Gawker: valleywag, eula adams

Pay By Touch wants to raise $150 million next year

Nicholas Carlson — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 13:55:28 EST

In a shareholders' conference call yesterday, Pay By Touch CFO Robert Sigler told investors the company plans to raise $150 million in 2008. This after Pay By Touch management has already burned through over $300 million since its founding and cost some 250 jobs just this fall. Tell you what, I hope Sigler and returning COO Eula Adams find their investors. Beause whoever they are, maybe I can find something to sell them, too. (Photo of the Brooklyn Bridge by absolutwade)

Pay By Touch's $50,000 internal investigation came up empty

Nicholas Carlson — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 19:40:56 EST

Eula Adams, who's returned to trouble payments company Pay By Touch as its COO, said during a conference call for investors today that at least two independent investigations into alleged illegal acts by officers of the company came up empty:

When issues were raised, we spent $50,000 hiring a firm to interview people and try to determine whether allegations were valid or invalid. And we were prepared to take action.

Nothing turned up, claimed Adams. A surprising outcome, considering what we've heard about the company and the man who ran it.

We've chronicled allegations of sexual harrassment, wrongful termination, drug use in the office, property destruction, more wrongful termination and threatening emails. Makes us wonder who, exactly, did these investigators speak to, and did they hear the truth? Let us know.

Pay By Touch "took out" 90 employees since Thanksgiving

Nicholas Carlson — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 17:28:52 EST

Failing biometrics company Pay By Touch has shed 250 employees in the last "couple months," COO Eula Adams said on a call for shareholders today. Of that 250, Adams said new management "took out" 90 employees in the last couple of weeks. The cuts came to "non-core" Pay By Touch initiatives in "healthcare, online, government," Adams said.

All of it confirms a rumor posted by a commenter a few weeks back. "Rumor has it that TODAY IS LAYOFF DAY! Again!"

Thanks for weathering the storm where we did not pay you for six weeks! Sorry for that month we still OWE you! uhm, yeah and we won't be paying you out when you go, and we'll probably just keep your vacation. So hoist a few and call a lawyer! It'll be fun!

This doesn't answer the question of how Pay By Touch got into "healthcare, online, government" in the first place. Shouldn't it have, say, figured out how to make money off fingerprint-approved payments first?

Pay By Touch entering Chapter 11, selling subsidiaries

Nicholas Carlson — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 11:11:46 EST

Failed biometrics payments firm Pay By Touch has filed voluntarily for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and will sell subsidiaries ATM Direct and CardSystems, employees learned during an all-hands on Friday. During the meeting, Pay By Touch COO Eula Adams asked employees to remain positive. Then he virtually assured that wouldn't happen by explaining the company's payroll situation.

Adams said the company still owes $3 million in back pay, and, according to our source, new investors in the company have demanded that money not be paid. Which of course leads to a pressing question: Pay By Touch has new investors? For their sake, let's hope company founder John Rogers didn't set their price.

Pay By Touch layoffs begin with SmartShop "originator"

Nicholas Carlson — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 15:11:19 EST

A tipster tells us Gary Hawkins, "the originator and moving force for SmartShop, Pay By Touch's only successful product, has been let go." This, our source says, "would indicate that Eula Adams and company have no interest in continuing the business, but plan to close it down and sell it off." This follows news that court-appointed consultant Tom Lumsden had secured a $9 million loan in order to catch up on missed payrolls, and layoffs were to be announced this week.

Pay By Touch new boss could be worse than old boss

Nicholas Carlson — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 16:33:09 EST

Pay By Touch CEO John Rogers is definitely out of the troubled San Francisco biometrics company, an employee tipster tells us. But the new boss, COO Eula Adams, may not be all that better. "From an employee perspective, in regard to stock options, Adams may be worse than Rogers, as hard as that may be to believe," he writes. He explains this sentiment in a long email. Here's the short version.

Eula Adams is a C.P.A. and a recognized expert in financial matters. Are we to believe that Adams didn't know the company lost $125 million in 2006, that the company was near insolvency several times, and that the company's primary product, biometric payments, was producing an average of two transactions per store per day? [Had] Adams planned to let the company fail so he could save himself and the investors he consorted with to take over the company? Insiders think so.

Happy holidays! Pay By Touch layoffs to be announced next week

Nicholas Carlson — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 13:52:46 EST

Pay By Touch, the biometric payments firm run into the ground by cocaine addict and convicted felon CEO John Rogers, will announce layoffs "immediately after the Thanksgiving holiday," a tipster tells us. Who among Pay By Touch's 700-plus employees can expect their sudden parole?

"The list of who stays and who goes appears to be crudely based on who was in the John Rogers camp vs. the Eula Adams/John Morris camp," our tipster writes. Eula Adams is a former Pay By Touch board member brought back as COO by the company's court-appointed overseer, Tom Lumsden. Executive John Morris is considered one of Adams's allies in the company.