Class action suit possible against Mobclix for not paying indie developers

by Jeff Sherk

UPDATE May 18, 2013:
If you have not been payed by Mobclix and are interested in a Class Action suit then you need to go the following site:
http://www.mobclix-pay.us/

UPDATE April 30, 2013:
As of April 30, 2013 we have over $500,000 claimed as owing to the developers that have posted in the comments below, as well as another developer that told me he is owed over $100,000. However a couple days ago I received a check from Mobclix for the full amount owing to me, so obviously I am no longer going to need to be involved in a class action suit. But in order to facilitate the rest of you that still have an issue, please join:
(1) Mobclix Pay Us website: http://www.mobclix-pay.us/
(2) Skype group:
mobclixclassaction
(3) Google group: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/mobclix-class-action
At the bottom of this post, I also added a sample copy of the letter and the invoice that I sent to Mobclix on April 1st. You can use these as a template if you want. Please note that I am not promising this will work and there is no guarantee it will work… I am simply sharing what worked for me.

WARNING:
If you press them for the money they owe you, they may DISABLE your account. Here is the email response I received:
I have a payment ready to be sent out for your account. Please provide us with a mailing address. We will also be turning off ad serving as well and disabling your account.
So make sure you have removed Mobclix SDK from your apps before you start to chase them for your money.

ORIGINAL POST…

Mobclix Inc (mobclix.com) is a mobile ad exchange network that was acquired by Velti (NASDAQ: VELT) in 2010. And I highly recommend you do NOT use them, because they won’t pay you!

As a game publisher, I integrated the Mobclix publisher SDK in some of my games last year (May 2012) in order to show banner ads to my users. Mobclix is then supposed to pay me for the ads impressions and ad clicks that I deliver in my games. Their Terms of Service state that they pay their publishers Net 90 after the end of each month. Now 90 days is certainly not a very fast payment cycle, but its what they offered and I agreed to it.

However it appears that they do not honor their own Terms of Service. I stopped using Mobclix on December 4, 2012 as they still had not made any payments to me that had met the Net 90 criteria for May, June and July.

We are now the end of March 2013 and I still have not received anything from them, with amounts overdue by 300 days.

Here is their response to my most recent attempt to contact them about it in early March 2013:
We have started issuing out August [2012] earnings in batches for those earning over $100+. You should expect a payment in the coming weeks if you’ve earning over $100+ during the August earning period.

August? Well what about my earnings from May, June and July? And what about the fact that everything up to the end of November meets the Net 90 day criteria?

They currently owe me over $2800, and I am also in touch with two other indie developers that are in a similar situation and are both owed over $2000 each.

We would like to start a class action suit against Mobclix, so please join the Mobclix Pay Us webste http://www.mobclix-pay.us/. There is also a SKYPE group (skype id: mobclixclassaction )  and Google Group you can join: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/mobclix-class-action

Thanks

PS – Here are some of the responses I received from Mobclix when I asked about where my payments were:

October 25th, 2012 – “We issue payments on Net 90 (we’re running 2 months behind on net 90) of $100+. We will be issuing out June payments at the end of this month.”

December 4th, 2012 – “The invoices are being loaded as we speak.”

March 11th, 2013 – “We have started issuing out August earnings in batches for those earning over $100+. You should expect a payment in the coming weeks if you’ve earning over $100+ during the August earning period.”

April 1st, 2013 – Here are PDF versions of the sample letter and invoice that I sent to Mobclix at the beginning of April. Please note that I am not promising this will work and there is no guarantee it will work… I am simply sharing what worked for me.

– Sample Letter (PDF)

– Sample Invoice (PDF)


UPDATE May 18, 2013:

If you have not been payed by Mobclix and are interested in a Class Action suit then you need to go the following site:
http://www.mobclix-pay.us/

 

70 thoughts on “Class action suit possible against Mobclix for not paying indie developers

  1. Please note that COMMENTS are now closed, so please join the SKYPE group where you can discuss plans to move this class action ahead.
    Skype ID: mobclixclassaction

  2. I received a check from Mobclix for the full amount owing to me, so obviously I am no longer going to need to be involved in a class action suit. But in order to facilitate the rest of you that still have an issue, please join the SKYPE group (skype id: mobclixclassaction ) where you can discuss your plans to move this class action ahead! Please note that I am not promising this will work and there is no guarantee it will work… I am simply sharing what worked for me.
    WARNING: If you press them for the money they owe you, they may DISABLE your account. Here is the email response I received: “I have a payment ready to be sent out for your account. Please provide us with a mailing address. We will also be turning off ad serving as well and disabling your account.
    So make sure you have removed Mobclix from your apps before you start to chase them for your money.

  3. I have been with Mobclix 2.5 years and it was tough getting paid from the beginning. It seemed like they were getting better and then the big let down. As of yesterday I am owed a whopping $42,600 …sigh

  4. I don’t see that being prevented from posting on their page is all that much of a threat. Realistically if someone was concerned they could create as many accounts as they like and post as many times as they want. At this point we simply need to dig up a class action attorney who would be excited about pursuing this. We also need to keep the pressure on them with the truth about their behavior.

    For starters here are a few places where developers can share their opinions on their experiences with mobclix

    http://www.youtube.com/user/TeamMobclix
    http://blog.velti.com/report-state-of-mobile-advertising-2012-year-in-review/
    http://www.mobileadcomparison.com/smaato-vs-mobclix/

  5. @joe – Somebody else in the comments below said they posted on their Facebook page about this post, and the message was deleted and they got banned from Mobclix page!

  6. The company is very sensitive about their facebook page and has been actively deleting posts pointing out this problem. It might be a good idea to apply some collective pressure by making the truth about their behavior public.

    Their facebook page is here for anyone interested in commenting on their experience with mobclix.

    https://www.facebook.com/mobclix

  7. $4000 so far over a 10 month period with not a single payment made to date. I am in on a class action as soon as a law firm announces one.

  8. Hi,

    They owe us over $2000 for every month from August 2012 till March 2013. Which comes to over $15000.
    We are in India. I don’t know how we can join a class action suit.
    Every time we mail, we get replies like waiting for accounting to get back.

  9. They owe me around $20,000. Have a ticket opened for over 4 months complaining about this. The only response I get is: “We are waiting on accounting”.

  10. Add me to the list. I’m a small fish, with Mobclix owing me just $1,600, but that is what class action suits are for, amirite?

    On top of that, despite me switching ad services in my app, all of the older versions of my app (probably 50% of logins) are still showing mobclix ads. I hope a lawsuit like this can take into account the lost revenue there (since they changed their SDK/policy), as well as the time and programming fees required for removing their SDK.

  11. I’m in. Mobclix currently owes me ~$10,000. They even stopped showing the revenue reports as well as the breakdown tab on my account.

  12. From Spain

    My last payment arrive on 6th February corresponding to June&July. Nothing was received since then.

    The amount they owe me since then is $10,500. Count me in to suit mobclix!

  13. They owe us more than USD$40,000 and counting. We are also several months behind.

    We were using their Open allocation to re-route our traffic to Admob, now they completely broke the Open allocation feature on older versions of their SDK. (See latest update on their website)

    This means that we are stuck feeding them ads without any alternatives for all previous builds out there unless we update to their latest SDK. This was probably done intentionally as well, trapping us developers from re-routing our ad traffic to other networks. We will be losing thousands more due to this.

  14. Hello all. I was an iPhone developer at the start (based in the UK). Mobclix did pay for a while, when I asked for it. Now they have stopped and keep giving me the “in two weeks” line. I am owed about $1000 dating back a year. I am interested in joining and contributing to a class action lawsuit against Mobclix or its parent company Velti. I have turned off all Mobclix advertising to 100% custom ads that link to the app store for my other apps. I recommend everybody does the same, so Mobclix do not continue to get free advertising! You can do this on the Mobclix website.

  15. Still owed at least $5,000 by them, possibly more but their (likely intentional) terrible and inaccurate invoicing system is making it hard to quickly verify. Last communication was in February.

  16. Mobclix owes us for the period Sept.2012 – Dec 2012 a total of $6361 (this amount is due now and not yet paid.). Mobclix owes us for the period Jan – Mar 2013 a total of $4432. Would be interested in a class action lawsuit.

  17. Mobclix owes me over $5,800 through March of 2013. The July 2012 payment was the last one I received as well.

  18. I will start looking for a lawyer later this week as I think we have quite a good case here with up to $246,000 owing now!

  19. Mobclix owes us $15,000 and we haven’t been paid. Anybody switch to another network that they like and are getting paid from?

  20. I am owed $14,000 just through the end of December. Another $5,000 since the start of the year.

  21. We are also trapped with mobcix. Over 5k pending. Last payment was in January for July. We will welcome such a move and will definitely like to join.

  22. Count me in. They owe me about $1,300.00.

    How can a publicly traded company do this without getting any bad press?

    Brutal

  23. They owe me more than $4,000. I had contact with their account manager. He made me promises every week for about one month. But now no one answering the phone…

  24. Dang! 17k, 10k! Thats a lot of money. I’ve been emailing support for months and months and get the same’ol answer. Ridiculous. Just FYI I am based in Costa Rica.

  25. They owe me over $17,000 USD. I’d join a class action lawsuit any time (i’m based in the Netherlands).

  26. Mobclix owes us around $2200 from 2012. Very pissed off about how they are treating customers. Would definitely be interested in a class action lawsuit.

  27. I’m an italian developer and I’m using Mobclix since July 2012.
    My 2 apps scored a total amount of $360. Until now, nothing received yet..
    I’m very disappointed..

Comments are closed.