Zetanet

So I have been in this business for a long time. I have dealt with many different companies throughout the years. Really you can't judge a company until you meet your account rep and go through the motions of doing business. You really learn the best lessons in business from losing money. So lets talk about Zetanet - small RTB company. They signed an IO for NET 30.

Started working with the account rep for the relationship. Starting sending small amounts of volume. First month all was good. My account rep was hard to find at times but not the worst (he is a good guy). 3 months into our relationship we built up an owed balance to be paid to PremiumCPM of $3,000+ and we stumbled on some issues which including stopping business with anyone using appnexus due to the level of compliance violations. But there were no hard feelings in pausing business.

Come Jan. 30th - December Payment is due. Nothing. Couple days later - Nothing. Finance is pressing me at this point. Ok. Time to press a little harder on my end. So at this point its now 1.5 - 2 weeks late, I get in touch with the 'Flo' the individual who handles finance there... She tells me "Our CFO in on vactation so, your payment is schedule for the next week" (Quoted directly from skype).

So thats not acceptable 2 weeks late on payments to all of your clients because your CFO is on vacation? Really?

The amount owed is small its only approx. $2,200 finance and legal here attached a late fee - bringing it to around $2,400 considering its over 2 weeks late and payment was refused due to everyone being on vacation. So this week - its "next week" its now wednesday - I reached out every day this week.

[2/17/14 10:10:59 AM] Dominick Romano: Hello, Hope everyone is back from vacation today.
[2/17/14 10:13:43 AM] Flo MN: Hello Dominick, How are you? I hope great. As I told you your pyment will be done done this week,
[2/17/14 10:13:53 AM] Flo MN: and I will send you de payment proof
[2/17/14 10:13:54 AM] Dominick Romano: This week is not acceptable.
[2/17/14 10:13:56 AM] Dominick Romano: TODAY is.
[2/17/14 10:14:11 AM] Dominick Romano: 18 days late...
[2/17/14 10:20:51 AM] Dominick Romano: so please send 'de' money.
[2/17/14 10:21:20 AM] Flo MN: ok .
[2/17/14 10:22:03 AM] Dominick Romano: Good I look forward to a payment confirmation today.
[2/17/14 10:22:23 AM] Flo MN: ok

Never got a payment confirmation. Then tuesday I spoke to someone who was going to look into this and email me - never got an email. Then today - I got the CFO on the phone who was happily on vacation and he didn't like the tone of my voice after waiting now 20 days for them to pay the company I work for and after being told by him "Payment will be sent this week" so he hung up. I call back - and ask for him again and the person on the phone said "Did you quiet down?" No I didn't - Pay the money.

Then I talk to my account rep. who tells me the CFO says:

[2/19/14 10:55:28 AM] Pablo Peralez: I have just talked with CFO
[2/19/14 10:55:45 AM] Pablo Peralez: they will not pay your fee , so if you resend now the invoice with non fee will pay now

So now they refuse to pay the invoice because there is a late fee for paying late and violating the IO while trying to negotiate with me to remove the late fee to get paid today. So in other words they are holding the payment hostage until the late fee is removed which is out of my control and will not be removed because the payment is late. They will pay this week - but will pay today if we remove the late fee?

How about they pay today because the payment is 20 days late.

Then - I speak with Santiago the Founder of Zetanet who continues to try to trivialize the fact that they are 20 days late "really its not worth you get so angry for just 20 days because we always paid you." Actually only paid one other time. Because we only worked with them for 2 full months.

But wait it gets better...

"well so the late fee is not applicable if its not included in an IO. I have fort example the same fee for my clients. and they never pay on time. despite that, I do not charge them any fees since I understand this is part of the market and its difficult to be exact on payments" -Santiago Piola.

Really? And so where does it say NET 50 on our IO?

"I know..but this was a special situation since he (the CFO) was out of the country for more than one month" - Santiago Piola.

But wait - We were paid on time for the month before... That makes no sense and its just a 360 of all of their excuses. A special situation means a special fee.

Santiago Piola has stated Zetanet will not pay - until there is an updated invoice sent with the late fee removed. He sated the late fee is not on the IO (which it isn't) but the IO is for NET 30 and doesn't say anything about NET 50. He called it a special situation, that comes with a special fee. We will continue to spread awareness until the situation is resolved and people live up to their obligations properly.

Then after posting this story originally on a few forums and notifying Zetanet - They notified me payment will finally be made (note: after posting on forums 2/19/2014).

Santiago Piola is now claiming that the numbers are wrong - (because they were modified by ZetaNet on jan. 30th, 2014) so now they are claiming $800 is the amount which it isn't. The numbers pulled for their December Invoice was 58,659,950 impressions and $2,225.54 owed (previous to late fees). Now they are claiming something completely different after it has been more than 20 days late and I notified their company on Jan. 30th 2014 of there being sudden changes in numbers, every time I pulled a report I saw impressions going up and down for december. I told my account manager Pablo Peralez about it he told me AppNexus was experience reporting delays (which this isn't a delay cause it was from the month before) then he told me there was a regional issue with AppNexus only in their country - which I find hard to believe... he told me to contact finance about this issue earlier in the month and they never responded.

Here is the proof: I sent them an invoice on November for Approx. $2,200 (which is decembers numbers) and I get this response:

[1/7/14 3:01:28 PM] Pablo Peralez: no problem!
[1/7/14 3:01:29 PM] Pablo Peralez: :)
[1/7/14 3:09:48 PM] Pablo Peralez: Hey Dom
[1/7/14 3:10:00 PM] Pablo Peralez: Finance team is telling me that we have overdue only 1314 USD
[1/7/14 3:10:07 PM] Pablo Peralez: is that correct ?
[1/7/14 3:10:12 PM] Pablo Peralez: cause the other is from december

So what they really did was take novembers numbers - subtract it from december - then claim the remaining is whats owed for december. Thats extremely incorrect.

I told Santiago the exact number of impressions from December and he says the following:

[2/19/14 4:11:34 PM] Santiago Piola: show me evidence with a screenshot on that
[2/19/14 4:11:38 PM] Santiago Piola: and I'll believe you

Proof was clearly communicated including conversations and exact numbers as well as copies of emails sent which we not responded to the day the problem was noticed.

After all of this Santiago Piola decides to run because he knows he is wrong and says the following "we will send the remaining funds dominik. I really don't want to speak with you anymore ever" and blocked me on skype. They they work off their numbers and now they refuse to pay what is owed yet again.

We continue to seek the full amount of $2,225.54 + 10% late fee for being 20 days late on a NET 30 payment for 58,659,950 impressions served.