Major problem with BLUESNAP (formerly Plimus) - Details inside

So I'm about the last person to come to a message board to detail service issues I experience with vendors or business partners, but in this case it has gotten to the point where I am hoping to both warn people and also gather any advice from people who may have experienced the same issue.

My issue is with the payment processor/affiliate network BlueSnap who used to be run under the name Plimus. I have been an affiliate for several years and although I had read numerous payment related complaints from others I had personally not had any issues with BlueSnap until recently.

I am an affiliate and used to promote a number of products through BlueSnap. There was one product that was my "best seller" that accounted for the majority of my sales. Sales would be several thousand monthly.

At the end of April the merchant whose product I promote made the decision to switch to a different processor. They apparently weren't pleased with the level of service they were receiving with BlueSnap and felt that a move elsewhere was best for their business. I didn't love this decision but it was out of my hands.

Because of this my account went from generating lots of sales to basically zero. I fully expected BlueSnap to withhold payment from me for the first payment cycle as this product did typically receive a moderate amount of refunds or chargebacks. As expected, on May 15th they informed me they weren't issuing any payment to me and were holding what was over $3,500 in commissions owed to me.

I wasn't thrilled but I understood they needed to protect themselves from refunds or chargebacks. From May 1 - May 21 there was about $260 in refunds. Then from May 22 until June 15 (the next payment date) there was only $87 in refunds (each sale is roughly a $30-$60 commission).

So at this point for a month and a half I had experienced about $350 in total refunds and only $90 for the past 25 days. At this stage I fully expected them to release a portion of the over $3300 they were still holding for the June 15th payment as they could clearly see that my level of refunds was never going to exceed or come close to the total amount they were holding. As can be expected, my refunds were highest right after the merchant stopped their relationship with them and then declined drastically. Obviously the more time that has past since the last sale, the less likely I am to have any refund or chargeback hit my account.

Well once again they decide to hold the ENTIRE payment on June 15. I email them asking for an explanation why they would do this and they offer me simply a generic response indicating that they need to hold the funds as sales on my account are close to zero as that the merchant has moved elsewhere. This of course doesn't answer why they're holding the entire amount nor do they address why they feel it's appropriate to hold over $3300 when there has only been $87 in refunds in the past 25 days and only a small fraction of refunds when compared to my balance over the past 45 days. I go back and forth with them for a bit but never do get a response - they simply send their generic canned responses even when I ask for a supervisor to review my account.

Ok......so of course at this point it's getting ridiculous but I assume that the payment due in July will go better. After all I only had one refund for a total of $30 for the ENTIRE month of June. And from June 15 - July 15 I didn't have one single refund. None, zilch, zero. So there's no way they would hold the entire payment again right? Since I've had no refunds or chargebacks in the past 30 days, only one in the past 45 days and only $90 worth in close to 60 days, they must be able to see that my account is at no risk of incurring over $3200 in refunds right?

Wrong - they hold everything again - over $3200 - even though we are now 2 1/2 months past when the merchant stopped doing business with them and my account is clearly not getting hit with any refunds or chargeback amounts to be concerned about.

Obviously at this point I'm dumbfounded and can't help but see it as them simply wanting to hold all of MY money. This is just a matter of common sense - there's no way my account is going to incur refunds or chargebacks of $3200! At the VERY least they should be issuing partial payment and kepping a minimal amount in reserve. Keeping the whole amount appears to be borderline criminal in this case.

Now of course I've emailed them and of course I've received back the same sort of generic response that doesn't address the issue. I'm getting nowhere with their support team unfortunately.

I'm hoping someone on here has a contact at BlueSnap that they could put me in touch with. Or perhaps someone has a similar experience and can offer some advice? Bottom line is that what they're doing is wrong and there has to be someone with common sense working for them that can address this.

Any help would be great - and apologies for the long winded post! At the end of the day I just want them to act professionally and release the funds that they owe me.

 

Just like you, I rarely participate in forums, but I have to comment here since BlueSnap is so incompetent. They recently changed their name to try to hide the bad reputation that Plimus has, so my suggestion is to file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. You can file the complaint online. If you're lucky, they will send you your money to make the complaint go away. If not, at least you can do your part in notifying the public about how bad they are.

 

Incidentally, for others who are reading this post and have had a similar bad experience, please help the community and the people arriving here through Google by posting your experiences with BlueSnap.

 

I'm assuming that as an affiliate you either have a contract or some form of Terms and Conditions with that company. I would have to believe there is a section outlining chargebacks and the hold of funds. You may find it there that they expressly state they will not pay out on closed accounts, or what I would suspect to most likely be the case is that they can hold commissions on a closed account for 6 months from the time the account is closed to account for all chargebacks. This is because all consumers that pay with a credit card have 6 months from the date of any purchase to chargeback. If your account closed on May 1st, they typically should release the hold on or around December 1st... So, regardless of whether this company is good or not - that's a probable, realistic reason for this kind of hold.