Several little leagues, youth soccer clubs and non-profit organizations across the country have been left wondering what became of their operating funds after allegations arose this week that Bellevue-based Count Me In failed to make payments to customers.

Chief Executive Terry Drayton now tells TechFlash that they are attempting to address the issue. "Know we are doing everything we can to resolve the situation," said Drayton via text message today.

Count Me In, which handles online registrations for thousands of non-profit groups, including several little league baseball and youth soccer groups in the Seattle area, allegedly used some of the registration fees for corporate expenses, according to a lawsuit filed by a soccer club in New Jersey.

But the problems appear to run deeper than the soccer club, with the Anchorage Daily New reporting that a softball club in San Diego, a Lacrosse organization in Illinois, a soccer and ski clubs in Alaska are each owed between $10,000 and $200,000. Combined with the earlier reports in TechFlash, KIRO 7 and the Anchorage Daily News, more than half a million dollars may be missing. Meanwhile, KIRO 7 reports tonight that angry parents banged on the doors of the Bellevue company today in an effort to try to reclaim funds.

The tally of missing cash may grow. TechFlash has heard from other Seattle area groups who claim they are owed money, while other organizations that have dropped Count Me In are scrambling to institute new registration and payment systems. And now competitors are swooping in to pick up some of the pieces.

Lisa Pyper, president of the North King County Little League, said the baseball league pulled the plug on Count Me In last week after they learned of the company's problems.They are not owed any money, with Pyper saying the little league received a check from last summer. But with registration starting December 1 for the next baseball season, Pyper said the timing is not good.

The league is looking into setting up a PayPal system to handle registrations.

"If the Web site goes down, we have all of our parents' email addresses so we will do it all manually," she said.

Pyper said they no choice but to abandon Count Me In given the reports of mismanagement of funds. "We only have $35,000 in reserve, so if we didn't get paid $35,000 that would be all of our money," she said. "We can't take that chance as a non-profit."

A spokeswoman for the Boys and Girls Clubs of King County, which uses the Count Me In registration system, said they were investigating the matter.  

Marc Weiner, director of SellYourEvents.com, an online registration firm, said the troubles at Count Me In highlight the importance of choosing a tool where the funds are paid directly to the organizations. Unlike Count Me In, Weiner said that they never hold the money of the clients.

Overall, he said the development is not only bad for the non-profits that may have to cut back on programming but for the entire industry.

"Frankly, this news is bad for online businesses because it erodes people's trust when they consider online apps and software," said Weiner.

UPDATE: I just had a long chat with Catherine Collins, whose non-profit environmental organization, Sound Experience, is out about $10,000. That's a significant sum for an organization whose operating budget is $500,000, with Collins saying they took down the Count Me In system today after learning of the company's problems.

Collins said she was "shellshocked" and saddened by the turn of events.

"I believed in the company and I believed in the people who worked there. They were good people," said Collins, who described Terry Drayton as an "icon" of the Seattle technology community. "But you got to get paid. I feel blindsided."

Collins described the Count Me In technology as "exceptional," saying it revolutionized how they interacted with people who wanted to sign up for one of the organization's cruises of the Puget Sound.

"It is a mess. And it is a sad story about trust in business. And it is a sad story about entrepreneurship. I am kind of crushed by it," said Collins, adding that she had considered going to the company's offices to figure out what was going on.

"I am not ready to dump the system because it really works great," she said. "It is not like we saw the writing on the wall. I want to contact Terry Drayton and ask for the money back."