I'm in big trouble (yourmobilefone.com)

[not2good]

hi,

most of you probably wont like me but i at the moment have a matrix scheme site but its only been up for a month if that, and now i have hit a headache.

it was going ok but this morning i call 2 phone calls from paypal asking me on where i got the money and all sorts, (yes i know this was stupid but first time in my life i have had money like this)i ended up buying items between the price of £80-£250 on ebay and now i have those items in my possesion but paypal have limited my account and stopped the sellers payment that they received from me.

the sellers are not too happy right now and niether is my website host.

this is killing me as paypal is asking alot of information from me and fax in things(which will take forever) but another problem to all this is that im not 18 yet.

i cant do much for refunds as paypal have actually in a way got all my money, plus i had transfered £200 to my bank account but it says completed on my paypal account, it has been 5 working days now since i transfered it from paypal to my bank but i checked my bank account, nothing there?

my parents hav no idea about this so i have noone to talk to and hoping yous could help me (which i know i probably will be hated here but i sure hav learned my lesson to just work my way through education and hopefully have a decent job than doing this silly internet 'business')

i say in total i have probably made about £2000 - i have none of it now, oh god this makes my stomach go horible more i talk about it.


what am i looking at? prison?

[jokach]

Hi not2good,

You've made the first correct step in determining that what you are doing is wrong. Paypal is on to what you have done, and is running an investigation (and you're assisting them). Paypal does not allow their service to be used to aid in payments for matrix schemes, its a blatant violation of their AUP.

Now, where do you go from here....


i cant do much for refunds as paypal have actually in a way got all my money


Unfortunately, thats not going to work as an excuse. Other matrix site owners who have come forward and admitted their wrong-doings have done what they needed to do to be fair to their customers. You might not be able to refund the entire amount each person gave, but offer to refund some. Go out, get a job, get two jobs, deliver papers, whatever it takes to make enough money to refund what you can to your customers, in whatever timeframe you think you can do it in, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, STOP TAKING MONEY ON YOUR SITE, its tempting to keep it going, but you're only making it worse for yourself. Don't take your site down, but use your site as a way to have your people contact you and address them as a group, and explain what you plan on doing. You'd be surprised how reasonable people can be, if they get something back, rather than nothing, they might not gang up against you and take legal action. Remember, they have your information (via Paypal), and Paypal is already investigating you, you're not going to be able to hide.

An important lesson needs to be learned here, you got yourself into this situation, you need to get yourself out. Being under the age of 18 doesn't give you the right to make excuses for what you've done.

You might also be inclined to make a post here in our forums after you've stopped running your matrix site, addressing your customers and what your plan is.

Everyone is entitled to make a mistake, but its how you rectify that mistake is whats really important.

Good luck to you.

jokach

[remnant]

what is your site?
you won't go to prison mate. you will probably will just have to sign a declaration saying that you won't run an illegal lottery again.

[not2good]

thanks for your replies, my site is www.yourmobilefone.com , i have took the payment bit off and took paypal logo's off. What can i tell paypal? i know they will keep phoning me and i am getting complaints from all the sellers, im in a mess right now:(

this may sound really stupid and totally fake(might think im just trying to get out of not paying the people) but, i had all my customers details saved on my hard disk, that broke yesterday morning and now i have no details of theres except there name and when they joined(which you can see from the lists).

the money paypal have, there is no way of geting it from them?

the goods i bought from ebay, shal i send them back to the sellers?

thanks guys :(

[mercinary]

Not2Good:

Jokach is right in saying that you are doing the right thing. A good model to follow would be that of iMatrix. This was a US-Based matrix site which was in MUCH deeper than you were, and did a nearly perfect job of backing out. You can read about how the owner did it here:

http://www.matrixwatch.org/forums/showthread.php?t=1935

Like Jokach said, the most important thing is to start being honest. You need to admit what you have done, and what your plan of action is to get out of this.

#1: Tell your parents that you are in over your head
#2: Lock your website to new customers
#3: Post a message VERY clearly on your home page that the site is closed, and that a refund policy for ALL existing customers is being developed.
#4: Devise a refund policy (whether it be full refunds, or partial, refund everyone that did not receive a gift at least some percentage)
#4: Explain your entire story to Paypal, explain to them that the site is not accepting new membership, explain to them your newly devised refund policy, and ask ffor their assistance in getting these refunds applied.

No one is going to hate you here, as you are doing the right thing. You expect that you are not going to jail or going to get sued as long as you are attempting to get out of this & realize the error of your ways.

It would be greatly helpful for us, your customers, and ultimately you if you posted the name of your website here. One of the admins will change the name of this thread to include the website name.

-Merc

[remnant]

you havent got many people on your lists so it shouldnt be to hard to refund them.

EDIT: the first time i have agreed with any of you anti-matrix dudes - i totally agree with merc, tell your parents.

[not2good]

thanks guys!,

about telling my parents, i just cant do that but i have told my older sister - would that be any help?

I'll start making a return policy right now and hopefully have it on my homepage.
should it just be like telling everyone that the site has closed and could everyone that signed up please give me there details so i can give a full refund? and will paypal really help me? :( getting worried now about refunds :shake:

[jokach]

I'm not sure what the status of your paypal account is, but you should be able to see the details of who paid you in your account status. At least get an email address from there, if you can login to your account.

As merc said, the best thing is to be honest, post the situation on your site and give your customers (who will check the site) CLEAR and HONEST instructions on how to contact you, and advise them that based on what your refund policy will be, it may not be immediate, but assure them that they will get some sort of a refund.

As for telling your parents (instead of your sister), its all about honesty. They are ultimately responsible for you and your actions. Think about it this way, its better to tell them now and feel the wrath, then lie and mislead them and then have them find out anyway and feel that wrath as well, its a double-whammy, and you'll feel the effects one way or another. They should appreciate your honesty as long as you explain you made a mistake (we were all young once, believe me, I did things I didn't want to tell my parents either, but I did and it always turned out for the better).

Coming from a parent, I would want my children to tell me if they got involved in something like this (regardless of how bad it might be), they might be able to offer you some assistance ....

jokach

[not2good]

thanks for your reply,

still i need to think about telling my parents, i really am scared now aboutt elling them as i already feel extremely upset. worst thing ever happened to me, going in to debt of thousands and not even 18. :(

Say if i give 50% refund, will paypal be happy if i tell them that or will they force me to give 100% refund?

[not2good]

hi, i was reading the imatrix post, would it be ok if i could copy some of that as i really have no idea what to write and imatrix's sounds good.

thanks

[jokach]

Say if i give 50% refund, will paypal be happy if i tell them that or will they force me to give 100% refund?


I don't think anybody can say what Paypal will expect of you, they don't ever remain consistent on the things they do. I would take merc's recommendation above about explaining your situation to Paypal and finding out what they expect from you, then when you have it in writing what they expect, act on it and do what you need to do to keep your promise.

I noticed that the website is unavailable, i'm getting a parked page when i visit your site. I hope you're making the right moves in all this ....

jokach

[not2good]

hi,

iv just emailed my site host on why my site has gone?!, they had received a email from paypal about my account being limited :( i think im in a lot of trouble - i cant even let the people see any notices of my business closed. im buggered?

[not2good]

iv emailed my host on what i was just about to do(put up a notice about refunds and that my business is closed)

[concerned]

First of all, for being under 18, you are acting more responsible than most other matrix site owners.

As for not wanting to tell your parents, let me ask you this. Do you think they would rather hear from you, or from an investigator? I know when I was under 18, I didn't want my parents hearing that I did something dumb from someone else. It made things a lot worse for me.

Now, on to the refunds. Has anyone ever cycled on your site? Did you spend any of the money people paid you? Was all the money that you recieved still in your paypal account. In our experience, the reason they freeze your account is so that you cannot run away with the money. If all the money is in the account, then maybe you can talk to Paypal and ask them to refund the money from your account for you. After all, that is why they limited your access. I think that is the best place to start. See what happens from there.

[concerned]

Oh, and by the way, we don't hate you, because you learned from your mistake. We hate the owners that find out that they are doing something wrong, and continue to scam money from people. Our goal is to rid the world of these nasty schemes, and once that is done, this site will most likely be done also.

[not2good]

hi,

nope noone has every cycled yet, yes i did spend the money but it has been stopped and now paypal has it, i have most of it all in paypal accounts. yes thats another thing, i have 4 paypal account :( oh god this gets worst.

its the people who i signed up for my domain registration that have taken it off!! and my host's have been getin abuse mail about my site :( oh god

[mercinary]

Not2Good:

#1: Don't panic.

#2: Come up with a consise, well thought out plan before you do anything else.

#3: Contact your hosting provider. Tell them about your plan. If they have frozen your account, they may be willing to open it if you tell them that many customers will lose money if you can't re-open it to put a message up. Tell them that all you need is one index page, and a notice to your customers. Be very careful to explain that you are not re-opening your matrix site.

#4: Contact Paypal as we have suggested. We cannot reiterate honesty here. Paypal can work with you to refund your customers. Tell them that you want 1-way (send only) access to your funds for refund purposes.

#5: Don't panic


I listed "Don't panic" twice, because you are panicking. :) Understandable for your situation, but the world is not coming down around you. You made a mistake, and you can get out of it with no legal troubles most likely.

-Merc

[not2good]

thank you guys for helping me here, i really apreaciate it!

i have contacted my domain company, does anyone know the paypal's UK telephone number and how much is it a min? free would be great (my mum will kill me seeing the phone bill even though it will be nothing compared to this)

i think fear is getting to me now, everytime i hear a car outside i think its the cops/investigators and i endup looking just to see, how stupid :(

[avago181]

Paypal phone number is 08707-307191.
Open between 6.00am and 10.00pm, calls are charged at UK national rate.

[concerned]

yes i did spend the money but it has been stopped and now paypal has it

Well, this is probably the first greedy thing you did. Good thing Paypal stoped you. What did you plan to do when someone cycled and you already spent the money? Now I am starting to question your motives. Please be 100% honest with us, and yourself, and your parents. Like you said, you keep thinking the cops are after you. Would you want them telling your parents before you have a chance to man up yourself?

[not2good]

i was making a lot of money, when it was time to send out a handset, i would defintly have enough to send the handset to the person. I was spending the money that i was making but i promise i was going to send out items.

i am being 100% honest with yous, im telling as much as i know and i try answer as many question i can to yous, and i am really glad yous are helping me.

i have still not received a reply from my domain registers, what happens if they ignore me? am i 100% screwed then?

thanks

[mercinary]

You are not 100% screwed. You should have email addresses from all of your customers via your Paypal transaction history. At the very least you can send out a mass-email telling them of your plan and explaining why the site is gone.

-Merc

[concerned]

i was making a lot of money, when it was time to send out a handset, i would defintly have enough to send the handset to the person. I was spending the money that i was making but i promise i was going to send out items.

I hope you don't take offense not2good, but this is exactly what happens to most sites run by kids. They think the money grows on a tree. I don't know what your pricing scheme was, but most sites run where 95% of the cost of the item came from the sales. So for example most cycle of 5 lines where the item costed $400, would sell for $100 each. Then you figure shipping, hosting costs, etc, and all you have left in your pocket was $50 for each cycled item. So, how did you plan on paying for the items if you were spending most of the money on yourself?

It is this selfishness that I hate. Now, even after I said that, you still have done better than most people. But here is another question I have to bring us back on topic. You keep saying that you are affraid to tell your parents. I think that makes you a chicken. What were you going to tell them when they asked you where all this money was coming from? After all, wouldn't they wonder where you were getting this money from to buy all this stuff?

I don't know how it is where you are at, but in the United States, your parents would probably be sued in a case like this, since you are under 18. I still think you better become responsible quick, before someone like the police, an investigator, a mad customer, or a lawyer representing a customer tell them. Trust me, the mad customers will see this thread, and when they see that you are under 18, they will be searching for your parents.

[Dreamer]

Concerned brings up a good point. In the states the parents are responsible for the actions of the minors. If you are not familiar with the law there, this would be a good starting ground to what might happen.

So, unless you know otherwise, you parents are probably involved. Paypal will probably be calling and investigating them. I think the wisest thing you can do is inform them right away. Well, come up with a game plan on how ur planning on tackling this problem so they know that your doing what you can.

as for refund policy, there is no reason everybody shouldnt get 100% back. If nobody cycled, everybody should get 100%. I personally think that 110% of the difference between money taken in and prizes sent out should be it, so if you taken in $2000, you should refund $2200. The owner of iMatrix admitted that he went into debt for several thousand dollars after his refund policy, but I think he did the right thing.

As for spending the money, even real businesses dont do that. Any business out there deposits the daily money intakes into their bank account so they have money to pay the bills, buy new inventory, etc. It sounds like that since you were happily spending it you knew it was a scam. If you treated it as a real business you would have waited until somebody cycled than spent your $50 or whatever ur share was after all the expenses associated.

But, since you spent the money on eBay, the sellers dont have to take back the item. You entered into a legally binding contract that was fulfilled when the transaction was complete. I suppose you could ask for a refund, but, I think you should relist the item, try to get some money back on it, and work at mcdonals to cover the difference.

Either way, you should not keep product that was gotten in an illegial matter. The money should go back to paypal from your bank account. And tell your parents that you are selling what you bought and making good.

I think in the end if you do all that you will feel better about your decision and you'll mature so much during the months it takes to fix your problem. It shows alot of character doing what is right even if it is very hard. I doubt you would want your money thrown away on a site just cuz the owner decided to turn off the internet for good and run and hide.

[not2good]

hi,

my domain register has replied back to me and said they will only have my domain up for 7 days! and i asked my host if they could alow me to upload my index.htm page that includes a message, but they said "As it stands we have not received any payment for your account. It will be unsuspended as and when we receive cleared payment in full."

I am not able to give them a payment, what can i do? :(

[jokach]

Find a way to pay for your hosting account, you made $2000 from this website, spent it irresponsibly and have an obligation to people, so do what you have to do. You continue to ask us for help, but then you don't take our advice on what you should do and only ask more questions. Everyone here has told you that its time to tell your parents what is going on, i'm sure they will assist you out of this mess in one way or another.

By now, you should've:

1. Decided on a refund policy, part or in full
2. Made an effort to find a way to contact your customers yourself from Paypal receipts, emails, however if you can't contact them or find them, post something on your webpage.
3. Contacted Paypal and informed them of your wrongdoings and assist them in returning any frozen funds to your customers. THEY KNOW WHO PAID YOU and are INVESTIGATION YOU, somehow you don't seem to understand that. It will relieve them of the problem as well, so they will work with you, i'm sure.
4. TELL YOUR PARENTS WHAT YOU DID. It sucks, believe me, but its like recovering from an addiction .... in that admission of the problem is the first step to making it better. come clean and get it off your chest.

As for your hosting account and your domain name expiring, it seems you were irresponsible there by not paying for the account. Like I said above, DO WHAT YOU MUST DO to get the account reinstated and the site back up to notify your customers. They're probably already angry the site disappeared.

Either way, I don't see any of the steps above being done by you as of yet, you have to take an active role in this problem, especially if your asking for our help. We've seen this done before, and know what it takes, but its your job to make it happen and you'll be respected more if you get it done the right way.

jokach

[concerned]

hi,

my domain register has replied back to me and said they will only have my domain up for 7 days! and i asked my host if they could alow me to upload my index.htm page that includes a message, but they said "As it stands we have not received any payment for your account. It will be unsuspended as and when we receive cleared payment in full."

I am not able to give them a payment, what can i do? :(


You didn't spend the money on paying the bills??? What were you thinking? Didn't you think the bills would happen more than once? I would have had more respect for you if you had spent the money on making the site work, but all I can gather is that you were only interested in buying toys for yourself. Let me tell you this. I hope you have told your parents about this by now, because as irresponsible as you were, I am tempted to search for them myself and tell them for you. You are in way over your head, and you better start asking everyone you can to help bail you out.

[not2good]

i have paid the bill - its till september, its just that paypal have like stopped all the transactions made by my account and have took all the money into the possesion. Thats why my host has suspended acocunt.

[remnant]

out of interest:
why did you set up your matrix site?
are you running it with anyone else?
are you over 16?
are the paypal accounts all in your name or your parents?

[not2good]

everything is on my name,
i seen mobiles4all and wanted to have a site like it,
only me running it

[Dreamer]

Even being under your name, the investigation is either going to turn up your job, your house, your car, etc, or find out that your a minor and turn up your parents info.

I hope you have told them by now before it is too late.

[remnant]

are you under or over 16?

[Casandra]

the goods i bought from ebay, shal i send them back to the sellers?

thanks guys :(If you didn't pay for the goods, you must send them back. It's stealing to keep them. How would you feel if you were on the other end of that? I can tell you have a bit of a conscience; so do what you can to make things right again.

[Casandra]

You are not 100% screwed. You should have email addresses from all of your customers via your Paypal transaction history. At the very least you can send out a mass-email telling them of your plan and explaining why the site is gone.

-Merc
You can even set up a temporary Yahoo group site using your matrix name for them to get messages from you. Once a few know it's there, the word will spread.

[jokach]

You can even set up a temporary Yahoo group site using your matrix name for them to get messages from you


Thats a great idea, you also have the option of addressing your former customers here at MatrixWatch as well by starting a thread describing what your plan is. You'll find that as people are realizing they got scammed, they start searching the internet for information, and since we rank so high on the search engines, we usually come up. I'm urging you to make some sort of attempt to get out of this and address your customers....

jokach

[slopok8225]

hi, i was reading the imatrix post, would it be ok if i could copy some of that as i really have no idea what to write and imatrix's sounds good.

thanks


I am new to this forum, but I can tell you that what iMatrix posted at This Post (http://www.matrixwatch.org/forums/showthread.php?t=1935) is totally free domain as long as you change the corresponding names and site info to reflect yours. You can also post what their site has posted in terms of the refund qualifications, again changing all names and links to reflect yours. None of what was posted here or on that site is copyrighted, so it is legal domain. I would suggest posting this info ASAP. You don't want previous customers to check your site now and see that you are not making any effort to remedy the problem.

I definately agree that you should tell your parents. You would be suprised at how well a parent can handle an upfront truth, rather than a continuous lie.

Good Luck!

[mercinary]

slopok8225,

Thanks for the input. We share your sentiments I think. Unfortunately, this fellow (not2good) has not posted on our site in quite some time. He may have decided to take the low road...

-Merc