11Rewards: this is our horror story, but we are still alive!

Hello all!

I'd like to share with you few bits about what's happening at 11Rewards right now, since it has direct impact on our users, many of which are members of this forum...

We opened our site in the end of May. During the first weeks of functioning, we added many 1h offers, notably the famous Tickle full credit offer. This, combined with low referral requirements, made our site very popular and soon we started sending out prizes.

On 10 June our PayPal account which we used to send out the prizes was frozen by PayPalm reason being "suspicious credit card activity". Probably their suspicion was raised by us sending out repeated $300 gifts to various people. But they not only blocked our account, but chargebacked all the people we sent the money too! So basically they took our money (and charged my credit card), but took them back from receivers - they simply stole them.

We sent everyone their money for the second time, using Western Union. However, we were unable to get our money back from PayPal. They requested some documents about the credit card that was used, which were unavailable for this card - it's a prepaid Visa card which does not have any physical statements. So we were unable to unblock our account and get our money back. We are currently issuing chargebacks to PayPal for all credit card charges, because this seems the only way to get at least some of the money back.

We changed our payment method to Western Union and ePassporte. But today, when I logged to my ePassporte account, I got a notice saying that my account has been blocked due to "unusual activity". Looks like the same story happens again. And again they are asking for some documents we are unable to provide. Fortunately, we had much less money in this account than in PayPal, but it's still another loss for us.

The two situations has frozen a lot of our cash which we will not see in the near future, and caused disaster to our cash flow. Therefore we are forced to temporarily change our cash out procedures, until these matters are resolved. The restrictions are as follows

1. From now on, all cash will be sent via wire transfer, which seems to be the safest way to send money as for now. Everyone requesting cash will be asked to provide appropriate banking information.
2. All cash out requests made until yesterday will be paid out around July 12 (by wire) or July 25 (Western Union), when we are expecting large payout from one of our contractors. Everyone who requested payout will be contacted to provide details for their wire.
3. All cash out and prize requests made today and later will be paid out around the end of July or beginning of August, when we are expecting first payment from advertisers we use on 11Rewards. From then, payments will be sent more regularly, returning in Sepember to our standard weekly payment schedule.

We highly apologize to everyone about this situation. It was caused by things our of our control, and we are doing our best to resolve it. We want to reassure eveyone that all people who reached their gift status will get their prize paid out.

Best regards,
Michal Pleban
11Rewards owner

wow this is insane
i would suggest that if paypal and epassporte fail to give you your money back you take legal action.
the biggest question is...do you have a merchant account on paypal?
i would check paypals terms of service and see if anything has been violated...

Glad I requested my gift yesterday! Hope you get your money back

Wow that really sucks man. I'm having the same issues with epassporte. Someone on here sent me money witch than instantly suspended my account. The reason they gave me was becouse he had suspicious "pear to pear activity" on his account so the frooze everyones account who he sent money to. And just like you they requested information that I don't have available. So I don't know who to go after for a refund of the $20.00 thats in my account. The sender or epassporte. Please let me know if you figure out a way to by pass the form they want you to fill out.

And again sorry to hear that happend to you hopfully everything works out.

i do not think it can be legal for them to freeze the funds and pay it to no one. that seems insane.

Well 2 questions?

why in hell would you use a prepaid to conduct business? If anything goes wrong, there is no recourse as you now see.

Also, why don't you just send out checks?

These two things just make your network very shady, and I know I will make sure never to visit your sites.

oops

www.paypalsucks.com ... been there, done that, wishing you a speedy recovery, 11rewards

Its in Paypals TOS they can and will freeze your account for any reason they see fit. They will hold the money for 180 to see if you get any chargebacks. Then they will issue a check for the balance once the 180 days have passed.


99% chance the reason they froze your account is you were using numerous CCs to fund your account. I dont see the purpose in buying a prepaid card then funding your paypal.

But good luck

[quote0842171127="freedesktoppc"]why in hell would you use a prepaid to conduct business? If anything goes wrong, there is no recourse as you now see.

Also, why don't you just send out checks?[/quote0842171127]
1. I used a prepaid because it's not easy to get a "real" credit card in Poland.
2. We don't have checks in Poland at all.

[quote9b893834c0="fgr_admin"]99% chance the reason they froze your account is you were using numerous CCs to fund your account. I dont see the purpose in buying a prepaid card then funding your paypal.[/quote9b893834c0]
Actually, I used one CC, but I sent numerous $300 charges to different people and that's why they flagged the account. This is what I was able to get from them.

As for the prepaid, we don't have the possibility to fund PayPal with bank account in Poland! So the CC was the only option.

Admin wrote this in a fusion cash thread. THat might be the reason your epassporte got frozen?

ADMIN WROTE
[quote177a8eb246]ePassporte limits each account to $500 per day / 10 transactions per day. We hit our limit and we're waiting till it gets reset[/quote177a8eb246]

Not really, I was always within these limits. But as I read on several forums, they like to freeze accounts which process frequent and large deposits with credit card. Wish I kne w that earlier, I would load my card by wire transfers (