Shrink Fan Site - Verotel Can Kiss My A$$!!!

[Marauder727]

Qzar9999,

I appreciate the help, but my frustration is leveled more at Verotel. If I recall, they weren't the original transaction company that was being used, correct? Unfortunately, they said they were going to call me...they never did...it took them 3 days to email me with the response I showed above...THAT'S IT?!? THAT is the best you can give me? That doesn't tell me anything.

What is up with these guys? Their LACK of responsiveness is really chaffing my behind!

[J Yubari]

Originally Posted by Marauder727

Qzar9999,

I appreciate the help, but my frustration is leveled more at Verotel. If I recall, they weren't the original transaction company that was being used, correct? Unfortunately, they said they were going to call me...they never did...it took them 3 days to email me with the response I showed above...THAT'S IT?!? THAT is the best you can give me? That doesn't tell me anything.

What is up with these guys? Their LACK of responsiveness is really chaffing my behind!

Sorry to hear you're having trouble reactivating your account. Check your PM box.

This isn't a common problem but it does happen from time to time when Verotel's fraud detection system thinks there's been a fraudulent transaction. From time to time there are false positives (as it sounds like in your case).

To anyone in a similar situation, please email support@interwebcomics.com if you're having trouble creating an account. There's a better chance we'll be able to solve the issue in a timely manner than posting on a forum or social media (you can do that too it's just going to take longer for us to be informed and help you).

[ultrapowerpie]

Yeah, I'm having a similar issue, except for me it keeps declining when this card is functional, already tried two different ones, no dice

[UpsAndDowns]

Damn you, PayPal!

[qzar9999]

As J said, please be sure you get in touch with support@interwebcomics.com for help with any payment issues. It's possible we can solve it more quickly on our end.

[Marauder727]

Okay gang, appreciate your indulgence as I explain what I've discovered...

Brittany of Verotel, emailed me yesterday evening stating that according to their records, a charge made on June 21st, 2017, which I did not recognize at the time and thus disputed with my bank on July 1st, 2017, resulted in Verotel being charged $35.00 for the chargeback.

She states that THIS resulted in me being placed on an Anti-Fraud database. The funny thing was...from June 2017 up until the latter part of 2018, when Verotel stopped accepting payments via Paypal, I continued to make periodic, re-occurring payments to keep my subscription on the Shrink Fan website current. It was only when Verotel stopped accepting payments from Paypal that I tried to pay via my bank debit card, and they refused to accept it as payment, with the notification that my payment type was not accepted due to:

1) Insufficient funds in my account - wrong
2) Card was expired - no
3) Card not able to make payments online, please check with your bank - which I did and they told me it was able to do it.

So the decline notification wasn't even telling me the correct information. Down at the bottom of the page, in tiny print (how appropriate, given the site) was something about my IP address being fraudulent and that I should contact them.

Brittany goes on to tell me that as a result, I MIGHT be able to ask them to take me off this 'Anti-Fraud database' effective July 1, 2019 (about six months from now). Here's the rub of the problem...

Verotel never bothered to email me to inform me that the charge was declined, what the charge was supposed to be for, and that it WAS valid. Now Qzar9999 help me out here...wasn't there another payment processing company who was doing this PRIOR to that point? I distinctly recall that Verotel was NOT the original company that accepted payments, am I correct? If this was the case, while I did one of my periodic online banking account payment checks, I saw the payment to Verotel, didn't recognize who this company was, I didn't have a phone number to call them, and no email to reach them at, so I contacted my bank and indicated that a stop payment on this charge should be done.

Wouldn't any of you have done this as well?

In any case, I've emailed Brittany back with an impassioned and logical breakdown of the situation, with the hopes that she (and thus Verotel) would somehow see to it that this was an honest mistake, and that they would rescind their ban of accepting my payments immediately.

What I'm asking Qzar9999 and J Yubari is this...is there any way that either of you could reach out to them and explain this from your end to make it clear that this was a mistake, not an attempt to defraud them. I've been a continued supporter of the Shrink Fan website since it first started and I would like to continue doing so. However, they're effectively telling me that I'm going to be shut out until July of this year...at the very least!

Thanks for listening,

MarauderTDL - Troy

[J Yubari]

Originally Posted by Marauder727

Okay gang, appreciate your indulgence as I explain what I've discovered...

Brittany of Verotel, emailed me yesterday evening stating that according to their records, a charge made on June 21st, 2017, which I did not recognize at the time and thus disputed with my bank on July 1st, 2017, resulted in Verotel being charged $35.00 for the chargeback.

She states that THIS resulted in me being placed on an Anti-Fraud database. The funny thing was...from June 2017 up until the latter part of 2018, when Verotel stopped accepting payments via Paypal, I continued to make periodic, re-occurring payments to keep my subscription on the Shrink Fan website current. It was only when Verotel stopped accepting payments from Paypal that I tried to pay via my bank debit card, and they refused to accept it as payment, with the notification that my payment type was not accepted due to:

1) Insufficient funds in my account - wrong
2) Card was expired - no
3) Card not able to make payments online, please check with your bank - which I did and they told me it was able to do it.

So the decline notification wasn't even telling me the correct information. Down at the bottom of the page, in tiny print (how appropriate, given the site) was something about my IP address being fraudulent and that I should contact them.

Brittany goes on to tell me that as a result, I MIGHT be able to ask them to take me off this 'Anti-Fraud database' effective July 1, 2019 (about six months from now). Here's the rub of the problem...

Verotel never bothered to email me to inform me that the charge was declined, what the charge was supposed to be for, and that it WAS valid. Now Qzar9999 help me out here...wasn't there another payment processing company who was doing this PRIOR to that point? I distinctly recall that Verotel was NOT the original company that accepted payments, am I correct? If this was the case, while I did one of my periodic online banking account payment checks, I saw the payment to Verotel, didn't recognize who this company was, I didn't have a phone number to call them, and no email to reach them at, so I contacted my bank and indicated that a stop payment on this charge should be done.

Wouldn't any of you have done this as well?

In any case, I've emailed Brittany back with an impassioned and logical breakdown of the situation, with the hopes that she (and thus Verotel) would somehow see to it that this was an honest mistake, and that they would rescind their ban of accepting my payments immediately.

What I'm asking Qzar9999 and J Yubari is this...is there any way that either of you could reach out to them and explain this from your end to make it clear that this was a mistake, not an attempt to defraud them. I've been a continued supporter of the Shrink Fan website since it first started and I would like to continue doing so. However, they're effectively telling me that I'm going to be shut out until July of this year...at the very least!

Thanks for listening,

MarauderTDL - Troy

It sounds like what Verotel has told you is true. Each time a customer files a chargeback dispute we and the payment processor get penalized. As a safety precaution those customers who unfairly dispute a charge get put on a blacklist to prevent them from signing up, claiming they never signed up and filing for a refund again. This is actually an important system to insure that our business doesn't get wrecked by scammers.

I'd already contacted Verotel to clear up the matter but that was prior to your latest post that included more info on the "why" it occurred. Their response was that it wasn't a mistake but there was a possibility they could whitelist you if you contacted them with more information (which it sounds like you are already doing).

Hopefully we'll have another payment method implemented before June. Until then there's still the option to pay with Bitcoin, Litecoin or Ethereum via Coinbase on the checkout page.

To reiterate, please contact us about stuff like this via our support email address. We don't check this forum as often as we check email.

[Shrinkmaster22]

I may not know the whole story here, but the fact remains that everything was working perfectly fine until this change was made. What was wrong with PayPal? It was simple, secure, and it worked for everybody. What was the reasoning behind the decision to stop using PayPal? And before someone says it seemed like the best move for business, bare in mind, I WAS a regular subscriber since the site first began, the only reason I'm not anymore was because of this change, so this decision has lead to a loss, not a gain.

[scidram]

Originally Posted by Shrinkmaster22

I may not know the whole story here, but the fact remains that everything was working perfectly fine until this change was made. What was wrong with PayPal? It was simple, secure, and it worked for everybody. What was the reasoning behind the decision to stop using PayPal? And before someone says it seemed like the best move for business, bare in mind, I WAS a regular subscriber since the site first began, the only reason I'm not anymore was because of this change, so this decision has lead to a loss, not a gain.

It's my understanding that it's not that ShrinkFan dropped PayPal. It's PayPal dropped ShrinkFan (and other NSFW sites). ShrinkFan et al is doing the best they can to find alternatives, but in this era of payment and social media sites avoiding sexy stuff, what else is there to do?

[J Yubari]

Originally Posted by scidram

It's my understanding that it's not that ShrinkFan dropped PayPal. It's PayPal dropped ShrinkFan (and other NSFW sites). ShrinkFan et al is doing the best they can to find alternatives, but in this era of payment and social media sites avoiding sexy stuff, what else is there to do?

This is correct. If the decision were left to us we would have continued operating with PayPal as a payment provider -- but that wasn't our decision. There was a change in policy and a big purge that occurred with other adult-oriented art shops. Same thing happened on other platforms around the same time too.

That being said, we are working on getting some more payment methods for customers to pay with. We're confident we will have some good news to announce soon.