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About Honesty in The Adult Business
Posted On 08 Aug 2001
BUSINESS THREADS
Any of us that have been around in this industry for a while can attest to the fact that there are some unscrupulous operators out there. I guess I may be jaded, but I have come to expect a certain amount of this, and am on guard for it, as many of you are.BUSINESS THREADS
Any of us that have been around in this industry for a while can attest to the fact that there are some unscrupulous operators out there. I guess I may be jaded, but I have come to expect a certain amount of this, and am on guard for it, as many of you are. So, when you see a company that goes out of its way to be honest, it gives you pause. I’ve had such an experience that I think deserves recognition. Not only that, but it’s a good story, that will likely brighten your day.
So here it is. We started out as a BBS (Bulletin Board System) called “Sex2CStore BBS” with echo groups, relay mail, and a BBS operating system called “Renegade.” You could have one caller on at a time, and online pictures were just a vision. This was mildly profitable, and got our interest. Then, back in the “old days” of the Internet, circa 1995, we had a small web server, running a small adult website. That was back in the days when you could put up a few pictures, some good stories, and eek out a decent existence with your site. If you can believe it, we were actually running our own server on a WIN ’95 Box, with a dedicated dial-up line. This gradually built up to a dedicated server earning a few dollars. After a few years, the business started to taper off, and interest waned. This was also during the time when we were developing the Virtual Sex Machine. As that grew, we lost interest in having our web server running and the time it took away from development. When our facility burned down in 1998, we just didn’t set the service back up. We moved on with the machine development, and kind of forgot about the adult website business.
Now we come to the interesting part: Last year, I received an email from Adult Check. The email read something along the lines of, “We are looking over our records, and don’t have current contact information for you. We may have money that was not paid to you.” Now, as you are probably thinking, like me, this sounds like a “we are updating our email database, and want to try to sell you something,” message. Right?
Well, on the off chance that it was not, I sent them my contact info and promptly forgot about it. Several months passed, and with the excitement of the “Everything to do with Sex show,” in Toronto, and the AVN Shows, IA2000, and Internext, I didn’t think about it again. As I look back, I see now that I also received another email from them in December reminding me that I would be getting a check in the next pay period, but no details. I have to admit, I didn’t even open the mail when I got it. It must have looked like one of those hundreds of “Millionaire shares his method of making money for $19.95” emails we all get. So, of course, I ignored it at the time.
Well, now for the big surprise. Today, the Federal Express truck pulls up, which in itself is a fairly normal procedure, and drops off an “urgent letter.” Since it’s urgent, I open it after a couple of hours. (I wasn’t expecting anything “urgent” today) And to my surprise, out drops a check… a substantial check.
Needles to say, I was a happy camper. I remember that we used to earn a few bucks selling the adult check on our website, but I certainly never got rich from it. Apparently what had happened was this: We had been in a program that pays residuals at the time, and we had earned some money for a couple of years. Since we had gotten lost in the fire, Adult Check dutifully kept track of it, and actively searched for us. When they couldn’t find us, they kept trying. What you have to understand here is, some of the payout dates on that check are from back in 1997! Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t expect to ever get paid for something owed to me from 4 years ago. And that’s when I’m chasing the money. In this case, these guys were chasing me to pay me. It really makes you think!
I would think in any case, they would have been justified in keeping the money and writing us off. The fact is, I would have never known about it. This is “found” money to me. Well, all I have to say is this: Adult Check gets my vote for honest merchant of the year. My hat’s off to them. You can bet they’ll be on any site we have anything to do with.
