hard lesson learned

[TightTeela]

hopefully my site wont be down for long, but even if you know someone for years i suppose its best to not do business together.

-clip from online support

teela: i need assistance with an affiliate account 100644


You are now speaking with Jason Shepard of Tech Support.

Jason Shepard: Welcome to Epoch chat. My name is Jason. How can I assist you?


teela: jason, i think it was last week i had asked for this account 100644 to be filled in with my correct info

teela: this is affiliate account that belongs to me

teela: yet i have no way of logging into this account, or where that money is going

Jason Shepard: Did you originally sign up to this account?


Jason Shepard: If so you can re-set your login here http://epochstats.com/support/aff_lost_password.php.


teela: no i believe my partner set this account up, i got this icq from him

teela: Lange ‎(5:06 PM):
Hey Reilly....can you have him log into the account he didn't get paid on see what he has in his Account Information > Personal Information
Lange ‎(5:06 PM):
This is for his affiliate account

teela: on top of that, last week, i had already asked and it appeared to be correct

Jason Shepard: Your name is on the account.


teela: yes

teela: it shows my name, and it should have my address, last week i went over this with another support person

teela: i followed the instructions , contacted support, asked them to fill in the same info as my other account, which should be as site owner

Jason Shepard: Go here and re-set the password and you will have access to that account. http://epochstats.com/support/aff_lost_password.php


Jason Shepard: Its saying confidential because I dont have access to the account information details.


teela: ok

teela: so as site owner, and epoch being my account and processor

teela: how come i can not change it?

teela: when it was already changed last week

teela: now someone, has changed it again

teela: and im not seeing the money

teela: can you tell me who else has access to my merchant account?

teela: account M-287755

Jason Shepard: Reilly is also on the account.

teela: figures as much and hence the bs i suppose

teela: am i able to remove his access?

Jason Shepard: No.


teela: why not, if i own this account?

Jason Shepard: Are you referring to the affiliate account. Or the control of the Master account.


teela: control of the master account

Jason Shepard: Your not a listed contact on the account.


teela: is that so?

teela: i thank you very much for that info

teela: and i wonder why epoch has anything to do with my site, my company, when i have no say in this account

teela: wouldnt epoch for a domain search, a company search, anything?

teela: or just take reillys word to set it up?

Jason Shepard: That would probably be better answered by your account rep.


teela: thank you for your help

[Bill]

Ain't that the freekin truth.

Don't let other people control your money. And be cautious about the people you let have access to crucial parts of your business.

[T Pat]

that bites

[Bobc01]

It's better you learn now than later on when someone could of taken you for more.

[NY Jester]

Wow, so what are you going to do? Does that mean you wont be on TightTeela anymore?

[TightTeela]

well tightteela is mine, the domain is and the company as well. but my partner controls my hosting and i had given him access to my ccbill account in order to set up visa, so today i talked to both ccbill and epoch, on epoch, im not even listed as a contact for my own site, and on ccbill, i lost control of the account, to my us rep, who "owns" the account now, and my current partner. even tho i orginally set it up myself, a stupid choice in trust has cost me that. so i will have to move the site to my other ccbill account and to another host.

[LeRoy]

Now I know why my wife doesn't trust me with the check book. 10 years and still no fucking way.

Teela can you contact the guy? Do you have an address? This could get very bad if he doesnt come forward for you.

[RageCash-Ben]

Originally Posted by D2222

Now I know why my wife doesn't trust me with the check book. 10 years and still no fucking way.

you would rip off your own wife? |confused|



Teela you need to do something about this asap, obviously.

Does this partner have an online presence or run any domains? Outing him would save other from getting screwed too.

[bDok]

Live and learn.

sux this is happening to you. What I can say is at least you own all the content and your partner is the village idiot because after you move on and get your own hosting, processor you will be fine. He however will be only left with what he made and a burned bridge.

Keep your head up and move on. For sure while you have access to your site on the other host I would make a nice backup of it to your local harddrive asap if you haven't already.

Cheers,
B

[TightTeela]

he runs dreamsubmitter and pornsolid.com, actually found it funny there was a klix article where he says he runs my site, i suppose in his mind he thought he did. now im a half assed buddist and i think what goes around comes around.

[tickler]

Well maybe we can burn a few more bridges.

I'll have to take a look, but, I think I have a few sponsors that supply DS to their affiliates.

[Licker4U]

Did you have a contract with him or was it just "I'll trust you and you trust me" kind of things? Even a verbal contract can sometimes be upheld in court. Contact a lawyer. As mentioned before, if you have FTP access make a copy of everything you have on line.

[LeRoy]

Originally Posted by RageCash-Ben

you would rip off your own wife? |confused|



Teela you need to do something about this asap, obviously.

Does this partner have an online presence or run any domains? Outing him would save other from getting screwed too.

No I wouldn't rip off my wife. I would definitely spend the money frivolously on weed and beer though. btw I was making light of the situation coming from a mans POV. Now you fucked that up.

Teela if your serious give me his contact info. I would love help you collect a debt. Or just help you in any way I can.

[koolkat]

That sucks! I suggest getting moved to a new server and and getting the affiliate stuff set up as soon as possible. Do you have access to your content so you can move to a new host? Also let us know ASAP once you get the new affiliate stuff set up so we can pull the old links so the asshole doesn't get another of your $$$.
If you have to start from scratch on content, just let me know... I volunteer to help you with it!

[Ramster]

Originally Posted by TightTeela

he runs dreamsubmitter and pornsolid.com, actually found it funny there was a klix article where he says he runs my site, i suppose in his mind he thought he did. now im a half assed buddist and i think what goes around comes around.

I'm a bit confused.... he doesn't run your site? Yes I know you update it but why is he even on your account or considered your "partner"? You call him your partner, why is that?

If you have a partner JUST to get a ccbill and epoch account I'll go back to my original statement months back....join a program and have them process your site for you. You'll see 10 times the traffic from their 100's/1000's of webmasters for a small percentage. Well worth it IMO.

[Jim]

Originally Posted by Ramster

I'm a bit confused.... he doesn't run your site? Yes I know you update it but why is he even on your account or considered your "partner"? You call him your partner, why is that?

If you have a partner JUST to get a ccbill and epoch account I'll go back to my original statement months back....join a program and have them process your site for you. You'll see 10 times the traffic from their 100's/1000's of webmasters for a small percentage. Well worth it IMO.

That is excellent advice Ramster.
As for trusting on a handshake, sometimes it works great and sometimes not. As most people know, I lost a lot of money having a dishonest partner.

GGandJ is based only on virtual handshakes. As a matter of fact, the only time anyone screwed us is when they forced us to sign a contract and they broke it As for Greenie and myself...shit, we have been friends and in business for too long to even think about it.

[Bobc01]

Has to be one of the worst insults to have someone you trust fuck you over but as the saying goes, "don't get mad get even" and probably the best way to return the favour would be making that site a success.

Failing that smash a fucking shotgun in the guys face and see him turn into a whincing baby like figure.

[Preacher]

Wow.

Well, any large business you get into bed with like Epoch, is going to have a contract. In fact, I just checked and Epoch's contract is 17 pages long.

If anyone gets into a business arangement with a small to large company, you need to read and sign the contract. If someone sets-up something for you, regardless of how much you trust them, you need to ask for the copy of the contract.

Yes it's boring and tedious to read, but it will cover your ass down the line and help you better understand your limitations within the agreement.

[Beaver Bob]

best of luck Teela

[Useless]

I need clarification.

Did this guy steal the site's earnings?

[TightTeela]

basically what happened was, me and my roomate put the site together, we are canadian and ran into a road block getting visa approval, so at the time, we figured we had no choice, but to trust our friend and partner, my mistake was signing ccbill forms giving access to both my partner and his US contact, as it turns out, i signed over an account change form, so he is the owner of that ccbill account. i personally had nothing to do with epoch, my partner let me know it was critical to have another processor, and went and set up epoch, and to be honest, i thought it looked nicer, then the old look of ccbill. it wasnt until maybe 6-8 months later did i realize i wasnt listed as part of the epoch account.

when it comes to the site, i put it together, the pages, the graphics and the content that i own, i've signed nothing and there is no solid agreement. the company, zero x media, is my roomates and mine. and the domain is ours as well.

for the time being, i have put my old ccbill sign up page instead of the epoch one, and i have arraged thru a family contact to have a us contact for visa and a school chum of my roomate runs a well known site that is helping as well.

like a cat, i should land on my feet, and like i said, its basically a hard lesson learned and it's shit that it would happen with a friend.

[Useless]

I'm going to seem like a dunce here and that's ok , but what is the situation? Has this other individual locked you out and keeping the money? Or is it a matter of you not feeling comfortable with his control of the Epoch account? Because it sounds like you, as a Canadian, are going to put yourself in an identical situation, just with another person.

[TightTeela]

useless, the other US content i have is my aunt, so if she fucks me, well, there really is no one i trust more then family.

as for not being comfortable with his control of epoch, that in itself is enough to annoy me, but no thats not the problem.

about a month ago, on another board i was informed that i should double check a couple of things with my links, which got me looking around more, i noticed that in the set up section, there is an option to set yourself in as the affiliate who would get credit for any untracked affiliate sign ups or type-ins, that account wasnt mine.

i changed it to see what would happen for nov. 56 sign ups at 29.95 went to that account, those would have gone to my partner, and who knows how many more went to that account over the last 8 months, i have no way of checking.

just the other day, i went back into my epoch account to double check that i was still going to get credit, and i was annoyed at the fact that any affiliate was getting dicked around also.

nothing showed up for that account, and no money was showing in that account, my stats would not load, only giving me the option to select a date range, hitting load stats, would only bring me back to the select date page.

so i contacted support and posted what they said.

[Toby]

So..... You don't really know if your partner has been cheating you or not, because you don't have access to the account admin's in order to check. Is that correct?

I guess question that hasn't been directly answered is, was he stealing from you or not?

It all sounds like a big clusterfuck to me, where no one really knew what the hell they were doing.

[Useless]

Originally Posted by TightTeela

i changed it to see what would happen for nov. 56 sign ups at 29.95 went to that account, those would have gone to my partner, and who knows how many more went to that account over the last 8 months, i have no way of checking.

Well, he is a thieving fucker then. I bet he thought he could cleverly skim that cash right under your nose forever. I'm glad you pulled the plug on him.

Let us all know when you get things sorted. Adult webmasters can be a forgiving crowd when you're up front and honest with them.