The Compactsurf admins speak….
Posted by rabbit on 13th June 2006
My comments and thoughts are written in blue.
Dear Compact Surfing Members,
This is an important update on the status of Compact Surfing. It clarifies what
the future holds for the Compact Network, and how I plan to ensure that what we
have built with our members in the past 3 months continues to grow and prosper.
I will be honest with all of you, recent events have given us cause for concern,
and the steps we have taken this past week, and are about to take, are to ensure
our security remains one of the best in the industry for both our Network, and
for you our members.
For three months Compact Surfing, as all of you know, paid usually within 48
hours of cashout request. However, when payouts were processed so quickly, many
members who attempted to contact support and have cashout requests stopped to
egold accounts that were hacked were unable to do so in time, and as a result,
their requests were paid out to hackers who ran off with their funds.
This has been a very serious issue for many members. I have had at least 10
support tickets sent every day for over a month relating to such hackings. The
amount of member money lost to hackers is now in the tens of thousands of
dollars, and it must be stopped. I did not create this program to feed the
hackers. This business and program was created for the benefit of the members
who have supported us and handed over their trust to us.
This view seems plausible, but shouldn't members be responsible for their own e-gold security? This stand / view seems somewhat paternalistic.
Then, several days ago, we had an even more serious issue to address. During
our scheduled work on Compactpay, a situation arose that required our immediate
attention. We had a hacker access the database through a vulnerability, and
though he got no valuable information, and did not infiltrate anyone's money
accounts, we dropped all else we were doing, and set about encrypting our
database, among other things.
Well good to hear that they caught the hacker in time. The story sounds believable enough.
In light of all the events above, I have now decided that CN will be
implementing new additional security measures regarding hackings, and revamping
our payment system accordingly to fit these measures. There will be a required
step that all members must take before we continue on with our payouts. The
changes we are implementing will allow members the needed to time to make their
hacking reports, and will allow staff the needed time to stop payments to
hackers, even during our busier times. The following are the changes that will
be made, effective as of today:
1. As additional security, we ask that all members update
their passwords on the Compactsurfing site at this time with a unique password
you have never used anywhere on the internet before. You can do this by
clicking on “Edit Account Details” after you log into your CS account. Then
scroll down to where it says “Password Change.” Type in your current password in
the field that says: “Your Password.” Then type in your “New Password” and
“Confirm New Password” and click on “Save.” This is to ensure that if any of you
have the same password with CS that you are using with other sites, or have used
in sites you’ve been with in the past, that hackers do not have easy access to
this information.
2. Official Payment Time Frame: Members may still hold
multiple upgrades to a total of $10,000 USD. Members may still make 3 cashout
requests per month. However, from here on forward, Compact Surfing will now
make payments in 7 BUSINESS days following the date of your cashout request.
That means you will no longer count Saturdays and Sundays as work days for the
CS Payment Department, and you will be paid on the 7th business day after you
make a request.
To clarify, if you make a payout request on a Monday, what day do you expect
payment? Count: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Monday, Tuesday,
Wednesday…. Monday of the next week is the day you are to expect payment. This
new payment system applies to all current pending payments, and to all those in
the future.
Ouch. They will effectively turn the program from a 13% per day in 9 days to a 6% per day in 20 days program. This is definitely not as attractive as we have it now. 7 calendar days would be much better and would be enough time to sort out any potential hacker related issues.
This will be the same time frame as 12dailypro established, for
those of you who are familiar with that program. It will end all discussion of
what day you are paid. It will allow my support staff and you, the members,
ample time to contact us in the event that your payment processor account is
hacked so that we can put your cashout requests on hold and prevent your
funds from being paid to hackers. (To date, tens of thousands of dollars
have been paid out to hackers, despite our efforts to prevent this, and we
feel, changing our payment strategy will result in more profits for all
involved.)
Hmm. How will a longer time frame for payouts result in more profits for all involved?
I will allow until this Friday, June 16th for members to change
their account passwords and to review their account information in their back
office for any other changes they may wish to make. I will then begin
processing payments: all pending cashout requests made on the 6th and 7th of
June will be paid next Monday. This will be in line with the new payment terms
since, though I was ill last week for 2 days, I processed payments over the past
weekend. Requests made on the 8th of June will be processed by the end of
the day, this Monday, June 19th, and we will go from there.
Please go now and update your passwords and review your accounts. I will follow
up with further updates during the week regarding the status of Compact Surfing
and the rest of the Network sites.
As you can see, I am somewhat skeptical of the changes. Still, I will wait to see if people actually get paid when they are suppose to. For me this is the key. I guess we have to wait until next week Monday to find out.
Posted in PAID TO SURF, News & Updates | 11 Comments »