Credit Card Orders

[TaG]

2. as suggested name the bank so we can put some 'customer pressure' which will most likely speed up their actions. if they get the impression your a big customer and not a small one they can $fsck around with they might treat you better.

we should all just storm the bank and ask them to give us our money back

Just remember that we are not customers of Craig's bank (well, we might happen to be by coincidence but that's different).

Craig has to complain to his bank, but it looks like they don't care, they are being awkward. He could threaten them with the ombudsman but that tactic only works if it scares them, otherwise they might be even more awkward.

I suppose you/we can complain to our banks/card companies that our monies weren't returned quickly enough - not sure if that would or wouldn't have an effect.

The only other thing is to wait another week or so and hope it clears up. Everybody has to make their own choice I guess.

 

[noisome]

So basically what this all comes down to is the preorders were in, and payments made. All money was in the bank.

The bank said, "OOO look! Money! Lets put it in stocks." Stocks went down, they lost all the money that Pandora put in. Pandora, clueless, said "I need money to pay for my stuff now." Banks say "You don't have any because it ain't legit. I'm going to not tell the police and give refunds instead."

While Pandora clearly sees them as assholes, what the bank did was legal, albeit stupid. Now they did not have the money to give back and are slowly paying this money back whenever new money comes in from other accounts. Bank says "Lets see if we can get some more money and charge them for the impatient orderers."

That is the way I see it, and I hope Pandora sues the hell out of them when all of the money is refunded.

Thanks,

Noisome

 

[dinglebery]

QUOTE
If you liked Skeezixs Pandora benchmarks vs. other handhelds and thought they were impressive, well, prepare to turn it up to 11.

But this goes ONE louder.

Alright!

i was waiting for that :> was almost going to link the youtube vid

actualy i will

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d54UU-fPIsY

as a side note guys come on you all knew up front you were getting into a preorder for a venture project from a small company if you were not ready for some bumps on the way you should have waited for the second batch..

i live in the US but used to travel alot for my old job, one thing i can say im not sure how it is in the UK compared to germany but everything in germany moves at a MUCH slower pace than here in the US and shrug its just thier way i actualy like it its not so damn manic all the time, but i was expecting things to be a bit slower compared to how US does things. i think the banks playing dirty but theres not much OP can do about it and not loose out,

that being said wait for the reorder page see how it works out before everyone starts grabing pitchforks and getting all riled up. the simple fact is EVERYONE aside from those not refunded is going to take a bit of a hit. your going to have to deal with that (on both sides OP as well as the consumers) weather its exchange rate fees or proccessing fees. wait n see if theres a solution that makes it amiable to both sides in this ...

if at that time its still not acceptable to you cut your losses and walk away ..

though i think all preorders should come with a t-shirt that reads i preordered my pandora and lived ... or some such thing :>

 

[NickLoTurco]

Is nobody else bothered about waiting a few more weeks for video's? I've held back on complaining until this point but I sold my GP2X to fund my Pandora. We were told last week that a video of a final Pandora would be ready THIS weekend, fuelling speculation that shipping wouldn't be far away........this latest update shows no sign of any hope that a finished Pandora is only a few days away.

I'd apologise for being impatient only I've been patient enough already whilst everyone panicked around me! I thought the dev's had learned by now about making promises on updates etc.........I realise that it's not the weekend yet and if a video comes up showing a prototype Pandora then I'll apologise then, but even I'm getting pessimistic.......

Still very much behind the project nevertheless.........happy christmas everyone..........at least I'll have my trusty Amiga 1200 to keep me busy over crimbo.

Nick

 

[TaG]

We were told last week that a video of a final Pandora would be ready THIS weekend, fuelling speculation that shipping wouldn't be far away

We were told "next weekend we will be building the first fully working Pandora with controls and keyboard and
making some videos of it for you to see". Next weekend is this weekend. That is when they expect to make it. The videos will then follow on after it has been assembled and checked. Assuming there are no problems...

You have to be careful with these "promises". The devs try and give updates based on what they think as everyone wants news. If you old them to every promise they can only make these statements of intent when they are 100% certain, which would mean waiting until it was ready...

 

[mali]

i was waiting for that :> was almost going to link the youtube vid

actualy i will

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d54UU-fPIsY



:lol:
ROFL

 

[gaterooze]

Is nobody else bothered about waiting a few more weeks for video's?

Waittasec -- these worries are unfounded. It's just poor grammar. This is what craigix said:

QUOTE
there are some very nice announcements coming up in regards to the drivers for the Pandora 3d, dsp, video in the next few weeks too which will again make the Pandora even faster and more complete.


But it *should* have been written like this:

QUOTE
there are some very nice announcements coming up in regards to the drivers (3d/dsp/video) for the Pandora in the next few weeks too which will again make the Pandora even faster and more complete.


See it now? When you look at the entire sentence in context, it's clear that's what it means (i.e. how would a video of the Pandora "make it even faster and more complete"?).

Am I wrong craigix?

 

[krooked]

QUOTE
the simple fact is EVERYONE aside from those not refunded is going to take a bit of a hit. your going to have to deal with that

has anyone emailed gp2x asking about a refund and been told that they werent expected to recieve a refund?
not that it matters but at this point i think they just gave us false hope so it wasnt such mad chaos that EVERYONE was getting a refund. maybe im wrong, again, doesnt matter.

 

[TrevorBradley]

(which is almost a 2:1 conversion from GBP to CDN, nothing close to the approximate $330 USD advertised)

Another Canadian chiming in here.

When I bought Pandora, in CDN it worked out to about $390CDN, and I was just refunded at $355CDN.

However $330US is close to $420CDN at todays exchange rates. If I play back 197GBP (Today ~$355CDN) and lose another 10% because of future exchange rates changes, and more likely Mastercard exchange rate penalties, I'll be at around $425CDN overall, very close to the $420CDN future owners may pay. At that new price doesn't include shipping.

And that's assuming the GBP doesn't continue to tank and we don't end up saving even more money.

I'm frustrated about the re-order situation too. I've chosen to direct that frustration at Pandora Ltd's ex-bank.

Have you filed a formal complaint against your bank? If you haven't, you should.

At this moment, a compliant against the bank, even to small claims court, accomplishes nothing. It's not so much about money as it is about time. There's only a limited window to get Pandora out the door before it becomes fiscally unfeasible. If you want to get nasty with the bank, do it sometime after the second batch is out and things are very stable.

 

[DAP]

The bank should be identified.

Bad publicity does wonders.

 

[Xisiqomelir]

people are contemplating charge backs due to the un-professional nature of whats going on. as in highlighted in this topic on the other forum.
http://forum.openpandora.org/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=737
Which leads to the impression that this is a scam. which i do not think is true, but i have to admit it has been handled poorly.

Things i suggest you can do to at least put some faith back in is;
1. update the news section on the main pandora site.
2. as suggested name the bank so we can put some 'customer pressure' which will most likely speed up their actions. if they get the impression your a big customer and not a small one they can $fsck around with they might treat you better.
3. UPDATE more often, even if it's minor, it gives the impression of progress. also put the updates on the FRONT page. not in the blog, not hidden in the forums.



I could really go for the bolded.

 

[mali]

It's still BS.

 

[dinglebery]

well actualy if you know anything of buisness banking im sure OP is in no legal position to release the banks name yet ...

you have to consider that there may be other moneys tied to the bank.. or contracts, im sure once OP has no chance of financial reprocusion from the bank we'll get told but atm im betting theres still a decent amount of leverage that the bank has over them that cant be discussed openly until the ties are broken, and said bank is dragging thier feet in the proccess..

total speculation but in a project this size and money wise finances are usualy lumped up in several packages , and mabey even spread across several financial institutions if the moneys are large enough to warent the risk.

however that dosnt stop you from finding it out yourselves if your willing to go threw hoops,spend the cash if waiting is to much for you..

 

[BenTolputt]

With all due respect - this is not really an "update". I'll illustrate below:

QUOTE
Sorry about this slow credit card reorder process, please don't get angry at us as we can only move at the pace of the bank who started all this mess (and probably wish they had not done it now).

We want the make sure ALL card orders are refunded before we put up the reorder pages, and the reorder pages will probably go in batches, ie UK first, then euro then the rest of the world to avoid any server issues.

Please try to be patient and not give us a hard time (believe me the bank situation is a nightmare enough).

This is simply a plea for people to be patient with blame thrown to the banks for the debacle. I'm not stating that this is not necessarily true - just that this has been said before. Including the part about the credit card ordering being done "zone by zone", though this is a probably and we were led to believe a week ago that the only reason the page was not up was a busted laptop...

QUOTE
Also please don't request charge backs - this only leads the bank to believe they were 'right' to do this and weakens our argument that there were wrong - they have also told us they plan to charge us $38 for every charge back they receive just to kick us while we are down due to their actions.

Again, another plea. Again something Chip has informed us of. And again, whilst true - not an update.

QUOTE
They are refunding the orders but they are doing it very slowly, almost in an awkward manner.

Something that we're aware of from other posters (who have been refunded) and Chip's posts. And if it's an "update" that refunds were going through (slowly or otherwise) - the reader has not been on these forums at all, and is likely not to be here now

QUOTE
Please try to work with us though this, it is the last step in a long project and we have worked past so many other major issues put in our place in the last two years - we just need your help to knock this one down too - and don't worry I'm keeping a diary of all the interesting attempts to try to derail the Pandora project and will post them soon.

Another plea - no real information at all.

QUOTE
Also remember that you won't lose your place in the queue and work continues full time while all this is happening - there are some very nice announcements coming up in regards to the drivers for the Pandora 3d, dsp, video in the next few weeks too which will again make the Pandora even faster and more complete.

If you liked Skeezixs Pandora benchmarks vs. other handhelds and thought they were impressive, well, prepare to turn it up to 11.

Reminder of existing knowledge (place in queue kept) and promise of further updates... though not in this post.

For the record, this post is not directed at Craig. Honestly, he needed to make an appearance if only to calm us unsettled masses (yes, I admit to being one of the unsettled ones). I am not worried that it was not an update (though that would be desired, it's not necessary)

However, there are people already thanking Craig for this "update" when it is no such thing. This post will also be pointed to when others complain about a lack of updates - when the complaint is valid. This is basically a "look we're here" post with no new information... the updates mentioned for the future might have new information, but this doesn't

 

[ish420]

Wll, Fnlly ftr vr mnth f btchng nd mnng t GP32 fnlly gt bck sm mny. sy sm bcs t sms hv bn rppd ff by lmst $70SD. bttr gt my mny bck n ts ntrty. dn't cr f Crg r d hv t snd m prsnl chck, bcs m gng thrgh wth fllng ths cmpny s frdlnt nd m tllng my bnk nd crd cmpny tht GP32 nd pnpndr r thvs. m srry bt yr bnk prblms bt dn't pss thm n t m. f ths mns sngl hnddly kll th prjct, FCK T. Y bttr strt wrtng tht chck.

 

[mali]

@BenT

Could you conclude what you are trying to say in one sentence, please?
I'm no native English speaker and I have a hard time understanding what this is all about.

 

[Prometheus]

Well, Finally after over month of bitching and moaning to GP32 I finally got back some money. I say some because it seems I have been ripped off by almost $70USD. I better get my money back in its entirety. I don't care if Craig or Ed have to send me a personal check, because I am going through with filling this company as fraudulent and am telling my bank and card company that GP32 and openpandora are thieves. I am sorry about your bank problems but don't pass them on to me. If this means I single handedly kill the project, FUCK IT. You better start writing that check.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but; Do you not think that, instead of writing a paragraph containing swearing and threats on a public forum, you ought to be contacting the company directly?

 

[geo12]

I think each customer has to realize that there is a certain amount of risk when investing in a brand new company. Take a leap of faith and this situation is a possible consequence. I'm just as pissed as everyone else with these delays (haven't even received my refund yet), but C'est la vie.

 

[sterling976]

ish420 -- so much for sitting tight.

This post might help explain the situation and allay some of your concerns.

Then again, it might not. *shrug*

 

[BenTolputt]

Mali:
QUOTE
Could you conclude what you are trying to say in one sentence, please?
I'm no native English speaker and I have a hard time understanding what this is all about.

Simply stated: "Craig's post is not an update. He said nothing new with the exception of promising actual updates on Pandora at some point soon".

I also tried to ensure people knew this was not directed at Craig himself, but to the people calling this an update... but I'm pretty sure that will be ignored when I get flamed.

geo12:
QUOTE
I think each customer has to realize that there is a certain amount of risk when investing in a brand new company. Take a leap of faith and this situation is a possible consequence. I'm just as pissed as everyone else with these delays (haven't even received my refund yet), but C'est la vie.

Thing to remember is that people are not "investing in a brand new company", they are laying down money for a "brand new product". The purchasers are not expecting a "return on investment" (with the contingent risks that entails), they are expecting a device (with risk limited to that expected with a "brand new product"). Very big difference in outlook. If one invests in a business, delayed profit &/or completion times are part of the territory (you can be angry and all, but it should not be completely unexpected). When buying a device (with a half-promised end of November shipping date), up to three month delays in shipping, money lost through refunds, and the need to reorder (for PayPal people - multiple times) are not expected and one has the right to be pissed off.

Personally, I'm simply annoyed at the misinformation - though my wife & kids who funded this purchase (as a Father's Day present) are somewhat more pissed off at the rest.