Comments on: Pay By Touch in trouble, founder filing for bankruptcy

By: Daniel

Daniel — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:58:22 +0000

What is the current status of this company?

By: Too early

Too early — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 18:26:29 +0000

Even if it were a well managed company with an expert senior management team it would still likely have floundered or even failed. The reason is that it was too early for mainstream consumers. Consumers need to be comfortable with a whole new paradigm for payment. In short they need to more comfortable with biometrics before they tie their finances to it. How does this happen? Convenience applications like door locks, thermostats, access to buildings, computer access, etc. Any application where the downside to the consumer is minimal. When presenting a fingerprint is nearly as comfortable as pulling a credit card or building access badge from your wallet then consumer adoption is ready. Biometric payments will be back but it will be several (probably many) years away when future generations are just as comfortable with a biometric as our generation is with a credit card.

By: former employee

former employee — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 04:45:56 +0000

i use to work at the PBT in tucson, and every year it seemed that in meetings all they would talk about is how much revenue was coming in. We would bust our butts working alot of paperwork to get nice raises and all the time it was a slap in the face. i worked there for 3 yrs and i only saw a 50 dollar bonus-ooohhh big wow and two raises a 50ct raise and a 25ct the next year. thats when i knew it was time to bounce. All their good employees would leave and we’d have to hire idiots from the street just because the company was too cheap to give good pay to their loyal hardworking employees. it was the best move i ever did. i get triple in my new job and have had over 5000 dollars in just two bonuses in only 2 yrs. Now thats how to keep employees and for that i am loyal to the company.

By: David

David — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 01:56:41 +0000

I like your stuff, even though i came here by accident!

By: Karl

Karl — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 04:21:02 +0000

PBT should consider Mark Basile, CEO from bioMETRX to take over PBT. He is a former Ch. 11 attorney, is running a public biometric company in New York, and is at the forefront of biometrics. He has a small but very knowleagable management team that can turn this around for investors. I know, because I have seen him present and have seen what he can do.

By: PAUL

PAUL — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 20:19:41 +0000

FIRST OF ALL ANYONE THAT KNOWS GARY HAWKINS WILL NOT BE SURPRISED TO HEAR OF THIS NEWS BECAUSE I AM ONE OF SOME 7 LONGTIME EMPLOYEES OF HIS STORE IN SYRACUSE THAT HAVE LEFT IN THE LAST 2 YEARS. SPEAKING OF MISMANAGEMENT, HIS BIGGEST PROBLEM IS HIS HUGE EGO, THINKING HE IS THE NEXT DANNY WEGMAN, WHICH HE WILL NEVER BE.

By: VentureBeat » Pay By Touch gets $9M emergency infusion, trial set for next month

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 15:59:58 +0000

[...] funds that aren’t used to running small companies. What resulted was a disaster — a company run by a troubled executive, John Rogers, with apparently no push back from the board or other oversight. The company “is a train wreck that you could see coming a [...]

By: Colditz

Colditz — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 21:15:40 +0000

By the way, what is little-reported (but has appeared in a few areas) is that the employees that filed the bankruptcy lawsuit are very close to J.R. (including one being his brother-in-law apparently). There is clear suspicion that J.R. engineered this action to buy him more time…

By: Colditz

Colditz — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 20:25:51 +0000

From the court documents I’ve seen J.R. managed to get back into the house that he’d been kicked out of and then decided to perform $36k of “remodeling”. Rather similar to what he did at Pay By Touch (except the destruction was on a larger scale).

By: Lemming51

Lemming51 — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 13:56:10 +0000

Re: Rogers conviction for damage to property in excess of $500.
People seem to be reading this as if the total damage was only $500. Not so. Read the court document. Restitution he had to pay was $35,525.77 and it also indicates a sentence of 90 days and 1 year probation. The basis for this court action is not indicated, but it looks awfully similar to what one might get for drunk driving.

By: longdigit

longdigit — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 01:18:23 +0000

PBT is a great place to work with 08 looking to be their breakout year. This hurdle will soon fade away along with Rogers

By: Pay By Touch, an idea who’s time has passed « Mobile Money and More

Pay By Touch, an idea who’s time has passed « Mobile Money and More — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 21:55:03 +0000

[...] obsolete. No one knows this better than Pay By Touch. In case you’ve missed the news (here and here), Pay By Touch’s founder, John Rogers, has filed for personal bankruptcy, while the [...]

By: Ooooooof..

Ooooooof.. — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 06:44:12 +0000

OK, a few errors here and there but at least a number of selling entrepreneurs got their money out!

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 04:50:38 +0000

PBT Employees,

Who in their right mind would still be working there? Are you getting paid? Do you really think this company has a chance? I’ve seen the ROI analysis and the adoption rates for PBT. They don’t compute.

Head on over to Valleywag, they’ve done a great job of digging up sorts of interesting dirt on Rogers–the cocaine use, sexual harassment, restraining orders against him by ex-girlfriends, the violence. PBT is a scam. Too bad, I think there were a lot of good people there (excluding management).

By: Another PBT Employee

Another PBT Employee — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 22:35:14 +0000

PBT Employee is right…people DO show up and work their butts off. SOME may not be doing anything (and quite frankly THEY should just go home), but there are a great many in Finance, HR, Legal, and ITOps who work their tails off. There are also the people in PBT’s subs who continue to provide services to PBT customers.

BTW Smoky…no “smoking gun” in that at all. A lot of questions, that’s for sure. Last I read, neither Rogers is related. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2006_Sept_5/ai_n16703809

I should note that not all Sr. Execs had limited or no experience…there are but a handful who had quite a bit….