STORMPAY SOON WILLBE OUTTA BUSINESS http://www.theleafchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/search?category=search State agency investigating StormPay complaints By THOMYA HOGAN The Leaf-Chronicle The Tennessee Division of Consumer Affairs said Wednesday it is investigating complaints involving StormPay.com, an Internet-based company in Clarksville embroiled in controversy over frozen customer accounts. Consumer Affairs Director Mary Clement said her office has received a "large volume of complaints involving StormPay." She said once Consumer Affairs completes its investigation, law enforcement would be involved if it is determined "wrongdoing has taken place." ADVERTISEMENT StormPay owner Steve Girsky said Wednesday he welcomes the Consumer Affairs investigation. He said he plans to meet today with the Better Business Bureau to go through many of the complaints filed with them. "I think the agencies would not be doing their due diligence if they did not check us out," he said. "I invite anyone who wants to to look at this. "We have nothing to hide." StormPay.com, which was launched in 2002 and does business in 200 countries, serves as a payment intermediary for online auction sites and other Internet businesses, allowing customers and businesses to send and receive money. One of its clients, LifeClicks, owns a company called 12DailyPro, which is being investigated by the FBI and officials in North Carolina and Georgia, according to a joint statement StormPay and LifeClicks released Tuesday. 12DailyPro is billed as an "auto-surf" Web agent where customers can buy online advertising and earn commissions from advertising revenue. Under the business relationship, StormPay processed third-party payments to 12DailyPro users. An auto-surfing program is set up to generate money every time users visit a participating Web site. The Better Business Bureau has described such programs as "thinly veiled pyramid schemes," according to a BBB statement. Pyramid schemes, also known as Ponzi schemes, typically promise people a large return for a small investment. But the scheme only works as long as there are new investors to cover everyone else's investment. The scheme collapses when there are no new investors. In the case of 12DailyPro, investors signed up and bought advertising space through 12DailyPro and received commissions from visits or "clicks" on their ads. The program is free to join, but members don't get commissions unless they pay to upgrade their accounts. A portion of the earnings is funded through incoming member fees, according to the company's Web site. The problem, Girsky said, is that many of the people complaining about StormPay have earned commissions, but the commissions are coming from new investors. StormPay has those frozen accounts to make sure longer-term investors don't pull out their initial investment and commissions — leaving new investors with nothing. For example, "Investor A" may start out with a $1,000 investment in 12DailyPro and earn $500 in commissions. Some of those commissions may include investments from other people. StormPay, Girsky said, has charged back — or refunded — the entire $1,500 to 12DailyPro so "Investor A" still gets back his $1,000 and the other people whose investments contributed to the $500 in commission get back their money as well. Several complaints to The Leaf-Chronicle allege some frozen accounts at StormPay were not connected to LifeClicks or 12DailyPro. Girsky said he could not comment on specific accounts without permission from the account holder, but he reiterated the company is working to rectify the situation. "We're making sure we don't process any payments for any pyramid or Ponzi scheme," he said Wednesday. Girsky also denied allegations that checks issued to StormPay customers have bounced and StormPay has canceled customer's ATM cards connected with their accounts. He said StormPay is working to make sure people can have their money invested with 12DailyPro refunded "to the extent possible." "Every nickel in StormPay accounts is accounted for," he said. Clement said she could not comment on specific complaints received about StormPay. "We are now receiving complaints from consumers, and we will continue to mediate for the consumer with StormPay, but it is in the investigative stage right now," she said in an e-mail release. Thomya Hogan may be reached at 245-0282 or via e-mail at . Originally published February 9, 2006
Every situation either builds trust or creates doubt. I wouldn't trust my money there, never have and never will.
Stormpay has screwed a lot of marketers not even involved in 12dp, autosurfs, or affiliate programs. Like me! BUt my losses are minor compared to a few top marketers who sell products using stormpay. Got an email today, one of the top marketers on the net for ebooks, etc had his account frozen and that was over $7000!!!! Nope, stormpay screwed too many people to survive this. They say they have money to cover? BS! Says states and others.
Well, to the law in the US, not really legal. More classifed as ponzie schemes. Randomizers....you are not buying a product, you are buying a chance to get other people to join and you get money. That is a true ponzi! Autosurfs, in the grey area right now. 12dp is being investigated by various agencies, including FBI. If these agencies conclude that 12dp is a ponzi, that means ALL such autosurfs will be ponzis.
They are now in a death spiral! They are being hit right and left with lawsuits from people who have had mega bucks stolen out of their accounts! One thing to go after 12dp, but to steal money out of all accounts???? I got an email from one person who said that he did not believe all this crap, and he had lots of money in his account and could access it. Until yesterday! He logged in, and poof!!!! His account balance zero, nothing, zilch! All I can say is this, if you have an account, log in now and check your account. Then get your money transferred out asap! If sp will do that...doubtful.... And then close your account!!!!! Let your bank and your credit card company know at once that they are not to honor any requests for withdrawals by sp!!!!!!! Again, they have your bank/cc info and they can steal you blind!!!!
Hold off on stormpay! What they say, is completely different than what they are doing! They have grabbed tons of money, including mine, from legitimate businesses who were selling a product, and not having a thing to do with autosurfs, and other such schemes. And if you read what they say carefully, sp does not say they are refunding money to those accounts where they stole the money! More will develop over time.
That's the note on StormPay website as of today (US time). Although StormPay stopped accepting Romanian users (GOD, ARE WE CONTAGIOUS OR SOMETHING?) I opened an account with them before the ban. I don't have much money in it, but I'm quite interested in how things will develop.
Is that sp encouraged, nay wanted you, to get your autosurf site, your randomizer, your ponzi schem, etc onto their stormclix system!!!!! They began, but never really policed, saying that you could advertise anything as long as it took stormpay. A lot of scams were run through stormclix...every day, seems about 10 new randos opene up, 10 new hyips opened up, etc. Now sp says that they are all scams? After actively pursuing such scams for their stormclix? No, sp is not for me! They took my money illegally, they took the money of a bunch of people illegally. Hope the law not only shuts them down, but prosecutes heavily all those people in stormpay management and ownership.
I've using StormPay since 2002 and without problems. I believe all it started accepting autosurf programs. As I posted recently, I joined one just to find it was a type of scam making strange conversions between stormpay funds to egold in order to "qualify" earning what they offer. Yesterday I found that site "hacked" by a supposed Arabic Hacker Team, but using chinese stufff... did I mention the "company" is located in Hong Kong? Probably they self-hacked their site to disappear now that everything is going back to those advertisers at stormpay. But back to the site, the big mistake of StormPay was accepting these schemes, thing that PayPal has been refused for long time and you see, they are not experiencing a situation like this. Before autosurf became popular I was participating in an autosurf which never asked me for "upgrading units" as also link exchanges not offering make money to visit sites, and none of those scammed nobody ever.