and not payable until all investigations are completed. At such time investigations are completed, any remaining funds will be released to the merchant's, or refunded to the purchasers, based on the outcome of the investigations. Please be aware if determination is made that these are ponzi schemes, a great deal of the funds received by these merchant's will have been used to pay obligations to those who joined earlier into the programs. In other words, they will have used your money to pay other members thus creating a deficit of funds needed to refund all users. Please be patient while investigators decide the best procedures for handling this serious situation. Contacting your credit issuers or banks requesting chargebacks only compounds the problems for all involved, including the merch! ants and their customers, and delays returns of any funds. These actions could also be punishable by law.
StormPay will keep you updated of developments as information is available and allowed to be released.
StormPay Inc.
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Again, note that Stormpay has completely FAILED to conduct any thourough investigations into any of the sites which they recently froze

They themselves are the cause of those sites being unable to pay their members! The funds are supposedly there in the Stormpay accounts - Stormpay itself has frozen the monies - illegally and without cause or justification.

I once again urge every person affected by Stormpay's actions to file complaints with the agencies listed above and to call for a complete audit of Stormpay to determine where all that money (that does not belong to them) really is.

Storm Pay decision derails 12DailyPro

Stormpay Developments - by Charis - 12DailyPro Admin at 2006-02-02 16:42:15

We have done some additional research and as you may have noticed, we have come to some decisions regarding our current issues with Stormpay.

We did everything we could to meet and live up to StormPay's blackmail attempts on Monday.

We removed EMO, a payment processor with who we have a very solid relationship. At StormPay's demand, we completely eliminated all choice for our members of payment processors and put our business in a very difficult postition.

After all of that, it seems that we have been betrayed. The existance of 12Daily Pro has profited StormPay over the course of the months perhaps more than any other of their clients or users combined. They seem to now have a problem with autosurf; we find it curious that they didn't have a problem with taking our money.

We have learned that StormPay has suspended many other autosurfs as well witin the past couple of days. It appears they may also be sending out libelous answers to members questions about why we were suspended. We want to let you know that we have decided to become proactive in this matter, after a full day has passed with no explanation from them of why our account has been suspended. Our attorney has submitted a letter to their attorney via email explaining our postion and requesting a response.

Barring a legitimate explanation by Stormpay within a timely manner, we will be filing immediate legal action to recover all our funds by legal force if necessary so we can meet our responsibilities to all of our StormPay members in a timely fashion.

We will update you on the progress of this matter. We promise to fight them to the death for money that rightfully belongs to you and us.

In the meantime, since our account has been locked, we cannot at this time make any StormPay payments. We also have been denied by StormPay the withdrawal of funds that we earmarked for the funding of our EMO account. So, this evening we will have to weigh a lot of factors in determining how we will structure a recovery plan for our Stormpay funds as well as determine an ammeanable and fair payment schedule for all members with currently pending withdrawals.

We will have some answers for you on this by midday tomorrow. In the meantime, we have enabled EMO upgrades again, staff will be focusing on support tickets and the launch of the new program hopefully later tomorrow. We need you all to understand that this is a very difficult situation which we never could have predicted. There will be a lot of change and uncertainty in the coming days. But know we are doing all we can to insure that StormPay does not bring this program down nor take advantage of members that we have spent months caring for.

We completely understand that you are all concerned as we are as well. We ask for your support and patience at this time. Rest assured we are here working our butts off for you. You can help by not creating more work by staff with support tickets about these issues.

We will update the membership as a whole as developments arise in the member news area, so please check it often for new postings.

We will not let anyone destroy this program that our staff and all of you have worked so hard to build. NOW is the time when we PROVE we are pros!
Charis
12DailyPro Admin
Last change at 2006-02-02 16:49:25