$170 down the drain?

[K1ngN0thing]

Upon setting up my web shop I had to input my bank account information so as to be able to receive credit/debit payments. I input the wrong account number, and by the time I realized it, 6 payments had been made to a stranger's account, totaling $170. First, the bank was "looking into it" and now they're "going to see what they can do." I can easily prove I own the source of the payments, so shouldn't they be able to transfer the funds? How hard can it be to contact the recipient to confirm what's going on? If I were wealthy, I'm sure they'd not hesitate to do everything to retain me as a customer, but because I've got less than a grand in the bank, and it's "only" $170, they don't appear to care. I'm just going to continue calling every 2 days until something's done about it, while dropping obvious hints that I intend to migrate to a different bank if nothing's done.

 

[TMG51]

OP is saying revenue from his site was deposited into someone else's bank account due to his typo.

 

[jimindenver]

King

Threatening to leave only works if the person you are talking to has the ability to make the changes you need and just chooses not to. That's rarely the case. Be gracious, find out what you can do to help them do their job. Life happens and it isn't the person that you are talking to fault. Throwing a hissy won't change that.

I hope you get it worked out soon.

On Edit

TYPO?

ouch

 

[BradKW]

I believe he's saying that people bought stuff, but their payments were routed to another account instead of his. If the wrong account is also with the same bank as K1ng's, I'd say there's a good chance that continued follow-ups will yield results. But with web-based transactions, there could be a couple intermediate steps the payments went through, in which case it'd be hard to get anyone to follow through for $170.

 

[K1ngN0thing]

It is with the same bank, which is why I don't understand what's taking so long.

I wasn't planning on throwing a "hissy fit", just maybe casually asking if there would be a fee to close my account, things like that.

If the shop regularly brought in this kind of money, I wouldn't be so stressed about it, but this was the result of a single successful reddit post, and that kind of success can't be easily duplicated. I've got 3 months until my 4.5k in CC deb starts accruing interest. I can't afford to lose a buck, let alone nearly 200.

 

[FALCON]

I don't have any advice other than to keep asking the bank nicely but firmly and to try to accept that you made a $170 mistake.

 

[K1ngN0thing]

turns out I had a voicemail from 9 hours ago telling me there was a solution. not to self: leave ringer on

 

[SoulRaven]

I think I would chalk it up to the price of a valuable lesson learned.

There were TWO lessons there! The cheap ($170) lesson was to double check things.

Whether you realize it or not, you also learned a much more valuable lesson as well...

You learned how to get paying customers to your website!!! Now take this and run with it. You have discovered that YOU need to drive the traffic to your website, just being in the search engines isn't enough. YOU need to advertise your website, anywhere and everywhere, to get the traffic and make the sales.

Why isn't a link to your store in your signature here? And in every email you send out? Online Classifieds? Your store needs to be advertised on every free advertising site on the internet, and those ads renewed regularly to keep them at the top of the lists.

Your web store means very little in the grand scheme of things, how you MARKET it means EVERYTHING.

Nothing I sell online is special or unique, it is the MARKETING that makes me the money.

 

[K1ngN0thing]

I understand the marketing. Most of my sales were from a single successful reddit post, and that subreddit's mods decided to delete it because (I assume) some people in the comments had realized I was selling a $3 item for $7. Once they realized I was just an independent seller drop-shopping at a slight markup, they proceeded to delete every post I made. It's not going to be easy to duplicate that success, which is why I need that money, if for nothing else than to cover the monthly hosting fee while I continue to build it up. Luckily, it looks like I should be getting my money back. Will know once I call back tomorrow.

It's not in my signature on this forum because the last time I tried advertising something of my own there, the mods removed it.

Without paying for ads, there's not much I can do that's going to have a significant impact, and I'm apparently banned from buying Facebook ads for "fraudulent activity." This is especially brutal because I'm now constantly seeing ads for sites selling the same stuff I am, for double the price, and some are doing very well, all because of Facebook ads.

I've got over a thousand sales on a lesser-known auction site, and that's been my main source of income, so it's not like I'm dead in the water. I just need to make more, faster, and the only way to do that is on my own platform. Maybe I'll look into Instagram or Tumblr ads. Do you have any experience with these?

 

[GotSmart]

I understand the marketing. Most of my sales were from a single successful reddit post, and that subreddit's mods decided to delete it because (I assume) some people in the comments had realized I was selling a $3 item for $7. Once they realized I was just an independent seller drop-shopping at a slight markup, they proceeded to delete every post I made. It's not going to be easy to duplicate that success, which is why I need that money, if for nothing else than to cover the  monthly hosting fee while I continue to build it up. Luckily, it looks like I should be getting my money back. Will know once I call back tomorrow.

It's not in my signature on this forum because the last time I tried advertising something of my own there, the mods removed it.

Without paying for ads, there's not much I can do that's going to have a significant impact, and I'm apparently banned from buying Facebook ads for "fraudulent activity." This is especially brutal because I'm now constantly seeing ads for sites selling the same stuff I am, for double the price, and some are doing very well, all because of Facebook ads.

I've got over a thousand sales on a lesser-known auction site, and that's been my main source of income, so it's not like I'm dead in the water. I just need to make more, faster, and the only way to do that is on my own platform. Maybe I'll look into Instagram or Tumblr ads. Do you have any experience with these?

Do what everyone else is.  Set up a new account in a company name.   That said, I hate facebook ads. 

 

[SoulRaven]

I understand the marketing. Most of my sales were from a single successful reddit post, and that subreddit's mods decided to delete it because (I assume) some people in the comments had realized I was selling a $3 item for $7. Once they realized I was just an independent seller drop-shopping at a slight markup, they proceeded to delete every post I made. It's not going to be easy to duplicate that success, which is why I need that money, if for nothing else than to cover the  monthly hosting fee while I continue to build it up. Luckily, it looks like I should be getting my money back. Will know once I call back tomorrow.

It's not in my signature on this forum because the last time I tried advertising something of my own there, the mods removed it.

Without paying for ads, there's not much I can do that's going to have a significant impact, and I'm apparently banned from buying Facebook ads for "fraudulent activity." This is especially brutal because I'm now constantly seeing ads for sites selling the same stuff I am, for double the price, and some are doing very well, all because of Facebook ads.

I've got over a thousand sales on a lesser-known auction site, and that's been my main source of income, so it's not like I'm dead in the water. I just need to make more, faster, and the only way to do that is on my own platform. Maybe I'll look into Instagram or Tumblr ads. Do you have any experience with these?

I quit doing paid ads in short order when I discovered that they never paid for themselves.

Free classifieds are where the money is.  Sure, it's more work, but there are over 100 decent sized free classifieds sites out there.  That's one of the best ways I've found to get free targeted traffic to a website.

If money's tight for you, I would just sell an ebook real quick on the free classifieds.  Done right, it's pretty easy to make a grand a day.  Finding the right ebook to have mass appeal and bring in top dollar is the hardest part, but it can be done.  Advertise it in the top 200-300 top metro areas so the most people see your ads.

Making money, and work from home stuff are the hottest sellers right now.

Find an ebook with resale rights, and you're good to go.  Never mind the original price, it could be very low.  Just make sure that when you read it, you can justify putting a $30-$40 price tag on it.  If it's good information that can truthfully either make somebody or save somebody more than 3-4 times what they paid for it, you'll have happy customers. 

The marketing/advertising is what makes the difference.  You can sell a turd if you market it right.

 

[K1ngN0thing]

I plan to write a short ebook helping people get started with drop-shipping once my main site is off the ground. Doing it now is risk as I'd be creating direct competition with myself on the small proprietary auction site I use.

I envy the people who can market other people's products. I'm sure there's a lot of money in selling an ebook, but if it's not something I created or personally use/am interested in, it's impossible for me to find the energy to promote it. It's a curse!

Had no idea there were so many classified sites though. I'll have to look into those.

 

[SoulRaven]

I plan to write a short ebook helping people get started with drop-shipping once my main site is off the ground. Doing it now is risk as I'd be creating direct competition with myself on the small proprietary auction site I use.

I envy the people who can market other people's products. I'm sure there's a lot of money in selling an ebook, but if it's not something I created or personally use/am interested in, it's impossible for me to find the energy to promote it. It's a curse!

Had no idea there were so many classified sites though. I'll have to look into those.

I totally agree!  I never sell anything that I don't believe in or can't verify.

I've never had a flair for writing, so I always preferred to just leave that part to someone else.