My-Ptr : Présentation et News

July 28, 2008

This is just a reminder that I will be out of town on the 29th and 30th and will not have access to the internet to process ads, payment requests or respond to support e-mails. All ad, payment and support needs will be caught up on between Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

Also, I have created an automatic redirect from the old "Contact" page that generates an e-mail to me. It has been replaced by the existing support ticket system and the support forum. The problem is that not all e-mails sent through that page were getting to me (ever), which was just unacceptable. The support ticket system is free and does not require any kind of registration to use.

Heather

August 12, 2008

Hello,

First things first...today (August 12) is the official 2nd anniversary of My-PTR.com!

I've made 3 random PayPal payments this week and 2 random E-Gold payments this week to everyone with "Random Payments" or "E-Gold Random Payments" checked in their profile. If you have not received a random payment, please check your account profile as I cannot pay those with incorrect payment information. An example of this would be a username in the PayPal address or a credit card number for an E-Gold account id.

If you do not have random payments checked in your account profile, now is a great time to do so. Every member with that keyword checked with a minimum balance of a penny has been paid this week. Check your account profile to make sure that you have that keyword checked along with the correct payment type and payment account id.

All random PayPal payments are done with MassPay, which means that I pay a small fee to send the funds so that the receiver (you) does not have to.

Heather

August 29, 2008

As the size of the mailer decreases (meaning that the overall number of e-mails is decreasing), it has become more and more difficult for members to reach the top prize for the E-mail Rewards program, bordering on impossible. I've addressed this issue for September's rewards.

The value of some of the rewards has decreased along with the click requirements. I also added a lower click requirement reward. You can view these changes at http://my-ptr.com/pages/emailrewards.php

The August prizes will be awarded as normal as it would not be fair to change it with just a weekend left in the month.

I have also added a Click Rewards program that will reward those actively clicking the PTC pages of the site. As there are many more PTCs available on the site (typically between 1,200 and 1,900), the requirements for the top prize are much higher, but no where near impossible to reach. Details for this program can be found at http://my-ptr.com/pages/clickrewards.php

This rewards program begins in September as a test phase and may continue should it be a success. Future values and requirements may go up or down depending on the initial results.

Random payments were made this morning to 217 members with "PayPal" selected in their account profile with a valid address along with the "Random Payments" selected. Random payments were also made to those with E-Gold selected in their account profile along with the "E-Gold Random Payments" keyword selected. More random payments will be done in September to those who have opted in to receive them.

Thank you for reading! Have a great weekend.

Heather

September 7, 2008

The August E-mail Rewards cash prizes have all been rewarded. The top 50 received a Congratulations e-mail with instructions on claiming their ad prize. I have the complete list posted in a spreadsheet link on the forum.

http://my-ptr.com/forums/index.php?topic=71.0

All E-mail Reward prizes will be added to the site within 48 hours of their submission.

The E-mail Reward prize values for September will be lower, however the click requirements will also be lower, which should lead to many more members qualifying for a prize. As I previously mentioned, it is getting harder and harder for anyone to reach the top prize, so I lowered the click requirements. The reason it is getting harder to reach the top prize is that I stopped selling PTP E-mail ads (the cheap valued ones) in June in an effort to clear the mailer. When I start selling those ads again, they will be for a higher value (at least 3/100 of a cent if not higher) so that the issue with a nearly full mailer does not happen again.

I'll be doing another random payment on Tuesday. I had planned on doing one today, however my bank transfer isn't set to be completed until Monday or Tuesday. Be sure to have the correct PayPal address listed in your account profile along with the Random Payment keyword checked in order to qualify to receive a random payment!

Heather

September 17, 2008

I was informed by a My-PTR member this afternoon that downline earnings have not credited since September 11th. I updated the script that the site runs on to the latest upgrade on the 12th, which caused the issue. My host told me that this issue is the result of a bug in the latest upgrade and it is being worked on by the script's authors.

The hope is that when the new, bug-free, update is released that it will automatically credit for the missed days. If it does not, I will find a way to make it up to those with a downline of any size.

Heather

August 20, 2008

The script has been updated to the newest version, which fixed the downline earning issue. It does not appear that it will automatically credit for the missed time, which will be known for sure within the next 6 or 7 hours. The downline earnings update one time per day around 4 - 5 pm eastern time.

To make up for the missed downline earnings, I have doubled the referrral commission for the next 8 days. The referral commissions (meaning what you earn from your referrals) will be 20% instead of 10% until next Sunday.

Heather

September 21, 2008

The terms for the site have been updated. The terms themselves weren't changed much, but I did take the opportunity to clarify a few things such as not-allowed sites (ie. the $10 per e-mail sites) and the grace period for suspended accounts to have their accounts restored.

The biggest change was that I changed the activity requirement from 45 days to 90. One log in every 90 days is required to keep your account active. There is a 30 days grace period following any suspension for inactivity. The suspended account holder can contact me during that time to have their account restored. I also clarified that upgraded members are immune from suspension due to inactivity. This has been my rule since the site opened, so this is just making it a formal term.

Thanks for reading,

Heather

The affiliate pages may be loading slowly at times due to the ad network that is on just those pages having server troubles. I'll be changing that ad for another one on Friday, which should fix the issue.

Affiliate Pages - Problem Possibly Fixed

September 26, 2008

I am almost positive that the problem with the slowness on the affiliate pages has been corrected. The ad network on that page, Obeus, has been having server / domain issues for over a week now. For some browsers / computers, the affiliate page does load after a slight delay, however on others, that one server being down prevented the entire main table where the affiliate page is contained from loading. I swapped the Obeus network for a different ad network on all of the affiliate pages, which seems to have improved the speed of the page.

Heather

October 1, 2008

The September E-mail Rewards have been completed. The cash prize should be in the accounts of the 193 members who qualified for a prize. I used a different method to credit accounts this month (it was partially automatic...not perfect, but did save me a lot of time). The prize line should read "42 Addon Contest Prize" if you won a prize.

Please see the forum post below for a complete list of prizes, winners and instructions on claiming your prize.

http://my-ptr.com/forums/index.php?topic=78.0

I made a mistake with the Click Rewards for September (the one that rewards just for PTC Clicks). I clicked on Finished, but in the midst of pushing the mouse button, another tab that I had running changed the size of my browser, which caused my click on "Finished" to shift to "Delete." After 5 minutes of panic, I realized that I could just take the totals from the monthly all clicks contest, subtract the e-mail clicks and get the totals for the PTC Rewards. It just won't be quite as easy as it was supposed to be, but at least there is a solution in place. The PTC Rewards will be rewarded by Saturday.

Heather

October 4, 2008

As promised, the October click rewards have been awarded. As the previous message stated, there was an accidental deletion of the Click Reward tracker, which led to me having to manually take the "All Clicks Count" contest from September and subtract every possible winner's E-mail clicks for that month to get the PTC Clicks. This made the awarding of those prizes take a little longer than anticipated.

The complete list of winners and prizes is located at the forum at http://my-ptr.com/forums/index.php?topic=79.0

Heather

November 3, 2008

BeenPaid.com is having it's annual Program of the Year nominations. If you have a chance, please go to the site and vote. My-PTR is on the list, but if you like another program more, feel free to vote for your favorite instead.

http://www.beenpaid.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=5279

I will start awarding the reward prizes on Wednesday. I had a hectic couple of days at work over the weekend and had a car issue today. I may not be online much tomorrow. I work in the morning and will be voting in the afternoon and I'm not sure how long that is going to take. In the 2004 election, I was in line for over 3 hours, so I know not to expect to walk in and out. As long as I'm home in time to see the results start coming in, I'll be happy. :-)

Heather

November 11, 2008

My internet connection went down around this time 24 hours ago. The connection was restored this afternoon and I managed to get it reconnected before the internet provider arrived for the tech appointment.

I've caught up on all of the payment and ad requests. Since I completed the click rewards yesterday, I'm assuming that the majority of the 24 support tickets that I received are for that, so please give me a bit of time to process through those.

Hopefully my connection stays on as I was starting to have internet withdrawals. ;-)

Heather

November 15, 2008

I'm in the process of making some long awaited updates to the site. Here is an update on the progress.

Upgrades
The new upgrade levels are here! I've reviewed the list multiple times for stability and for value and feel that this is a good combination. The new upgrades can be viewed at http://www.my-ptr.com/pages/gold.php

Please note that even though the bottom 4 are the same names as the current upgrades, they are not the same upgrade. I've created new upgrade names for each of those levels (ie. the new Platinum is Platinum II) so that the site can tell the difference between old and newly upgraded members.

Any current upgraded members who wish to re-upgrade to the new plans can contact me for a discount. The discount will be based on your current level along with the upgrade and length of upgrade that you wish to purchase. There are no lifetime upgrades with the new upgrade levels, only 1 year or 6 months.

Each upgrade level receives monthly credits for the New Surfer plugin (more about that later). Also, each new upgrade receives at least 1 "Forever Banner", which is a banner that will never expire (can be changed upon request). In addition, each of the new upgrade levels features a no minimum balance required to be paid (except via AlertPay which has a $1 minimum transaction requirement and by check which remains at $5 due to postage).

New Surfer

You've probably seen this at other sites. It took awhile to get it to work with my site due to back end issues that I won't bore you (or myself) with. The New Surfer is located at http://www.my-ptr.com/pages/newsurfer.php I have a couple of my own sites in the rotation to get things started. Credits are available for purchase at http://my-ptr.com/pages/advertise2.php?aid=29

Menu (working on it!)

The majority wanted a simple drop down menu(s) for the account menu. I'm currently working on this and integrating it with the site. I will still have some major links (ie. Earnings, Cash Out, PTC, Inbox) linked separately as well as to not ignore those that voted against the drop down menus. I'll try to work on this some more later tonight as I realized that I ate lunch about 8 hours ago and need to take a break.

Thank you for reading,

Heather

December 14, 2008

E-Gold's name has been removed from the site as a payment option. 5 weeks after submitting my documents, they were approved at E-Gold. A week later, a message came up that my state, Michigan, does not currently allow E-Gold. Now there is a message claiming that my drivers license has been permanently rejected as a photo proof. It is just another excuse to steal from it's users to bail themselves out. Even if E-Gold were to reinstate my account at some point, I highly doubt that I would ever accept any future payments as they cannot be trusted.

I'll look into other payment methods, but for now I am stick with PayPal, AlertPay and checks (for US members).

Thank you for reading,

Heather

Administrative Message #63 - Click Contests, Click Rewards and BeenPaid Voting

December 31, 2008

I've added 2 click contests for January...one just for PTCs and one just for E-mails. The Click Rewards are returning for All Clicks for easier crediting at the end of the month.

BeenPaid.com's Program of the Year nomination process has concluded and the voting has begun! Vote for your favorite program from the list of nominees at http://beenpaid.com/modules.php?name=Surveys&pollID=79

I'm off for the night. The Click Contest for December will be concluded tomorrow morning and the monthly upgraded ads will be reset at that time as well. Have a safe New Years Eve/Day and a Happy New Year!

Heather

January 19, 2009

I wanted to update everyone on my full time job status. I had promised that I would make some updates / upgrades to the site during some time off either this month or next month. Unfortunately, it looks like I won't have any time off. My company recently announced and started liquidating and all employees were given a 60 day notice of termination. Which does not necessarily mean that I will be laid off in 60 days, it is just a legal thing that they had to say to make it official, yet keep us employed for the next 2 months. We have been told that it will probably take closer to 90 days to liquidate my particular store due to high inventory levels.

So what this means is that I will not have a vacation next month as planned, but will more than likely be unemployed for a period of time (hopefully shorter this time!) come April. For those who weren't with the site at the time, I was previously laid off in March, 2007. I should have enough time accumulated to qualify for unemployment if I am unable to find a new job by the time my store closes.

Please bear with me as I go through this process. I'm still checking on the site each day for new ads, payment requests and support requests. The main difference will be that I may not have the time needed right now to make the upgrades that I have planned, but will once this process ends.

Thank you for reading,

Heather

February 1, 2009

My host corrected the script issue that was causing log in issues. The problem is that each person who contacted me with login issues that changed their password will now have log in issues again. I've posted a notice on the failed login page with this update, so hopefully they contact me again so that the issue can be permanently resolved. My hope is that this script correction fixes this issue for good.

Heather

Administrative Message #71 - Login Problem Explaination and Personal Update
February 6, 2008

The log in issues last week and this week occurred due to a script problem. This caused anyone's whose cookie expired or who manually logged out of the site to not be able to log back in. I helped the users who contacted me fix the problem for the time being.

The problem turned out to be a clash between the script update that I was using and the database. My host had to assist me to update the script as I received hundreds of database (known as SQL) errors when I tried to update it myself.

This appears to have fixed the initial problem, however it created a new log in issue for those that had their accounts fixed. It also affected those who had their cookie expire during that time who did not contact me to have the problem fixed.

I've since corrected more than a hundred accounts and have a message posted on the failed login page that will hopefully prompt as many users as possible to contact me to have their account access restored.

No accounts were ever actually lost during this time. Referral and affiliate pages (if one is owned) continued to post to all accounts.

The issue appears to be fixed...hopefully it stays that way.

I also wanted to post an update about my pending unemployment. The store that I work at (along with all but one in southeast Michigan) is having their closings "expedited". We shipped out hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise to better performing stores in other states this week. Or projected closing date changed from March 31st to February 16th. While I'm not looking forward to being unemployed again and having to search for a new job, it will give me time to do things in my personal life and online life (ie. finish my updates to My-PTR!) that I just didn't have time to do while working a full time job. I'm optimistic that I will find a much better job this time around.

Thank you for reading and have a great weekend,

Heather

February 24, 2009

I've been debating this issue for awhile and want to get your input.

When My-PTR launched, I limited the allowed countries after a couple months due to lack of targeting options. I could target the e-mails, but that was about it. Now that I have a variety of plugins that can allow me to target to Tier 1/2 as well as specific countries (that part hasn't been added to the site yet), I am wondering if I shouldn't just allow all or most countries.

Here are the options:

1) Keep it as a Tier 1 / 2 site.

2) Open the site to more countries, but avoid certain countries (due to cheating and low PTP credits)

3) Allow all countries, but closely monitor for fraud from specific people instead of banning whole countries due to a few bad apples.

As I said, I've been debating this issue for awhile and it's time to make a choice. Thank you for your assistance!

Heather

March 3, 2009

I upgraded the NewSurfer plugin to the newest version, 2.0. This took the surfing link out of complete PHP coding and back into PHP with HTML. I was able to edit the account menu (currently there is a link back to the menu) so that the submit a new site will again work.

Some new additions appear to be the ability to purchase credits with cash or points, the use of runner.php which is what PTP sites use to credit from PTR sites (not sure if that was already enabled) and confirmation e-mails when your site is approved or declined. It also allows me to enter reasons for why a site was declined (ie. breaking frames, non working link).

The NewSurfer link can be found under the "Earning Options" drop down menu.

Heather