[RawAlex]

Regardless of what all else happens, Epass is now suffering what may be a fatal loss of confidence. Even if they are able to come up with a solution in a few weeks (and that is very speculative at this point), the damage has been done.

Almost every program I am on has been sending out "change your payout methods" and "dropping Epass" messages today. Because of the timing of the issue, some programs even got caught wiring money into what appears to be for the moment as a black hole of cash. You have to think that those programs are very unlikely to want to get caught there again.

The real questions here are the repercussions in the market place. Plenty of epass was being used to buy banner spots, ad spots, links, gallery spots, and so on. Some of the players had serious amounts of money on their cards. Clearly, some European webmasters were using the system to avoid check charges, but many were also using it as a way to avoid taxes by not technically bringing the money into their home countries, and directly paying hosting and domain expenses out of the account.

How many of those "playahs" will suddenly find themselves in the poor house with no way to actually get any of their cash?