You emailed this morning and undoubtedly she has been getting a deluge of email...hopefully she will get back to you soon. Sorry to hear that anyone has been having problems getting paid, makes me glad I haven't done anything for them in awhile. Good luck to all.

My shopper profile shows that I was paid on 9/9/16, but I was not. I have not received a notification from bill.com that payment is on its way either. I contacted Ellen Barkhouse on 9/12 and she said I would be paid by 9/14. It didn't happen. I contacted Ellen Barkhouse via email in the afternoon of 9/14 and told her that I had not been paid. I asked for the status of my payment. No answer. Today I left a voice mail message for Ms. Barkhouse and emailed her again asking for status of my payment. Still no answer. I would appreciate the courtesy of an answer. While I know I am not the only one asking where my money is, I think it only fair that athPower communicate with their shoppers regarding payment. If we have to wait a few extra days do us the courtesy of letting us know. I know there are some shoppers that received a generic email saying that payments were delayed. I did not receive said email. Further, when Ms. Barkhouse tells me that she has asked accounting to release my funds and I would receive them by a certain date, I fully expect that to happen. I just hope that all of us get paid for the work we have performed.

Geez, that really sucks.

My pay was marked 9/9 and in my bank account 9/13 (after sending an email)

This all is concerning about delays for 9/9 payments for the rest of you.

Did they run out of money? That is scary.

@apercu wrote:

Did they run out of money? That is scary.

The standard procedure for a reputable privately owned company finding itself in a cash squeeze:

1. Suspend salary and other payments to the owning managers.
2. Borrow funds from owners.
3. Enter into immediate discussions with bankers about securing a short-term credit line, perhaps secured by accounts receivable.
4. Entice customers to pay early with an early-pay cash discount.

Assuming that ath is reputable and has done these four simple things one must wonder just how bad is their future if they a) have owners who have exhausted their personal resources and b) can't secure a loan from the bank to pay their vendors, not even their micro-vendors.

My July shops were stated as paid on 9/9 on the Ath Power shopper log. They were not. On 9/13 I sent Ellen an email inquiring about my missing payment. I received no response. On 9/14 I emailed again asking for a response. Again no response but on 9/15 I received email from bill.com stating my payment would be in my acct today 9/16. I will update later if I do in fact get it but I always have when bill.com sends me the email. Late payments twice in 6 months signals a company having financial problems. I will proceed with caution and not preform any shops for them until all my payments are caught up so mid Nov at earliest. Also I believe Ellen forced my payment thru and just did not respond to my email. I advise anyone owed payment who has not already to email Ellen everyday till they receive their payments. I am including Ellens email here
Ebarkhouse@athpower.com

Edited for grammar



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/16/2016 08:32PM by BuffaloNY101.

@BuffaloNY101 wrote:

On 9/13 I sent Ellen an email inquiring about my pissing payment.

Lol@pissing payment :-))

Payment was in my account this morning. I am wondering if they are only sending payment to those who have emailed. Has anyone received payment who did NOT email Ellen? I'm also holding out on doing more shops for them. I hope I get the debated amount from the August bank shop that they tried to not pay after the client "suspended" the program and then agreed to pay. How can a company with so many clients and on-going bank shops get into financial trouble? The BIG Bank I dislike may have stiffed them.

I got paid today and I also emailed Ellen.

Since the client "suspended" the shop, they may have stiffed Ath. Since Ath reluctantly agreed to honor the entire promised shop fee, it may be coming out of their pocket. That would definately put a damper on liquid assets.

And really...it only takes about 15 minutes to blast an email to the registered shoppers to let them know the status of payment delays.

Hi everyone, I just joined today after doing a search online for late ATH payments. It seems many of us are in the same boat. Which really sucks because we all have bills to pay. I have emailed Ellen at the email included above. Though I to see a payment date of 9/9/2016 on my ATH profile, I have never received a check or been paid through Bill.com (which I just signed up for last month). I asked for a response in my email. I hope to hear back today. I'll keep you guys updated. Until this is resolved, I won't be taking anymore ATH shops.

I have to apologize about the ATH payment information that I had spoke about in my previous forum. I have not received my payment either for July, it is in my log for the 9th. This is the first time in 10 years for me. I did email Ellen today and mentioned that most of us are upset with not being paid and no response. I'll let you know if I get paid and when also. Glad for those who are getting paid.

I emailed Ellen Barkhouse today about my pay as well. I get paid by check through the mail, so it is not just a Bill.com problem. It is disconcerting to hear this issue is happening to so many ath shoppers, but I am grateful to have a community of shoppers through this forum in which to gain some insight. Thank you.

quick update received my payment from bill in my bank account today. Glad I was paid not happy with no response to my emails to Ellen.
Once again for those who need it her email is
Ebarkhouse@athpower.com

Has anyone heard back from Ellen Barkhouse regarding payment?

I still haven't been paid. I have emailed Ellen again but have not received a reponse to any of my previous emails or to the voicemail that I left for her. I logged in to my bill.com account to check if there was a payment pending, but there is no activity whatsoever in that account. It would be helpful to at least receive a response to my inquiries.

Interesting. I just checked Bill.com and the payment was posted today. It says it will go through at my bank on 9/20/16. I emailed her today for the first time. She never responded but the payment went through so it seems emailing her is a good idea. I agree, the correct thing to do is inform your shoppers as to the delay and respond when they email you. I'm hoping an email will be sent out soon apologizing and explaining what happened. REALLY hoping this doesn't happen again with next month's payment. I've been an ATH shopper since 2003, more than 13 years. I expect a little loyalty and courtesy in return for all my years of work.

I can't believe this is happening again.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/17/2016 01:44AM by JennyG.

Update: I emailed Ellen earlier this wk and she said my payment would be processing. I emailed her again and got no response. The day after my bill.com payment showed up. This Friday 9/16 my bill.com payment cleared and was deposited into my bank account. Although ATH is slow this month I do believe that they will pay you if you are worrying.

I didn't get paid either. It says the payment was issued 09/09/16. What did you do? I opened a credit card. My shops were all accepted.

For those who are not getting a response from Ellen, you can find additional names of the Ath executive team on LinkedIn. Send another (polite) email, but CC them using the same email address format as for Ellen.

Nothing from Bill.com, no deposit to my bank account, no response from Ellen. NOTHING!!

I smell a company in financial distress.....this is just a guess, but I will bet dollars to doughnuts they are being "late paid" or stiffed by the BIG Bank or one of their larger clients, creating a huge cashflow issue. Of course, not paying anyone at all would be worse....smacks of the old days of S___ (roller skate drive-up burger chain) and the chihuahua fast food chain. Yum Yum!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/17/2016 01:06PM by winemaker.

I decided to "take one for the team" (team = members of this Forum) and not send a reminder and see what happened. I looked on the Bill.com website this morning and it shows that a payment from Ath Power will be sent to my bank account on September 20th. I have not gotten an email from Bill.com yet. I suspect the email will be sent to me on either Monday or Tuesday. Since I didn't do anything special, I suggest that if you are curious as to whether your payment is in progress, that you look at the Bill.com site or wait until Monday or Tuesday for the email. I agree that this is the second time that Ath has been late this year. The first time I gave up and started mailing the schedulers. I have done close to 1500 shops for Ath and would hate to lose the work from them, even though a lot of banks I used to shop for them have stopped their mystery shopping programs. This year I have only completed 95 shops for Ath, mostly for Big Green. Spanish Red is gone, and US Red shops are hard for me to qualify for.

@jjk3995 wrote:

Same here. Still nothing. I do completely feel like I'm begging for pay. I believe it was March when they did it last time. They didn't pay until I inquired, multiple times.

There are very few incompetent shoppers on our board, the long-term members are professionals who provide top-of-the-line service and deserve respect. Making someone wait for three months is stupid, with interest rates at 0% companies are not making anything by holding your pay back. One company I really enjoy working with is Service Sense, in exchange for (great sandwich, fries and shake or two wonderful lunches) Amy and Bill send out our payment ASAP. If anyone is not signed up for Service Sense and you live in California please do because its run by caring and compassionate owners!


Keep the faith, your not begging its just you got a dead beat client refusing to pay their bills. I know it feels like we are begging these companies after months of no checks but remember "The constant squeaky wheel eventually gets the oil"! I wish you well and all other shoppers here!




By posting questions online you are actually warning other shoppers to think twice before taking on one of those big $300 credit card or financial service jobs. What's the point of doing them a last minute favor if their going to screw shoppers over by taking two to four months of aggravated feelings? Why can't companies act honest and freely pay people without our friends needing to use the Forum of Public Opinion to guilt them? If other friends have not been paid not even our forum is providing enough pressure to get them to act like a human being! You have bills needing payment, food, rent, transportation are not free, they need to treat their shoppers good!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/17/2016 08:18PM by GuyFawkes.

I did not receive an email. I did email the scheduler and the person who handles the payments

I got an email today from Ellen, she stated that I should receive my pay by Sept. 19th, Monday from bill.com

Be prepared for this to happen again next month. The 9th falls dangerously close to a Federal Holiday.

wine, I don't think they are in financial distress, but I do think the Big Bank Client did not pay them. Most of us have been paid on time prior to September.

The last time this happened, according to the posts here, was in March. Was there a similar pattern in 2015?

Also, how many of use kept the accounts we opened?

@winemaker wrote:

I smell a company in financial distress.....this is just a guess, but I will bet dollars to doughnuts they are being "late paid" or stiffed by the BIG Bank or one of their larger clients, creating a huge cashflow issue. Of course, not paying anyone at all would be worse....smacks of the old days of S___ (roller skate drive-up burger chain) and the chihuahua fast food chain. Yum Yum!

Happy update: i emailed Ellen early on Sept 15th and did not hear back from her or Bill.com. I've been checking Bill.com daily and just now saw that the money is in my account with a pay date of Sept 20. So even if you haven't received a reply to your email, your payment might have been processed already. At least I hope so.

@HonnyBrown, for the bank account opened with ath's client I closed it as soon as possible so that I didn't incur monthly charges, but also because that particular bank inundated me with mail, email, and phone calls. I've kept open other accounts opened with different MSCs. I'll close those soon because I simply have too many accounts at this point. Not that any have large balances, but the extra accounts are unnecessary for both me and the bank

@ChrisCooper wrote:

Happy update: i emailed Ellen early on Sept 15th and did not hear back from her or Bill.com. I've been checking Bill.com daily and just now saw that the money is in my account with a pay date of Sept 20. So even if you haven't received a reply to your email, your payment might have been processed already. At least I hope so.

@HonnyBrown, for the bank account opened with ath's client I closed it as soon as possible so that I didn't incur monthly charges, but also because that particular bank inundated me with mail, email, and phone calls. I've kept open other accounts opened with different MSCs. I'll close those soon because I simply have too many accounts at this point. Not that any have large balances, but the extra accounts are unnecessary for both me and the bank

What is the easiest way to close these bank accounts?