New Hampshire Real Estate & Consumer Resources

Archive for June, 2009

Here’s a bit of news that’s bound to bring a tear to the eye of any current or former customers of Pipeline Data, Inc. whose experience may have been similar to mine.

In it’s latest quarterly ’10-Q’ report, which the company must publicly release by law, they reveal that things didn’t go so well during the first three months of this year. The company’s revenue decreased by $1.9 million, which is almost 17%. Those figures are in comparison with the first three months of last year.

The company states that their poor performance is due to a reductions in transaction volume which was due in large part to ‘the attrition of customers’ and the current state of the economy.

I’m sure that the state of the economy has had a negative impact on their business, just like it has had for many others, however that’s not what stood out when I read the report.

I was more interested in the ‘attrition of customers’ revelation.

Dictionary.com defines ‘attrition’ thusly: ‘a reduction or decrease in numbers, size, or strength: Our club has had a high rate of attrition because so many members have moved away.’

There are other meanings, but I believe this is the one that the statement from Pipeline is eluding to.

To put it simply, they have lost customers ‘ a significant number I’m guessing, and something that I do not find the least bit surprising.

Here’s something else that was extremely interesting to me. The company reports that ”seven members of the Board of Directors resigned and a new five member Board was formed. Daniel Nenadovic serves as the new Chairman of the Board.’

This may actually be good news for current and future customers of Pipeline Data, Inc. Perhaps the new board will bring positive changes to the company that are sorely needed. Time will tell.

I was a little disappointed to see that the fictional $99 that the company claimed I owed them and hired a collection agency to collect from me was not mentioned in the ’10-Q’ report. I presume it would have been a ‘loss,’ since it must have appeared somewhere on their books as an uncollected debt until they realized it was a fantasy. A fact I made aware to them after I heard from the collection agency.

Anyway, I really did not expect to see that $99 on the ’10-Q.’ That was a joke, and probably not a very good one.

Here’s are some more fun facts from the ’10-Q’ report.

Pipeline owns a number of other companies, which they refer to as ‘wholly owned subsidiaries.’ I think they are worth mentioning:

• SecurePay.com, Inc.
• Northern Merchant Services, Inc.
• Pipeline Data Portfolio Acquisitions, Inc.
• Aircharge, Inc.
• PayPipe, Inc.
• Paynet Systems, Inc.
• Valadata, Inc.
• CardAccept.com, Inc.
• PayPassage, Inc.

Speaking solely for myself, of course, I know that this will be a list I will check through if I ever find myself in need of a merchant account again in the future.

A careful consumer should always do their research.

If you would like to read the ’10-Q’ yourself, you can find it at Yahoo! 

It’s also kind of interesting to see that this company’s stock is currently trading at around 14 cents, making it a true ‘penny stock.’

Wow, 14 cents is not a lot of money, is it?

Since my nightmarish experience with merchant account services from Pipeline Data/Secure Pay/Whatever-other-names-they-use, I have decided to keep an eye on any news regarding the company (companies?) and also watch for any other tidbits that show up from other customers.

I do not easily forget experiences like the one I endured during my association with that outfit ‘ and even well after I thought it was over!

As some readers may recall, these idiots caused me more than my share of grief. Most recently siccing a collection agency on me over a a debt that I did not owe.

In fact, the reality of it is that, technically, they owe me $30 for trying to withdraw money from my business bank account over a year ago, which due to ‘insufficient funds’ in the account, resulted in a $30 penalty from the bank.

The money they were trying to withdraw was money that was not owed to them, and was attempted after I had already been told that I did not owe them any money, and that no other attempts to withdraw money from my account would be made.

An absolutely incredible demonstration of incompetence.

Anyway, the whole story has been covered in-depth here already, so I’ll get straight to the new business.

I came across a post in a forum from another unfortunate customer of ‘Secure Pay,’ who is apparently having problems integrating their payment system into her website. No big surprise.

You can read about her wonderful experience here.

I’m sure you can imagine what kind of advice I might offer to her. I’ve said it before and will gladly say it again.

My advice is to stay as far away from Pipeline Data/Secure Pay as possible. I cannot imagine a worse choice for someone who is shopping for a merchant account.

If I ever hear a single word from Pipeline Data, Secure Pay or collection agency weasels working for them again regarding any more fictitious debts, the next contact they will have with me will be in a court of law, because I will hire a lawyer and vigorously explore all of my legal options. That’s a promise.