Ikobo

OK, I use Ikobo for a while now, and they've been ok to me. I mean, it is true in the beginning customer support was pretty slow, but now, since they have the live chat section on their webpage it's fast and to the point. Solved me a few problems right away. It's true they don't support MasterCard anymore, but the "word on the street" is they will support it again in a while. My personal opinion, the only thing happening at ikobo is some sort of expansion, since they are a small company, and that might explain some of the problems they had.

ikobo for p2p

I totally agree with you Miko and travis. I am using ikobo for the moment only for p2p transfers and in my opinion it is a good service. It has coverage for my country and this is a very good thing considering that I live in eastern europe. As you know they cover more than 170 countries. Lately their customer support has greatly improved. No problems.

Waiting in the Ikobo wings

I have been learning the aMember interface for several weeks now and have set up most everything I need so far. I am now ready to set up a payment processor, but I am not in a big hurry. I am still uncertain about which processor to go with and after reading the Ikobo posts, I will wait in the wings for awhile to how things evolve with Ikobo and the plugin. I would be happy to try a test of Ikobo on my site, but my integration skills are slow because I have to learn everything as I go.

By the way, I thought I was going to go with 2checkout, but after reading all their agreements, it felt like I would be signing myself into a trap of sorts. Any comments are greatly appreciated!

2checkout is kind of OK, but sometimes their servers go down and make their service unavailable. I have heard that sometimes they do not calculate the balances correctly so you actually pay them more than what you should. I don't think the risk is worth taking, oh and I've read part of their agreements and they look pretty weird to me too. I say you should try something else...

Which pay processor is best

Is there a payment processor that outshines all the rest or at least is a popular favorite?

I think PayPal requires the buyer to be a member. Ikobo looks as though they can process card payments with out the buyer being a member of Ikobo, but I have not yet verified if this is correct.

Serious problems with Ikobo

I used Ikobo to send money to a friend in Mexico. It worked fine at first, but since they issued their new "Visa" card, it has been a comedy of errors... except I am not laughing. The PIN did not work, then they changed it, it still did not work. They sent a new card. Same story. There is money in the account unavailable since February. Now, I am not getting answers to my emails. My last chat session was closed without any comments. My previous tickets have disappeared from the case log. Trying to enter a new ticket, it tells me that I need to create a customer service account to open a ticket. When I try to do it, it tells me that the account already exists. And so on...
I am beginning to fear a gigantic scam!
Will I ever get my money back?

Contacted iKobo today about Adrian's problem

I went to iKobo and contacted them via there chat script. I chated with someone listed as "Ukraine" who answered all my basic questions, but then I brought up adrian9966's problem with them, I was disconnected and another operator listed as Roshnie" come online. I then wrote that I was previously speaking with Ukraine and got disconnected and after a few moments, I was disconnected. I think it may have been technical disconnects and not human. Anyway, then I got on chat and Ukraine came back and we had a talk about Adrian's problem. The following is the return (after disconnected) conversation that I copied and pasted:

Welcome to iKobo online help.
One of our operators will be with you soon.
Please wait
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ukraine: Thank you for choosing iKobo. How may I help you today?
You: Hi Ukraine, it is me again. We got disconnected
Ukraine: yes
Ukraine: as for me every company has some problems with clients
You: I finally figure out how to paste into Live Human, I can send you the person complaint exactly. Maybe you can address it or look it up. I think a lot of people in the forum are waiting to see how this is handled.
Ukraine: but we try to resolve our customer's problems
You: I believe you. Let me paste the original complaint:

"I used Ikobo to send money to a friend in Mexico. It worked fine at first, but since they issued their new "Visa" card, it has been a comedy of errors... except I am not laughing. The PIN did not work, then they changed it, it still did not work. They sent a new card. Same story. There is money in the account unavailable since February. Now, I am not getting answers to my emails. My last chat session was closed without any comments. My previous tickets have disappeared from the case log. Trying to enter a new ticket, it tells me that I need to create a customer service account to open a ticket. When I try to do it, it tells me that the account already exists. And so on... I am beginning to fear a gigantic scam! Will I ever get my money back?"

You: Can you solve this guys problem? I think his name is Adrian
Ukraine: as to the tickets we demand our customers to create passwords to them - that is done for the security
You: OK, but what about his being locked out of his account. Is this a one time problem, have you seen it before, are there isssues with this that I should wait until they are resolved. I understand iKobo is young and will have growth pains, but this guy needs resolution.
Ukraine: yes, sure, that problem must be resolved
Ukraine: but i need to have some information about that customer to take care of it
You: OK, I am going to tell him in the forum to get ahold of you via chat or email and give the forum a copy of our chat. Then stand by to see the resolution. Sound fair?
Ukraine: yes, sure
Ukraine: did he sent the e-mailes to us?
Ukraine: with the explenantion of the problem?
You: He said he did and did not get replies and got disconnected from chat with iKobo, but I think he needs to stop worrying and give it another try. He'll be glad to hear about our talk.
You: I'll give him your name directly and let you handle it from here
You: from this point.
Ukraine: yes, sure. Customers sometimes are disconnected - you know it
You: Sounds like it will work out OK and a lot of forum members will be glad to hear it.
You: OK, I'll make the post now and you have a great day today. Thank your very much for you time!
Ukraine: thank you Ukraine: you too

So Adrian, get ahold of Ukraine and let us know if the problem gets resolved.

good luck

Good idea techhead, I hope this will shed some light into adrian's situation. It would be a really good thing if he posted back here and let us know whether his problem got solved or not. I also think it's going to be OK. Good luck adrian and let us know how things went!

Update: My troubles with iKobo

Hi. I want to keep you posted. I followed techhead's advise, cooled down, and kept trying to contact iKobo. Eventually I got in chat with Ukraine, although it turns out there are 3 different Ukraines (?) This one was not the same that chatted with techhead, but she was very polite and helpful. She confirmed that my friend had attempted a withdrawal, but perhaps the amount was too high. The PIN was reset, and I told my friend to try withdrawing a smaller amount of cash. I am waiting for the outcome. I will let you know one way or another. (I still think that iKobo has a lot of work to do in the customer service area... The feeling of being "lost in outer space" is not a good one!)

I'm glad you did that. You see, things aren't as bad as they sometimes seem to be. I think things are going to work out eventually. It's true they have some problems since they are relatively new in this business, but I thing it's worth sticking around for the long run. I say this mainly because I never had any kind of problems with ikobo, maybe I was lucky, or maybe you or your friend were a little unlucky.

iKobo.com

adrian9966, maybe you know but please tell your friend that he can use the History page from his ikobo account and then select all activity and submit. There he can see all the transactions (card activity) and also some explanations. This is a great help for me when I want to see what has happened with my iKard when I have doubts about my current funds.

In order to make your own anti-fraud system you need database software on your server, which will be filled by ikobo's IPN system. You can use a script that divides the message sent by IPN into little pieces of information like: user, name, date..... and puts this information into your database. After that, you compare your already big database with the information sent by ikobo's IPN in order to detect suspicious activities or possible frauds. You can do that using your own set of rules which can include verification if current buyer is already in your database or from what region of the world is he logging in and any ideas that makes your transactions safer.

That's interesting. Thanks comrace, I have a friend who is thinking to turn his non e-commerce site into an e-commerce one and he could use this information since he's also thinking of using ikobo. I'll copy/paste this and e-mail him. I'm sure he'll appreciate it. Thank you in his name.

ikobo.com

You are welcome. You know, I helped a lot of people who wanted to make a business and start from scratch. If anyone wants to make an ecommerce site and doesn't know how to do it, he is welcome to ask on this thread anything he wants. I know many features of ikobo.com service and this is a good service for new businesses, especially if someone doesn't have a lot of money to begin with

What is the status on Ikobo

How is the live testing with the Ikobo plugin coming?

i use Amember Pro and IKobo too

i use Amember Pro and IKobo too.
i would be glad to help testing it Alex.