This thread is relevant, I made a mistake and fixed it:
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I’ll attempt to respond fully here.
First, I reread the post you replied to, and I realize this came off as more condescending than I intended:
I meant this more generally for anyone reading this thread, since there’s a lot of information here, but I can understand why being told “did you try reading the thread” isn’t exactly a kind way of relaying information. I apologize.
My post on September 6 is still correct, though I understand the bug Friday where everyone had their team yanked from them for a couple of hours and everyone got that email was unnerving, to say the least. I will write a full post later today that explains where we are on payments, but the tl;dr is that no one is going to lose their team until at least after we can accept credit cards again.
As soon as I found out about the aforementioned issue, I worked on it and cleaned it all up. I first posted in that thread at 8:21a ET and posted the all clear at 8:47a ET. Generally, I do my best to be transparent about site issues on these forums and fix bugs as quickly as possible.
I am certainly more interested in taking care of my customers than selling t-shirts. I apologize for how that paragraph came off. Ottoneu is delaying payment deadlines because I’d rather push deadlines until customers can pay with their credit cards than force people to use the bank transfer method, which was your original concern. The bank transfer is more secure than a credit card and much less prone to fraud, but I understand that it makes people uncomfortable, so I’m willing to delay expected income for my business in order to make my customers more comfortable with our payment options.
I believe this is definitively taking care of my customers over short-term financial concerns.
However, I do want Ottoneu to continue operating, and I thought mentioning our store would be neutrally received and maybe result in a little income. I guess it came across more like “our site is broken, buy a t-shirt while I do nothing about it” and that is not what I meant.
Finally and perhaps most importantly, this is simply an unacceptable way to talk to another person. Please consider that I am a person just like you, I run this business entirely on my own, and while sometimes I make mistakes as I did on Friday, there is no reason to call people names or generally be rude, in this forum or really anywhere.
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Hey, Niv. Props on handling that post with grace, but don’t listen to that dude. You do an amazing job running this site. You’re an order of magnitude more responsive than any of the more “traditional” fantasy sites, and I expect that 99% of users on this site realize and appreciate that — or certainly at least 99% of the league commissioners, who are the ones most likely to have had contact with you. I’m sure this has been a real headache, but thanks for seeing it thru to resolution!
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Has the renew link option disappeared? Trying to pay and can’t find anywhere even when logged in
Make sure you go to your user dashboard - the sport-specific dashboards have been greatly simplified and are on their way out.
This as good a time as any to post the following reminders:
- We still cannot take credit cards, though the approval process with a new processor is nearing its end, as soon as next week
- Ottoneu will extend deadlines for renewals across all sports as necessary while credit card payments are not available. I hope this only means one more extension for both basketball and football, with that renewal coming before the upcoming 9/30 deadline for basketball - I will post in this thread once that extension is live.
- Ottoneu is doing this because while ACH payments are available, a number of customers have made it clear they are more comfortable using credit card.
In the meantime, play Pick Six Football for free!
Thanks Niv!
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Hey Niv, appreciate all you’re doing to get CC up and running. Just FYI - for some of us there is a clear limitation on transferring from Canadian to American bank/banking systems (it’s impossible actually). For “us”, CC is the only option.
Thanks again for working on this, this Ottoneu platform is excellent.
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This is fair feedback - not only are a fair number of you who can use ACH more comfortable using your credit cards, plenty of you cannot even use ACH.
I’m still awaiting our update this week and will update this thread when I can.
I’ll throw in as well, I don’t mind using ACH but Paydala always says my banking credentials are wrong. Which, since I can log in to my bank account, I can assure you they are not.
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Hey this sounds like a bug specific to how Paydala implements your bank, so if you want to email help@ottoneu.com about it, I can work with them to fix that. But yeah, I get how that undermines trust.
I have pushed Ottoneu Football and Basketball renewal deadlines another 2 weeks while we continue to wait for approvals from our new credit card processors. Approval timelines are generally around 8 weeks and we are entering week 6 or 7.
I’ll update when I know more. Thanks to everyone for their patience and for continuing to support Ottoneu Fantasy Sports.
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We are still unable to take credit card payments. I’ve extended the football and basketball deadlines another 2 weeks.
We’re in various stages with multiple credit card processors, each with their own approval requirements and timelines, and when I get to close to a finalization with any of them I’ll update this thread.
I appreciate everyone’s patience and understanding on this front. Hopefully some good news soon!
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The inability to renew my 2 teams in Baseball also makes it so I can’t participate yet in the arbitration section.
Could you email help@ottoneu.com with details? Baseball renewals are due at the end of January.
I’d like to share a quick synopsis of where we are, why we are here, and what is next regarding using your credit card to renew your Ottoneu Fantasy Sports teams.
Where we are
Currently, Ottoneu is unable to take credit card payments. Rather than force everyone to pay with secure bank transfer via ACH, we are delaying Football and Basketball payment deadlines. We believe this is a more user-friendly approach, even if it means sacrificing cash flow in the near-term. This only will work if everyone who plays both Football and Basketball this year renews once our credit card processing comes back. If you are in leagues in either of those sports, please make sure your league is aware and onboard with this!
In the meantime, if you want to help us stay operational for as long as possible and extend how long we can deal with this problem, you can:
- renew your team via prizes
- renew your team via ACH
- make sure everyone you play with is aware of what is going on here and why
Since we have extended payment deadlines for basketball and football, there are no functional changes to the platform because of the lack of credit card payment options. Everything remains operational and working, and no one is limited in playing Ottoneu because of this. Limitations exist around creating and joining new leagues, and you can email help@ottoneu.com if you need any assistance with that.
Why we are here
I’ve mentioned this a few times, but the main reason we are in this mess is because sometime in the last few years, season-long and multi-season-long fantasy sports got conflated with daily fantasy sports which got conflated with sports betting in an effort to make sports betting legal. As a result, there’s a lot of confusion about what is gambling and what isn’t amongst the organizations that we need to work with in order to process payments. Fantasy sports is decidedly not gambling, but since it has been conflated with DFS and sports betting and you are the company you keep, a lot of companies and institutions simply do not want to deal with it.
This is ultimately the result of policy failures, and if anyone wants to bring this up with their elected official, I’d be happy to talk to them.
What is next
We are working through the approval process with multiple credit card processors. Our payment platform, Paydala, is leading the way on this for us. We hope to have resolution soon, but banks are famously slow organizations. Once we have a credit card payment option online, we will extend any relevant deadlines by one week and make sure everyone knows to renew their teams ASAP.
I’ve tried to make it so this issue doesn’t directly affect anyone who plays Ottoneu in a meaningful way. However, it has been a real challenge for the company, and I hope we can maintain operations despite this specific issue and the underlying policy problems that have caused it. In the meantime, all I can do is make sure you all understand what is going on, what we’re doing to deal with it, and hopefully we’ll have everything sorted out very soon.
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Thanks for the update Niv, and your pursuit to get this done. I love this league and platform, and all you do to make it so. Thank you and team.
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Hate to hear this, sounds like quite the hassle. Hope it can be resolved quickly for you. I have no problem renewing my 3 baseball teams via ACH, least I can do to help out. I’ll pass this along to my leagues.
Thanks for all the work you and everyone else does to make this happen!
Cheers!
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Thanks a lot for this update. I live abroad and credit card payment is the only option for me. I hope everything works out for you. I will probably renew my leagues for a couple of years in advance once credt card payment is available again. This is my favourite platform to play fantasy baseball. So, thanks for your great work here.
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I ended up paying here by ACH, at least for me this is as easy via Paydala as paying by CC. Ottoneu community & games are a big social outlet for me and I can’t be losing it! I know how disruptive it can be to have something like this impact cash flow, I’m part of a few other online communities that have a button/option to “buy a coffee” - I would happily contribute to “buy Niv a coffee” while this is all sorted out. To me this format is great value given how strong a community we have built and how many hours of entertainment I get by both the games played and by our ongoing chat. I also understand not necessarily wanting to offer an option like that, so if you feel like you need to provide something another option could be a Patreon with some additional/included content/podcast (hell I’d contribute content!).
-BBQHunter
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You should look at Shift4 and accept crypto. They can instantly convert to cash (USD). Just another alternative to consider for people.