Friday, March 24, 2006

StormPay Policy Change - Now Only an Auction Service

StormPay has made an official change to their terms of service which now makes it only a site that allows money to be sent and received for auctions sold within their site. Any other outside payments or any other types of payments are not allowed. This seems to leave only PayPal and possibly e-Gold as the few online payment processors that are still in existence and are licensed to transfer money.

Important StormPay Policy Change:
23-Mar-2006 14:21

Dear Valued StormPay customer,

Effective immediately StormPay Inc. will no longer accept payments for sales made outside of StormPay Auctions. If you are an online seller who wishes to sell your product or service through the StormPay system, your item must be sold using the StormPay Auctions feature. Listing in the StormPay Auctions is FREE of charge unless utilizing our inexpensive upgraded listing options.


Q: Why has StormPay implemented this new policy?

A: StormPay has rendered certain policy changes to insure a safer online experience for both buyers and sellers. This policy change allows StormPay to more closely monitor the products/services sold, insuring that sold items are within StormPay’s acceptable use policies.

Under these new policy guidelines, customers may no longer log into a StormPay account for the purpose of sending money to another online user, or “offsite” website sale. All “spends” and “receives” are and only can be for the specific purchase of a user’s auction listing and successful purchase of.

Subscriptions (recurring billing) is no longer supported by the StormPay system. All current subscriptions have been cancelled. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

We appreciate your business. As always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact us.

StormPay Inc.

This change is most likely being done to limit damages and liability for purchases done outside of their network since there were such a huge amount of complaints made against them to state & federal agencies after they froze 12DailyPro's assets. This move officially kills StormPay as a payment processor. Many people will probably disagree with me, but I feel that this is unfortunate. It seems more and more online payment processors are disappearing, which leaves only PayPal to operate as an exclusive system to move money back and forth between users, as well as being used as an online shopping cart system for people who don't use merchant accounts.

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Survey on Steroid Usage and Mood

There is a new web based survey being conducted by Rutgers about AAS use and mood. You can take the survey here:

http://websurvey.rutgers.edu/training/

It is apparently about 30 minutes long, so be sure you have some free time before you start. This survey is being conducted to show the relationship between taking anabolic steroids and how they effect your overall mood and well being. This might help dispell some of the rumors of "roid-rage" and show that steroids actually help improve your mood and aid in relieving depression which has been anecdotally reported for years by bodybuilders and powerlifters.

You can read more about it at MESO-Rx here:
Survey on Role of Performance-Enhancing Drugs on Mood Changes Experienced by Bodybuilders and Powerlifters

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

FreePay Changes its Look & Settles Case of Selling Customer Data

Free site company, FreePay, seems to have changed the look of part of their site. Just recently, after changing their terms of service to limit the ability of its customers to receive prizes by changing the amount of time they have to complete the requirements to get the merchandise. Now, when a user visits a page for their referrals they are getting with a graphic showing how many "steps" they have completed towards finishing the site. The promised method that was supposed to allow users to get referrals easier seems to be a simple mass mailer where a member can enter in email addresses of people and a personalized message.


Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

This does not seem to be a really great method for getting referrals, as the anyone can send emails through an email client using the CC or BCC functions just as easily. The way completed and non completed referrals are shown is also different, and there is a short FAQ below the section informing users of how referrals and the rest of the site works, making it somewhat easier since less explanation is required once people are signed up.

Another development is that FreePay/Gratis recently reached a settlement with the NY State Attorneys office for breaching its privacy policy and selling it's customers data to spammers. FreePay lost it's TRUSTe privacy license in February of last year. They were supposedly back in business with them, but TRUSTe's website says otherwise. Although the settlement forced the spammers, Dratan Media, to delete all Gratis's sold mailing list, it may have already been passed on to third and fourth parties. I, personally, have been receiving a great deal of opt-in spam mail coming from Conxion.net and twotimesnever.com, all of which I report through SpamCop. This is email I never opted in too, and will not use the opt-out function for fear of receiving more spam from this unscrupulous company.

My FreePay petition seems to have been a total bust as I was flamed and ignored for starting one. Many people also decided to start their own, thus making the effort to fight FreePay completely disorganized and worthless. None the less, the fact remains that FreePay seems like it's losing money. From selling their mailing list, to limiting customers ability to get free prizes, it seems to be close to the end for FreePay and possibly other free sites.

'Free IPod' Takes Privacy Toll: Wired News

TRUSTe REVOKES SEAL FROM FREEIPODS: Press Release from TRUSTe
Settlement Reached In Internet Breach of Privacy Case
The End of FreePay - ToS Changes Limit User's Ability to get Prizes

FlexOffers

Related Posts with Thumbnails

Addthis