How Advisory Board Works

Dear Green Sheet,

The $2,000,000 question: How do individuals become part of the Advisory Board?

Brooke

Mesa, Ariz.

(Edited, to omit the question of my recreational preferences.)

Dear Brooke,

When we formed the Advisory Board in September 2001, we did send invitations to participate to a number of industry people. Some of those accepted and some declined. We followed that first step with a number of open invitations to the industry and have had the Advisory Board grow to 59 members, representing a broad cross-section of the industry.

While I had hoped not to have more than one individual from a single organization, I have otherwise not turned down any individual who was willing to answer questions on behalf of our readership.

The members of The Green Sheet Advisory Board have nothing whatsoever to do with the running of the company nor do they control editorial content, but rather they are individuals who have agreed, for whatever period they participate, to provide answers to questions that The GS sends to them.

Having a large cross-section of Advisory Board participants allows us to answer the many public and private questions asked of The GS and to provide a broad perspective concerning the industry.

All of the individuals who have agreed to serve as advisory board members do so as a means of giving something back to the industry that they are a part of, and I am grateful for their efforts.

Paul H. Green

Owner and Editor-in-Chief

P.S. The GS has now secured the membership list on the MLS Forum.

An Open Letter from Mary Dees of CMS

To: The Green Sheet

Re: MLS Forum

I would like to thank you for the public service that you provide to the credit card processing industry. I have always found The Green Sheet, GSQ and your other educational trade publications to be a valuable informative reference for myself, as well as other individuals to whom I have recommended them. I cannot say that I have had the same experience with your Green Sheet online forum.

Clearly, this is a personal letter and not a legal letter. As such, I want to be clear that this is not written nor is it in any way a formal act as an officer of ETA, my capacity as a federal court receiver or my capacity as an officer in an ETA member company. In other words, "it's just me."

As you already know from our many communications, we collectively have spent a number of non-productive hours attempting to resolve a series of issues stemming from specific defamatory posts that have been made over the last month. I believe that as accomplished professionals all of us collectively could have achieved more productive outcomes for our organizations and this industry if we had used all of that time on other endeavors. As such, I have chosen to resign from your MLS Forum and, additionally, I have deleted all of my posts.

There are a great many leaders and special people in this industry, and I would especially like to thank those on the Green Sheet Advisory Board. The thought that you would nominate me as an "Influential Leader" in this industry means far more to me personally than you would know. If my work over the years has provided assistance and value to your business, my reward was received when you gave me the opportunity to do the work that I love.

There are a great number of individuals on your Forum who exhibit ethics, integrity, significant accomplishments, great business knowledge and refined social skills. Sadly, there are a handful who do not exhibit these qualities. I am sure that I will have the pleasure, honor and benefit of a productive exchange of ideas with the former in my business relationships and in other industry activities. However, the latter have bantered about my name over the last few months in the context of a swear word. The only thing I have to say in reference to them is that I hope that no one ever makes the vile public statements about them that they have made about me.

Respectfully,

Mary F. Dees

Who nominated 'Best Payment Processing Players?'

To The Green Sheet:

I would like to know why our company was not included on the Best Payment Processing Players ballot attached to the last issue of the Green Sheet [issue 03:03:01].

We have spent tens of thousands of dollars in advertising in the last year with The Green Sheet, and we were getting ready to commit to additional full-page ads. Other companies were listed more than once.

Your attention and an explanation to this matter would be appreciated.

Sincerely,

A Disgruntled Advertiser

Dear Disgruntled,

As we explained in our article, "The Best of the Best," the nominations were made by The Green Sheet Advisory Board. They were not controlled by the GS staff and were in no way reflective of advertising dollars spent with GS. It seemed to us that a ballot listing our paid advertisers would have been highly unethical.

For your reference, the full story is in GS issue 03:03:01, which is available online at www.greensheet.com/PriorIssues-/030301-/2.htm

In an effort to be as fair as possible, there is space on the printed ballot and online for a "write-in" entry under each category.

Thank you for your interest in The Green Sheet,

The Green Sheet Staff

Far-flung Focus

Dear sir,

I operate a credit card processing venture in the Northeast. Through other relationships, we have obtained enormous customer contacts in Spain, Puerto Rico and Australia. Any information or leads relative to conducting business in these locales, including operative banking relationships, would be of incredible assistance.

Best regards,

Joseph Cappuccio

Clover Merchant Group

Joseph,

We suggest you register at our Web site, www.greensheet.com. Post your request for information in the MLS Forum.

Good Selling!^SM

The Green Sheet Staff