A few weeks ago, I blogged about the financial troubles afflicting ePassporte, an online payment provider whose sudden disconnection from the Visa network left many account holders without access to millions of dollars. I became interested in ePassporte because it kept popping up as I was investigating stories related to affiliate programs that reward people who peddle things like rogue anti-virus products and spam.
Since then, I’ve heard from a large number of disgruntled ePassporte account holders, most of whom were or are in the online porn industry, a market that ePassporte’s CEO Chris Mallick helped to nurture. In fact, as I noted in that original blog entry, Mallick produced “Middle Men,” a movie released by Paramount in August that is a fictionalized account of his experiences in the porn billing industry.
Many of those readers have been asking for an update on this story, and I’m afraid I don’t have a whole lot more to report. But the old adage about following the money led me to at least try to understand a bit more about how ePassporte is structured, and where its money may be.
Before I get to that, it makes sense to restate what’s been said by the parties involved. On Sept. 2, ePassporte owner Chris Mallick sent an e-mail to account holders saying the company was notified that effective immediately, Visa International had suspended the ePassporte Visa program, a card issued by St. Kitts Nevis Anguilla National Bank that ePassporte customers could use to withdraw cash at ATMs worldwide.
I contacted Visa for comment on that story, and the following Tuesday received a statement from Visa via e-mail saying that it had disconnected ePassporte at the request of St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla National Bank to “address certain program deficiencies.” Neither Visa nor SKNA Bank has been willing to discuss what those deficiencies may have been. A story in the St. Kitts Nevis Observer quotes a St. Kitts National Bank representative as saying Visa had cleared them of any wrongdoing, although that official – Patricia Wilkinson – declined to say who had accused them of wrongdoing or answer any other questions when I reached her by phone on Monday.
In checking out numerous forums and looking up bank and incorporation records online, I learned that ePassporte is incorporated in Curaçao, an island in the southern Caribbean Sea, off the coast of Venezuela. Indeed, the ePassporte Visa cards themselves include this information, indirectly at least, with the statement:
“This card is issued by St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla National Bank Limited” (“Bank”) pursuant to a license from Visa International and under a co-branding agreement between ePassporte N.V. and the bank.”
The Web site for the Curaçao Chamber of Commerce & Industry says ePassporte N.V. is registered at the address Kaya Richard J. Beaujon Z/N, Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles. The managing director of the company is a man named Gregory E. Elias (the same information is included in a old WHOIS records search for epassporte.com).
According to multiple ePassporte users with whom I’ve corresponded, any wires or bank transfers used to deposit funds in ePassporte accounts are sent to ePassporte N.V. via an entity called United International Bank N.V., an organization founded in 2009. Interestingly, United International Bank also lists the same Curaçao address, and lists Mr. Elias as a director, among others. So, on the surface at least, it appears that ePassporte and its primary bank are owned and operated by the same entity and directors.
I was able to locate a phone number for Mr. Elias and reached him this morning at United International Trust. Elias said he had no idea ePassporte customers were having trouble withdrawing their money from the bank, but he declined to answer direct questions about the situation.
“The only thing we can tell you is if you send your inquires and questions in writing to us, we will pass them on to Mr. Mallick and his lawyers,” Elias said. “We cannot go over queries over the phone. We never do that.” Elias declined to give me his e-mail address, saying I should be able to find it if I really were an investigative reporter.
Mallick and ePassporte have yet to respond to requests for comment. Mallick issued another statement Sept. 10 via an adult Webmaster forum, urging customers who were having trouble withdrawing their funds to be patient. “Our staff is all working diligently to resolve these issues and the many moving and complicated parts of getting the funds returned,” Mallick wrote. “Therefore, please do not mistake our silence as hiding, avoiding or stringing you along. We too have funds that are stuck in the system as well as massive costs of operation without any income.”
But bereft of any hard information from ePassporte, the company’s customers have begun spinning conspiracy theories about what could have fueled the entire fiasco. Some have pointed to Mallick’s film, which according to Web site boxofficemojo.com cost an estimated $20 million but grossed less than $800,000 in a three week run at the box office that ended in late August.
In any event, I put some of the information I found into a spreadsheet (a portion of which is included below), mainly to help me understand the relationship between the various interested parties as I followed the trail of other stories I’ve been working on. It may be useful to some ePassporte customers: It includes Mr. Elias’ e-mail address and phone number.
oh yes! if jorge said on 18th then i will get my money back, now im sure !
I have 2300 dollars in my Visa account and my Visa is not working:( I read on the forum http://www.epassportealternatives.com that it is not working for anyone with more than 1000 dollars on their account, is it true? Is it for all countries or just some countries?
5000+ on my visa card. still blocked. I emailed to St. Kitts Bank on 7th. No reply. I called them on 8th. They said in my case they require that I fill a form. They said they will email me the form. They did not email me until today, 13th. If they need me to fill a form, why they dont have it at their website for download? Why they will email it? And when (if ever)?
I received an email from St Kitts Bank with a form attached that they ask to sign. Obviously is it the banks intension to scare Visa card holders. I never was asked to sign anything like this in my life. I will call Visa Customer Care to discuss it with Visa. Here is the text from the form from St Kitts Bank :
Quote:
SKNANB VISA PREPAID CARD DUE DILIGENCE, Verification & AFFIDAVIT FORM
St. Christopher (St. Kitts) and Nevis Law requires all financial institutions to obtain, verify and record information that identifies each person utilizing a monetary instrument. This means that we are required to confirm your name, address, date of birth and other information that will allow us to confirm your identify as follows.
CONTINUOUS AUTHORITY..I acknowledge that St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla National Bank Limited (SKNANB) may use the services of an outside agency to research and verify my personal background. I also understand that SKNANB or its nominated outside agency may require access to various sources of information as it may deem appropriate, which include, but are not limited to, credit reporting agencies, criminal and civil court records, department of motor vehicle records, government regulatory agencies, local, state or federal licensing boards or commissions, public or private associations, present and former employers, school records, military records and personal references.
I request, authorize and consent to the release and disclosure of all applicable sources of information to which SKNANB requires access including, but not limited to, those listed above to SKNANB and its nominated outside agency their respective employees representatives and agents. I unconditionally release and hold harmless SKNANB and its nominated outside agency, and their respective employees, representatives and agents, as well as any named or unnamed corporation, company, custodian of records or information from any and all liability resulting from furnishing information about me pursuant to the above authorisation.
I also request, authorize and consent to the procurement of an investigative report and understand that it may contain information about my background, mode of living, character and personal reputation. This authorization shall be considered my consent and continuous authority for SKNANB or it’s nominated outside agency to obtain updated information at any time
Cardholder Signature:.Date:
AFFIDAVIT Regarding SOURCE OF FUNDS. I acknowledge that it is the policy of SKNANB toverify the source of funds on cards issued by SKNANB, and to determine that funds for transfer and or the purchase of goods and or services by use of an SKNANB issued card are derived from legitimate sources only. I understand that it is an offence under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2000 to engage directly, or indirectly, in a transaction that involves money or other property, or receiving, possessing, managing, investing, concealing, disguising, disposing of, or bringing into or transferring fromthe Federation of St. KITTS and Nevis any property that is the proceeds of crime. I further understand and give consent that SKNANB or its officers may make any disclosure of any information obtained by the bank hereto to any bank regulators or law enforcement authority, whether in st. kitts and nevis or not, now and at any time in the future. Finally, i am aware that I will be required to provide and execute additional documents if my card balance is over us$10,000
Cardholder Signature:.Date
End of Quote.
you think it’s funny to make a joke about threatening employees & their children?
guttercrap BS like that is uncalled for and unacceptable even when you try to make light of it. there’s no excuse for making or initiating violent threats/violent acts of any kind online or anywhere (selfprotection/protection of the safety o fothers being the rare exceptions of course as acknowledgement there are RARE gray areas but making those threats — NOT FUNNY!)
TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE! you = $h*t4brain$
Thanks. He’s gone.
I’m back :3
It’s 18th october and still nothing poped out yet from epassporte informing us what to do to get our wallet money as announced!
its 18th of oct. still no email from epassporte..i hve $5000 on my wallet i feel really sad..and i dont hear anything from epassporte wheres my money now..
Please expect a definitive date for wallet wires to go out on or before October 18th.
:() <====8
Never trusted to a banks or other finansial tricks, when someone try to separate me from my cash on exchange of piece of plastic or paper or nice web payment system. I prefer to have MY money in MY pocket. Never had more than 100 bucks on epassporte accounts. Hence my losses are minimal.
hey, krebs….i learned so much about epassporte from your posts, but now i m in the darkness again. can you tell me ( us ) if you investigate further more on e-wallet issue ? or it s became an obsolete topic already ? in your opinion, the epassportelawsuit.com action…or any other similar to it has any chances to recover our funds ? is FBI an option ( since, for ex, i am not an U.S. citizen ) ?
Hi,
Finally yesterday I go an email answer from walletrequest@epassporte.com . If later I receive the wire I will post here also.
”
Hello,
Thank you so much for contacting ePassporte. We are currently reviewing
all requests and should have all wire disbursements completed. ePassporte
is currently down to a small core of employees who are finalizing all wire
disbursement requests. Once this wire has been initiated, you will
receive an e-mail notification.
I am sorry I am unable to provide a specific time frame, however please
rest assured we are working diligently to have these requests completed as
soon as possible.
We appreciate your patience and understanding,
ePassporte Wire Disbursement Department “
The above is a form email that they send out… it may even be on ‘auto-respond’ and a real person has yet to see your inquiry.
I know of one person who has received a “real, personal” response from walletrequest@ epassport dot com. He is, separately, going to pursue the Kenney bank route as well.
I dont like 2 things of the new changes, first, wallet founds are not any more visible, 2nd, why transfer founds to visa its not an option??? I don’t have a bank account !
Weird, i have already two linked cards to my epass account, why they don’t have personal linked cards as refund option, why wire transfer is the only method.
Still i haven’t got any reply from the bank. It has been more than 16 days since i sent them documents.
They said they’ll reply within 10 days, not still got no reply.
I’m worried now.
At least they answered you something, here still without response 🙂
Too
I have got over 4000$. Sent them all details.
God. I’m goin to contact VISA and tell them, bank is voilating their terms and not giving me my money. Do you guys think, it would ok?
I have sent numerous emails to both epassporte and the contact links that they had on their site. Up to now Oct 31st I am still awaiting a reply from both. I have over 900$ in my account, I can only now assume its lost and I will never see that again. Times are changing. It used to be banks that got robbed. Now its banks robbing the customers. I think its about time the fbi got involved, Its criminal. Daylight robbery by a bank, Who have robbed us all of our money. If they were going to pay out we would have all been paid by now. Some fat cat is living it up on the beach somewhere on our cash
I got my wallet money!!
USD $11,000.13
Damn I thought it was gone for sure.
I started calling the US bank that the previous ACH withdrawals from the wallet had come from. They got in touch with their ePassporte contact, who contacted me by email about 3 weeks ago. And finally today I got an email from a new ePassporte email address which said to send one further document (copy of bank statement) and that the funds would be wired today or tomorrow. I did as requested, they emailed saying it would be going out as stated, today or tomorrow. Then tonight I checked my bank online and it is there!!! Man I don’t know if I’m coming or going now. What a relief.
Hi. Well done. congratulations. I am pleased you managed to get your money back from them. I have not even had a reply to my emails. I would be most grateful if you could give me the contact details to where you were sending you correspondence to. Maybe I am sending to the wrong place. Five times now and no reply still
Thanks
Brian
Is this for real? On the webmaster boards such as GFY, no one has posted that they’ve received their money from the epassporte wallet, but lots of people are reporting that epassporte has not yet sent any kind of reply.
Is ianian for real, or is he part of Chris Mallic’s attempt to remove damaging information from the web? Over the past weeks several sites with information about chris mallick and gregory elias have been taken down.
I am for real. at gfy, I posted first a screen shot of my bank act while logged in… it showing the wire. Then continued to get flamed from many at GFY – especially adultqueen i mean adultking – so i posted a vid showing me logging into my epass account goint to the status page and it showing the 11K and status is Sent.
All I can do is post what I did to finally get someone at epass to take care of this. That seems to be too much for many over at GFY who apparently would rather sit around and masturbate than get their funds. Most of them probably just talk don’t even have any funds.
Yea it’s for real. On GFY i just get flamed but no big deal. Anyone in the US should just call the kenney bank, ask for the ACH dept and tell them your wallet funds are tied up and that you know they are one of epass banks. be persistent, call back every day or so. remember they are not the problem… epass is just their customer so don’t yell at them, it won’t help you. I told them (kenney bank lady) stuff like “this looks like it’s gonna be a law enforcement issue… so I imagine that someone law enforcement will be calling you about this…” , stuff like that. Anyway they said they talked to someone at epass and they would get in touch with me. A few days later I got an email from the guy from epass. Then on again off again with sometimes a week passed with no word even though he said “i’ll get right back to you with …. ” … but he finally did get back, the last time about a week ago and said he got it sorted and my wire should be going out in a day or two. Then nothing for a week and I thought “yeah, right. I’ve been strung along while they continue to take bags of cash out of their offices…” … then yesterday I got an email from a completely diff email addy at epassporte and they said “just fill out the account close agreement”, a new wire request (even though I had one approved from sept 6th); and a copy of your bank statement.” I was concerned about giving them my SS# ( i ended up giving my business ein) due to identify theft fears… but I thought… f**k it and did so. then I got a “thank you, your wire will go out today or tomorror”. Then a few hours later another email “Your wire will go out tonight”. and it did. it showed up in my bank last night. $11,000.13 USD.
I wish all well… even though over at GFY forum I get flamed for saying that. a weird person there. he claims to be better than others cause he has a “high post count”. what a joke. I got as many or more post than he does over at cashburners. I don’t think he too smart. calls his self “adultking”. King of what? noodles for brains?
I have been sending them emails everyday. And they don’t reply to me.. Why did they reply to you and also why did they refund all your money. Has anyone got the number for the banking ombudsman where I can file a report. Thanks
They replied to me because I did the stuff I wrote about above… and the bank ACH deptartment rep who deals with epassporte as a client, called the banks epassporte contact, gave them my details, and after a few days (and a couple of follow-up calls to the bank from me), I was contacted by MW, one of the higher ups at epassporte. After that there was a few more back and forth emails between me and MW at epassporte and finally I got an email from ‘ePassporte Wireteam’ at a different epassporte email address, who requested that I re-do a doc, fill out the account closing agreement, and send a copy of my bank statement. I did that, and the wire got to my bank that very night. The time you spent writing your comment here, you could have called Kenney bank and started that process.
I posted a reply to your post here, but it does not show up. Maybe waiting for moderation by Krebs. don’t know.
How do you contact epassporte or anybody from that department. I keep on sending mails. But I never get a reply. Is there anything in the newspapers in USA about this corruption. Lets get real. We have all been robbed. Does anyone here really think there is any chance of getting your dollars back ?
See above. I described how I was able to be contacted by epassporte. I don’t know if it will work for you or not, but it seems that you have not tried?
Just letting you know we are still active over at http://www.epassportesucks.com
We also share our stories about ePassPorte,Christopher Mallick, and St. Kitt’s Bank.
Whether you have your money or not please stop by and share your story. 🙂
1 months past since i given them my documents to prove my identity, no reply from them yet.
Now i’m pretty much sure, they are buying time and waiting for this thing to go in dark and keep all the money.
I think you could be right Jim. Me also no reply. Have you tried calling the Kenney Bank. I got no idea what or where that is as I am in UK.. Wonder how much money is involved in total.
ok, lets say you decide calling that bank, what are you going to tell them? Hi, your client is a thief and he owes me money, can you do anything about it? 🙂
hello & thanks:
both epassporte & the st kitts bank are thieves. There’s no doubt about that. Christopher Mallick obviously stole his clients money to use for his crapsh*t failure of a stinker loser C-level movie.
What an egotistical sociopath scumbag lying thief. Where are the authorities investigating this lying scumbag with an ego the size of the republican party?
On a much more important & serious note: I am wondering what the adult & related affiliate programs are now going to be using for legit payment services to replace epassporte?
Not all of us want to show we are receiving income from such obvious online adult & gambling programs even tho millions of people visit them and use them daily. I am talking about legit adult and casino services for adults, not the violent crap, not the evil heinous child porno scumbags, but erotic sex and casino sites for adults. only legit stuff that appreciates the female form and doesn’t exploit women, girls or children — that’s what I mean and I do mean it. There is a huge difference!
I don’t understand: why don’t those affiliate programs all have inconspicuous generic names and use DEPENDABLE legit overseas payment program to replace epassporte? The USA is so moralistic and so full of government spies/spying (both parties democraps & repulikkkans are owned & controlled by the religious rightwing military industrial corporate complex).
Does anyone know and can recommend legit adult & casino and any other aff programs that do make money legitimately? I will sign up under your links if you know of the best such programs to sign up for — who do you recommend? you can email me w/ your BEST affiliate program suggestions to > adultplusaffsuggestions [at] nym.hush.com
You know if it’s spam it won’t do any good, you’ll be in the toilet automatically. Legit suggestions of great & EXCELLENT ONLINE moneymakers are welcome. I’ll be happy to join your downline.
This is a great site BTW!
Brian: I truly hope you do some reporting on the investigations of the lying thief scumbag Christoper Mallick or whoever he is?
Also
P.S. Request: to the admin / webmaster of epassportesucks.com. Please, include an option to show more than 5 entries per page? (that’s old school settings for dial up). And I will sign up under anyone’s aff links if you know of the best such aff programs to sign up for — who do you recommend? if you have suggestions, please email me you have the email address ~ thanks!
On my website http://www.epassportesucks.com I keep clicking the option to show more messages on one page but it always resets itself and I don’t know how to fix it.
Anonymous Confidential Internet Web Surfing,
I tried emailing you with the email address you posted and the emails are returned.
i will leave message on your guestbook at epassportesucks.com — but the email address should work, can you try again?
thanks!