2005 - 09-27-05

Well,
that newsletter prompted an almost immediate reply from one
of my readers. He gave me permission to reproduce his email
in my newsletter on the condition I would keep his name and
contact information private.

Here's his email:

Hi
Gary,

I just read
your letter about the difficulties in obtaining
a merchant account for a direct response
business. I don't know when you wrote this, but
my discovery of your message could not have been
more timely. Here's why:

On August 30,
I launched a new business {website URL was here}
and lined up some seriously big affiliate
partners for the initial launch. Sales took off
like mad. My merchant account provider did not
like this one bit, and held my funds pending
further investigation. Apparently $90k in sales
in about 5 days by a 24 year old with marginal
credit scared the crap out of them.

I was jerked
around by various incompetent morons for days
while my insanely profitable business was
withering, unable to accept payments.
Eventually, they notified me that they did not
want to do business with me and would be closing
my account, and holding my money for 9 months.

The reason:
"They do not support my 'business type.'"

In a desparate
move I switched over to Paypal, but they killed
me after only about another $20k in orders.

I actually now
have my Paypal account back but I'm afraid to do
any decent volume at all, and I have told all of
my affiliate partners to back off. (A great
message to send - "Hey, don't make us money!
Stop it!")