Anyone who uses FastSpring as the payment processor received their payment for the last month?

[Edwin Yip 154]

This is a cross-post also on the Delphi Facebook Group as I needed info from a broader sources. 

 

Anyone uses FastSpring as your payment processor for your Delphi-powered software?

They switched to a new payout method last month, and since that I've never received my payment which is overdue by the end of last month.

And I've contacted them several times without any answer for over ten days. I'm worried.

 

You know, it's a hard time these days and the delayed payment has had a side effect on my scheduled things, and I'm worried if the payment will happen in the coming 15th (my payment period setup is twice a month).

 

FastSpring started as advertised as 'payment processor with great support' and I'm too sad things become like this.

My home-grown activation server has some kind of integration with their system and I don't want to switch the payment processing company yet.

Any info is appreciated.

[Arnaud Bouchez 407]

I had a similar problem decades ago with a French payment processor called "Yaskifo". Small startup which offered best prices at that time. But with wrong management of their internal costs, and which were sued by French banks at that time...
Yaskifo owned me thousands of Euros, which I never saw back... Once their company was bankrupted, all customers could just weep.
I don't know anything about FastSpring, but in doubt, my advice would be to switch to a bigger and safer alternative - at least joined to some well known bank or company. Even if their fee is higher.

[Edwin Yip 154]

Good advise Arnaud. I'll take actions as needed.

[Darian Miller 361]

Curious - which Delphi facebook group?  I didn't see your post listed in the few groups I checked.  (I'm wondering if I'm missing a group.)

 

Also - have you received your payment yet?  Try contacting their "VP of Product" Kurt Smith.    The email I have for him is firstname at fastspring.com

 

 

[Edwin Yip 154]

@Darian MillerIt's the Delphi developer facebook group I posted the same topic on the same day.

 

Thanks for the email address, I did get response from their support team stating that my next payment will be 16th without any explanation about why my last payment didn't sent.

Maybe the delay is because the switching of their payout method (hyperwallet, anyone heard of them before?) , but it's not good since they explained nothing and no response for over 10 days. Not a good sign, but fortunately I use it only for payment - all the license key logic is implemented in my activation server. 

 

[Darian Miller 361]

Thanks.  I guess I don't have access to that group.  Can you invite me?

 

[Edwin Yip 154]

56 minutes ago, Darian Miller said:

Thanks.  I guess I don't have access to that group.  Can you invite me?

 

I guess you can just hit some button like 'join' or 'request join'? Anyway, tried to first add you as a friend first ;)

Edited November 15, 2020 by Edwin Yip

[Darian Miller 361]

12 hours ago, Edwin Yip said:

I guess you can just hit some button like 'join' or 'request join'? Anyway, tried to first add you as a friend first 😉

 

 

Thanks.  I am a member of these 3 facebook Delphi groups:

 

Delphi Dev:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/delphidevelop  3.3k members

Delphi Developers: https://www.facebook.com/groups/DelphiDevelopers   4.4k members

Delphi Programmers: https://www.facebook.com/groups/DelphiProgrammers/   6.2k members

 

For the Facebook group link you provided, I get an error message below so it must be a private group.  Or maybe I've been banned!  🙂

 

 

 

 

[Edwin Yip 154]

@Darian Miller, it's a private group with 10.3K members. Tried to invite you but got the "There was an issue sending your invite. Please try again." error, no idea what's happening. However, I've reported the issue to the moderator.

[Darian Miller 361]

7 minutes ago, Edwin Yip said:

@Darian Miller, it's a private group with 10.3K members. Tried to invite you but got the "There was an issue sending your invite. Please try again." error, no idea what's happening. However, I've reported the issue to the moderator.

 

Thanks!   Maybe I angered the moderator....called him a Visual Basic programmer or something.

 

[Attila Kovacs 629]

1 hour ago, Darian Miller said:

Maybe I angered the moderator.

So did I when I ignored him for the extensive AD for his own product. 😄

For me it's a fake Delphi group. 

[Anders Melander 1782]

2 hours ago, Attila Kovacs said:

So did I when I ignored him for the extensive AD for his own product

Funny. I got booted too for suggesting he should stop posting about his non-delphi related pet projects. I guess that group wasn't big enough for both our egos
Can't say I miss it much.

Edited November 15, 2020 by Anders Melander
toned it down a notch

[Darian Miller 361]

Who runs that group?

[Anders Melander 1782]

3 minutes ago, Darian Miller said:

Who runs that group?

He Who Must Not Be Named

[Darian Miller 361]

Thanks.  I don't think I ever torqued him off and got banned, but then again I don't remember what I ate for lunch yesterday...

 

 

[Mike Torrettinni 198]

On 11/12/2020 at 4:10 AM, Edwin Yip said:

This is a cross-post also on the Delphi Facebook Group as I needed info from a broader sources. 

 

Anyone uses FastSpring as your payment processor for your Delphi-powered software?

They switched to a new payout method last month, and since that I've never received my payment which is overdue by the end of last month.

And I've contacted them several times without any answer for over ten days. I'm worried.

 

You know, it's a hard time these days and the delayed payment has had a side effect on my scheduled things, and I'm worried if the payment will happen in the coming 15th (my payment period setup is twice a month).

 

FastSpring started as advertised as 'payment processor with great support' and I'm too sad things become like this.

My home-grown activation server has some kind of integration with their system and I don't want to switch the payment processing company yet.

Any info is appreciated.

Did you get the payment, on 15th?

 

I've had a few payment processors and every now and then I read reviews on competition and I can tell you that over the span of years, there is no one-best, all the time. As any other business they all go through ups and downs, either because of change of management, being sold and it takes time to integrate with new company, or they change their core technology and takes time to polish out bugs, or outsource the customer support... It's annoying to catch their cycle on the down-side, when they have problems.

 

I've been trying to get away from 2Checkout for over a year now, after disastrous few months when they were resolving my issue (at the time they just outsourced their support and were in the process of being sold). So, I needed their support at their worst time. But after that, they are back and as reliable as before, but I never needed to contact their support again. So, still deciding what to do.

 

Based on your post, I will probably skip evaluating FastSpring as potential new processor, for now.

 

 

 

[Edwin Yip 154]

@Mike Torrettinni, not yet, it's still pending and their console says it'll happen on 16th, we'll see...

 

2checkout was Avangate I guess?

FastSpring's system is actually quite good and stable, I didn't have to ask for support for many years, until this incident.

Aside from the goodness, I see two main issues with them - the support issue and they are developing a brand new e-commerce system which doesn't suit my needs at all - I'm using their classical platform.

 

Update on 2020-11-16: I received the payment.

Edited November 17, 2020 by Edwin Yip

[Mike Torrettinni 198]

6 hours ago, Edwin Yip said:

until this incident.

It's always that one time you need something and it exposes the weak point.

2Checkout also has a new platform for a few years now, I think after they 'merged' with Avangate, and the main product screen doesn't show product price 🙂So, expect awesome new design, with little exceptions, like no product price in main product list.

[Vincent Parrett 750]

I can highly recommend stripe - https://www.stripe.com - very reliable and they pay weekly (you can choose the payment frequency). My only gripe is that they do not refund the fees when making a refund (apparently due to visa not refunding them) - had a case  a few weeks ago where a customer accidently ordered the wrong number of licenses and the partial refund cost me several hundred dollars in fees! 

 

I have tried many different payment processors over the years, in my experience, the one's aligned with banks tend to have the worst tech and support. 

[Edwin Yip 154]

11 hours ago, Mike Torrettinni said:

It's always that one time you need something and it exposes the weak point.

2Checkout also has a new platform for a few years now, I think after they 'merged' with Avangate, and the main product screen doesn't show product price 🙂So, expect awesome new design, with little exceptions, like no product price in main product list.

To be fair, FastSpring started with the position of good support and they did provide responsive support in the earlier years, but just no more...

Edited November 17, 2020 by Edwin Yip

[Edwin Yip 154]

9 hours ago, Vincent Parrett said:

I can highly recommend stripe - https://www.stripe.com - very reliable and they pay weekly (you can choose the payment frequency). My only gripe is that they do not refund the fees when making a refund (apparently due to visa not refunding them) - had a case  a few weeks ago where a customer accidently ordered the wrong number of licenses and the partial refund cost me several hundred dollars in fees! 

 

I have tried many different payment processors over the years, in my experience, the one's aligned with banks tend to have the worst tech and support. 

Thanks Vincent. 

What do you mean by "they (stripe) do not refund the fees when making a refund"? Generally, with other payment processor, they just issue the refund back to the customer and deduct the same amount from your account, and also deduct the processing fee of that refunded order (a small amount).

[Vincent Parrett 750]

https://stripe.com/docs/refunds#:~:text=There are no fees to,a refund cannot be canceled.

[Vincent Parrett 750]

The key is "There are no fees to refund a charge, but the fees from the original charge aren’t returned."

[Edwin Yip 154]

5 minutes ago, Vincent Parrett said:

The key is "There are no fees to refund a charge, but the fees from the original charge aren’t returned."

If I understand it correctly, it seems that stripe has the same refunding policy like other payment processor...

So doing a sample math:  300 / 2.9% = 10,344, it should be close to the amount you have refunded to your customer, right? if i understand it correctly.

[Vincent Parrett 750]

No it wasn't that much, I think the fees were around AUD$250 (on the original purchase) and the refund around AUD$3000 - not in the office right now to check.