Update From StrictPay

StrictPay Customers

Our support staffs have been contacted numerous times asking if we are having “money problems” or “cash flow issues”. We are not having any money problems at all, but we have recently had to move very large amounts of funds to different bank accounts. When moving large amounts of funds to the new bank accounts, they have put a hold on the funds for a certain time frame, and this has caused us major delays as these holds can last 15 to 20 business days. We thought it would be best to send an update to all customers, even though it will be lengthy. Please take the time to read this entire message carefully, as we believe it will answer some questions you may have.

Banks in the United States do not like doing business with any type of company that they feel are processing payments as a third party processor, or are acting like a bank in their eyes. This issue, as well as numerous other over-regulatory and intrusive U.S. banking issues, has caused problems for our contracted agents. This has become an increasingly problematic issue over the last few years as we are sure many of you know, and thus has made all U.S. dealings that much more difficult to deal with. This of course affects some aspects of our business, with the most obvious example being the ability to do ACH transactions for our U.S. customers.

These U.S. related issues were why we recently made one of the banks we have been dealing with for a couple of years a public option to withdraw and deposit funds for our customers. We thought this would be a rather quick solution, but very soon realized that they could not handle the mass volume of daily transactions that our customers complete within the time frames that we have promised in the past. We also had some customers tell us that their bank wire instructions are far too complicated. This issue caused many of the wires to be completed incorrectly by some customers or their banks, and these funds would then be sent back to the sender after a 7 to 10 day hold. These issues, as well as others, made us realize that we needed to find completely new banking options that could handle both the high volume and the processing time frames our customers had become accustomed to.

Having then changed to another bank caused us more delays, as we again had to move a very large amount of funds that were subject to their hold times. Once these funds started getting released to us, you could see that our outgoing wire time frames got much better again, and are now in the 2 to 4 business day range. These 2 to 4 business days will now be our normal time frame for bank wire withdraws. Incoming bank wires are also getting to us much quicker now with this new bank, and we have been told by many customers that the new bank wire instructions are much easier to understand as well. With the difference in time zones, and also the varying locations and banks that the funds are being sent from, a bank wire can take 1 to 5 business days to reach us. We are seeing that in most cases they will reach us within 2 business days, but we must state the time frame for bank wire deposits as 1 to 5 business days to cover all situations.

We have also recently had the first loading delays ever with our debit card platform since it was setup in June 2009. The new bank that we are sending the debit card funds from is having an issue that they need to get worked out with the receiving bank, and once they get this issue taken care of we will then start loading major funds to that account so that you can get your funds in the proper time frames once again.

Our number one objective is to make sure that your money is safe, and this is why we will take very calculated steps before we offer any new funding or withdraw options. We have many things that we are working on behind the scenes to make sure we can once again offer many different funding and withdraw options, but these things will likely take many months to complete. We have other banks that we have held accounts with for years, and we are also looking into what services they may offer us in regards to more of a public account with them. Keeping our customers funds and information secure and private is always of the utmost importance for us.

We are also working on a short term solution to allow check withdraws again, and we hope to have more information on this issue in the coming weeks. Unfortunately the fees may be slightly higher, and there will be some limits in place, but we feel it is important to at least give some of our customers an option to withdraw by check until we have a long term solution in place.

We know these delays have been frustrating to all of you, and they have been to us as well. As a way of saying thank you for continuing to choose StrictPay as your payment option through these trying times, we will be lowering the receiving fee on funds transferred from 2% to 1.5% until 2-28-2010. We appreciate your understanding and patience during this trying time, and we promise to continue to work hard to find long term options of deposit and withdraw that will continue to make us the best payment option available today.

Team StrictPay
The Best Payment Solution
https://www.strictpay.com