StormPay

StormPay of TN was an electronic money auction payment processor run by Stormpay Incorporated, a Clarksville, Tennessee, United States company founded in October 2002 by John R. McConnell, Jr. and the CEO, Steve Girsky. It allowed anyone with an e-mail address to buy or sell StormPay Auction items after opening an online account.

Steve Girsky is also the registered owner of Clixsense.com, a Paid To Click site also based in Clarksville.

The currency used in accounts was United States dollars. However, StormPay was not like a bank, where the money in ones account is actually backed by real money. A StormPay user can fund their account with an online check, money order, or by clicking on sponsored links, purchased by StormPay members themselves, in the StormClix section of the StormPay website. StormPay (and NetIBA) have also paid commissions for referring new members to the payment process or verification system.

Opening a StormPay account was free. It was also free to send money to another e-mail address. However, a fee was incurred when receiving funds: if the recipient was NetIBA certified, this was 39 cents plus 2.9% of the amount being received; if not, it was 49 cents and 4.9%. This marks a return to the usual fee structure used by most online payment processors that was also used by StormPay before becoming an auction-only site, but the non-certified fee has been reduced from the level in March 2006, which was 69c + 6.9%. Additionally, for a brief period in April and early May 2006, there was no fee for NetIBA certified accounts and it was 2% otherwise.

Being NetIBA certified costs $19.95 a year. It was claimed to be a third-party identity verification service. It is also located in Clarksville, Tennessee and registered with the Tennessee Secretary of State by McConnell, indicating that it is not a third-party service. The NetIBA certification process purportedly includes the sending of a PIN by telephone and a PIN by mail, however, users have also reported that the phone step is occasionally skipped. After being certified, webmasters may place an image on their website to display this fact to potential customers. In the NetIBA FAQ, under the question: "What form of payment do you accept?" the following answer is given: "NetIBA accepts StormPay. NetIBA recommends when shopping online that you use services such as StormPay to ensure that your financial information does not end up in the hands of wrong doers."

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