dear Fernando,
I write in English, don't know if Spanish messages are allowed.
I'd like to thank you, finally someone shed some light on my doubts.
I'm about to start running a website and was searching for
some payments provider. didnt know what to choose, 2checkout, ikobo, whatever. Yours was the clearest message out there, I think i'll stick
to ikobo, just to start.
Good luck from Uruguay.
Alfredo
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Ok, I have read a lot of "horror stories" and people drowning in a cup of tea over the anxiety after "not receiving the money" etc.
FIRST: Most of this anxiety is due to wrong wording on Ikobo's site and emails, in my humble opinion. Users should be aware that there are some delays involved (specially if it's the first time someone received money and hence an I-Kard (Visa Electron card) and the card's PIN must be sent to him via courier service (UPS) and e-mail respectivelly. In my case it took three weeks for the Visa Electron card to arrive since the first money transfer, and it was delivered by UPS from Georgia, USA.
After that, every time someone sent money I usually got the money credited into my ikobo account in 48-72 hrs.
About bad wording ("instant" when it isn't so), and delays:
For instance, the company has added a host of anti-fraud measures, and when they accept a transfer, the emails and web pages wrongly indicate that the money "has been sent" (and the person who sent the money thinks the money has been sent inmediatelly).
...But the money is actually not credited to the receiver UNTIL THE SENDER VERIFIES THE TRANSACTION. To do this, the sender has to check their online banking or credit card and take note of a random small charge made by Ikobo, then go back to the Ikobo page and enter that "random small amount". Once that is done, the money is credited to the receiver.
Ikobo does this to make sure that whoever sent money with Ikobo is the actual owner of the credit card and has access to the credit card's (or bank account's) online reporting, and it isn't some stolen credit card. I can't blame Ikobo for this, it adds security for both the sender and receiver.
SECOND:
As a writer, I have exchanged a few e-mails with the company CEO, Mr. Emeka Ohuche, and every time I encountered some problem and hit some dead end (like customer care not replying to my emails), I found him to be a very responsive and caring person, that ultimately got my account problems fixed.
Unfortunatelly it seems the company has growing pains, and some of its employees seem to be plain incompetent or overwhelmed by work (I've been sent carbon copies of emails sent by the company president to the employees, and sometimes it took two days to get a reply, both myself and the company head!).
I also helped them identify a couple problems with their systems' design. For example, it was possible and VERY easy to inadvertedly kill (block) your own account. If you selected "add a credit card" and proceeded to enter your Visa Electron I-kard number, the account was automatically auto-blocked... by an anti-fraud routine going wrong.
They have fixed the problem, and it took them a week to figure what was wrong and why the system was auto-blocking my account automagically every time they tried to re-enable it.
Here is the e-mail of the company president, and nother employee that took some of my suggestions about their system's design:
They even ended adding $50 into my account due to the hassles and interruption of service.
"Ryan Davison [tech guy]" <rdavison@ikobo.net>
"Mr. Emeka Ohuche [Ikobo President]" <eohuche@ikobo.net>
One of the things they should do is implement a system to MASS-MAIL their customers about system updates or service malfunctions. For instance, I wasn't aware of the problems with Mastercard cards, until I contacted the CEO. Why didn't they simply send an e-mail to all of their active customers saying "we're sorry but Mastercard cards will not be accepted on Ikobo for the next xx days. We're working to resolve this... etc etc "
Now on the bad side:
They have recently (last 15 days) have had to annoying problems:
-They have suspended accepting Mastercard cards to send funds. They say this will be fixed in the next 15 days.
-I started noticing that amazon.com stopped accepting my Ikobo visa electron card for online purchases. I started getting "DECLINED" transactions when attempting purchases, but there were plenty of funds into my Ikobo account. When I once again approached the CEO, I was told that Ikobo has currently suspended accepting online purchases billed to Visa Electron Ikobo cards.
So basically currently the Ikobo card is only good for extracting cash from ATMS, but not for making purchases online.
This, imho, might be due to VISA regulations, not Ikobo. I think Ikobo originally stretched the visa regulations too far. There are two types of debit cards, ONLINE cards, and OFFLINE cards. One type needs you to type the pin# on every purchase, the others can simply be swiped through a reader and the funds are automatically taken from the account balance.
Other services like epassporte.com issue TWO different cards, an "online debit card" and an "offline debit card". Ikobo attempted to use a single card for both online and offline transactions and I guess this has raised a red flag with VISA, and in turn the bank used by Ikobo must have been yelled to by the VISA folks for breaching their card issuance terms.
But this is just speculation on my part.
When I asked the Ikobo ceo about what will happen with Ikobo cards and online transactions I was told "we MAY enable online transactions again for Ikobo Visa Electron cards in the future, but we can't give you a date".
Having said that, with all these limitations, Ikobo has worked for me. I give the low-rank and tech support employees a LOW SCORE of 2/10. The top management, however, was always very responsive and accepted my POLITE complaints and suggestions, and I give them a 7/10 SCORE.
Just my $0.02
Fernando
from Argentina
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