Full Refund?

[Jonttu]

I ordered from the US

 

[Frogboy]

But what if you've no intention of re-ordering?

Then your going to lose money due to the change of conversion rates. Not really anything you or OpenPandora can do about it.

I really hope this isn't the case. If I purchase a Pandora for $353 (US), shipping included, and only receive back, say $300 (US), I'm shorted $53 dollars. When I go to reorder, I'm going to get charged $353 again. That'll bring my total up to $406. The only way I'd be paying the same price is if when I reordered, I paid $300. This is assuming that the money is always being converted either to or from the pound no matter which direction it is going. I'm doubting that this is the case. Chances are, the money is going to get converted in a FROM to TO fashion. If they convert my $353 US to pounds then they will be charging me more money (since they didn't give all back) and making more money off of me (since now $535 US is worth more than when I originally made the purchase).

I don't think that anyone should lose money on this whether they plan to reorder or not. It might cost them a little extra money to cover the few people that don't reorder but the bad press, perminantly lost sales, frustrated people who basically gave them money for two months and don't get anything in return except for 80%-85% of what they paid in, and the possibility of people reporting this to their credit card companies as fraud which might cause all kinds of other hassles for them, I'd think, just wouldn't be worth the trouble.

 

[Chip]

I really hope this isn't the case.
I'm not sure how, but after at least a dozen posts explaining the situation, you're still not getting it. Whatever amount you received in the refund is the amount you need to pay to reorder. It's as simple as that. People who have been reordering with bank transfers have been transferring the exact amount that they received from the refund no matter what currencies involved. The conversion works both ways.

For those that do not wish to reorder, there is nothing we can do about the international currency fluctuations. It would be great if we could be "nice" about it and cover the difference, but we can't afford that. Honestly, since we never had the money at any point in this transaction, it's hardly our responsibility.

 

[j.pickens]

When I go to reorder, I'm going to get charged $353 again. That'll bring my total up to $406. The only way I'd be paying the same price is if when I reordered, I paid $300.

The third sentence in this excerpt of your posting is correct. You would only pay the current exchange price for a reorder, plus whatever international fees your card charges, or your bank charges for a wire transfer.
Usually, these fees are in the $15 range. So you'd be out the $15 if you reorder. You will lose on the currency exchange rate if you don't reorder, in your example, $53.

 

[Frogboy]

People who have been reordering with bank transfers have been transferring the exact amount that they received from the refund no matter what currencies involved. The conversion works both ways.

What about those who reorder via credit card? Are they going to adjust the US dollar amount to whatever it is I get back? I know that I can just do a bank transfer of the exact amount that I get back but, I'm sorry, I'm not going to pay that way? They set the price at $330 nine months ago or so and it really didn't change despite all of the fluctuation in currencies and that is what was charged to my credit card. If I were charged some odd amount, like say $324 or $336, I'd have reason to believe that I was being charged a direct conversion of British pounds. I wasn't which makes me believe that I was charged $329 + shipping in US currency (sorry devs, I totally missed that option) that was then converted to pounds. If I reorder by credit card, which is my only option really, then I'll likely be charged exactly $329 + shipping in US currency again, then converted to pounds which means that I'd eat the money that I had lost in the refund conversion. Me and a lot of other Americans who ordered will be very leery if we go to reorder and the order page is telling us that we are going to be charged the same amount as we originally paid if we didn't get that much refunded back to us.

For those that do not wish to reorder, there is nothing we can do about the international currency fluctuations. It would be great if we could be "nice" about it and cover the difference, but we can't afford that.



Maybe you guys should've waited to charge the credit cards until Pandora shipped like everyone else does. A lot of people may not be willing to let you hold on to their money for another two, three, four, six or however many months it may be until these things are built and shipped out to the customers. We put faith in you guys that we would have our Pandora by now or very shortly. I know that stuff happens but it would be very disappointing if you guys abandoned us and gave away our place in line just because we didn't want to, or worse yet couldn't, let you hold onto our money for that length of time until Pandora is ready. I honestly don't know if I can reorder right away. I would really appreciate it if I would have that opportunity when it's ready to ship and can pretty much guarantee that I would reorder when the time came unless I lose my job or something in the mean time. Unfortunately, like many Americans right now, that is a real possibility that I face. I'm not trying to be a jerk here or anything but I have a family to care for. They get the slight precedence over me getting a Pandora.

Honestly, since we never had the money at any point in this transaction, it's hardly our responsibility.

Not trying to be rude but you may not be the best PR spokesperson for this. Though the statement above may possibly be true, that is a very bad way to word it. Telling a current customer, who will likely end up losing their place in line and could easily end up withdrawing all together (along with everyone else on the forum), that anything is hardly your responsibility and to basically just deal with it (it being getting charged for a product that you never received, refunded only about 85% of what you paid and basically out the other 15% unless you replace your order through an unprotected bank transfer). Sorry, that looks bad and doesn't instill the most confidence in your customers who are going through this most unorthodox process. There are many more elegant ways to say this that would've come off better. I know this is a community but it is also a business and I wouldn't tick off either if I were you. Pandora relies on this community to survive.


Crap! Looks like I'm going to get flamed in two threads at once now.

 

[mali]

If I were to cancel my order(which I thought for about a millisecond, because I've just to pay a 11000€-12000€ tax bill :huh: ) I would just re-order now, wait for the unit to ship and then sell it on eBay the day after delivery. That might bring some extra cash

 

[EmuGuy]

Maybe you guys should've waited to charge the credit cards until Pandora shipped like everyone else does.

Like it says in j. pickens signature, "it's not like buying a DS or PSP."

I was under the impression they needed our pre-order money to get the Pandora built. It's kind of like an investment in a new company, except that we're not shareholders (although people around here act like it sometimes!)

I hope you don't get dinged too bad by the exchange rates, and I hope you are able to re-order. That said, there's plenty more who'll take your place. I know I wanted mine before Christmas, but then the financial world went out the window, so now there's unpredictable delays...such is life.

Anyway, of course you will be able to re-order once they are ready to ship, it's called "the second batch".

 

[Chip]

Not trying to be rude but you may not be the best PR spokesperson for this.
I could have gussied it up in condescending PR lingo, but the facts would still be the same. The banking/refund/reorder situation would still be a mess, and there still wouldn't be anything we could do about it that we aren't already doing. The fact that we simply can't afford to compensate people for international currency fluctuations doesn't change, no matter how polite I am about it.

Everybody here has been pretty unanimous that what they really want to hear is the truth, and that's what I'm giving you. I could do the standard PR song and dance and tell you how this is all actually a good thing, but nobody here would buy it for a second. Half of the people here don't even believe the facts I give them. They certainly won't fall for an obvious line of crap.

I'm a PR guy of sorts, but I'm not a spin doctor.

 

[gorman]

I'm a PR guy of sorts, but I'm not a spin doctor.

I think he rightly took exception with the statement "it's hardly our responsibility" because that is a false statement. Pandora is a company, we are the customers. What we are going through came because of a bank that Pandora chose, not the customers. So you can say "sorry, we are doing everything we can but can't afford to compensate for exchange fluctuations. We wish we could but we can't. This taught us many valuable lessons in how to deal with banks and we are are really sorry that you, as customers, have to pay for it".
This is the truth and a far more acceptable one than "it's not our responsibility", sorry.

And peace, really... I wrote three posts today that make me seem far more upset than I really am.

 

[gaterooze]

Should these complaints be directed at the bank doing the refunds? Does it give a record of where the money was sent/received? Is the difference due to Protx being in the middle? (i.e. they accepted orders in US$ and transferred UKP to the bank?)

Note that I don't really care for myself, I'll just reorder and the rest doesn't bother me in the slightest. But it might give some of the others a better outlet for their frustrations.

 

[smanky]

QUOTE

I think he rightly took exception with the statement "it's hardly our responsibility" because that is a false statement. Pandora is a company, we are the customers. What we are going through came because of a bank that Pandora chose, not the customers. So you can say "sorry, we are doing everything we can but can't afford to compensate for exchange fluctuations. We wish we could but we can't. This taught us many valuable lessons in how to deal with banks and we are are really sorry that you, as customers, have to pay for it".
This is the truth and a far more acceptable one than "it's not our responsibility", sorry.


My sentiments EXACTLY.

Not trying to be rude but you may not be the best PR spokesperson for this.
I could have gussied it up in condescending PR lingo, but the facts would still be the same. The banking/refund/reorder situation would still be a mess, and there still wouldn't be anything we could do about it that we aren't already doing. The fact that we simply can't afford to compensate people for international currency fluctuations doesn't change, no matter how polite I am about it.

Everybody here has been pretty unanimous that what they really want to hear is the truth, and that's what I'm giving you. I could do the standard PR song and dance and tell you how this is all actually a good thing, but nobody here would buy it for a second. Half of the people here don't even believe the facts I give them. They certainly won't fall for an obvious line of crap.

I'm a PR guy of sorts, but I'm not a spin doctor.

As far as I'm concerned, Open Pandora messed up. If they were going to take international sales, this is what should have happened but didn't - they should have had three bank accounts to take pounds, $USD, and Euros. I'm not well versed in how international transactions work, but I know that there are plenty of other companies who can take different currencies and not convert them to their local currency. There are HK and Japanese companies I've ordered from that take orders in USD and don't convert, so it is possible.

Because they stated we'd be paying in local currency and then just converted it all to pounds, everyone coming from outside of the UK (1) got dinged with currency conversion fees and (2) is subject to international currency fluctuations.

The other mistake they made was taking full payment up front. I understand that they needed our preorders to get the money to finance making the product, but it didn't have to be that way. There are plenty of ways to get financing for startup businesses, even in this economy. They should have taken a percentage preorder fee of 15-20% (even make it nonrefundable if you cancel) and charged the rest on delivery.

 

[VRAndy]

How come some people thought they were paying in local currency?

The order screen I got was very clearly in pounds. And my (American) card was charged some round number of pounds converted to some not-round number of US dollars. (Plus forty-five cents for a conversion fee. Damn bank!)

Did I somehow wind up at the wrong order screen?

I'm perfectly comfortable paying by any major currency, (Since the bank handles the math anyway) but I hope I didn't pay the wrong amount in shipping charges or something.

Oh well, so long as I get my unit, I'm happy.

 

[Asmo]

How come some people thought they were paying in local currency?

The order screen I got was very clearly in pounds.

When you chose your part of the world you were directed to your target currency; in my case Euro - and the prices were set in a Euro amount, not realtime calculated against Sterling. The Pandora was set at E249 for example. Here's a snapshot of the order page the day it went up:



So my purchase appeared to be in Euro, but the refund was Sterling (GBP) converted back to Euro resulting in a loss.

I used to work for a firm doing mail order and import/export and we always maintained bank accounts in Sterling and US Dollar, so we could quote flat prices for those regions regardless of currency variations. When rates were favourable we would then shift the bulk of those balances to the account in our local currency. Any refunds we did were in the original currency received and therefore an identical amount regardless of any shift in exchange rates.

 

[gaterooze]

I'm pretty sure VRAndy is right, when you got to the ProtX screen to actually pay for it, it gave the price converted to pounds. This is what my order said (I'm in Australia):

"Order total: 197.77 GBP"

I agree though, a US account would have helped. I guess they figured that since a proper US distributor would be taking care of things beyond the pre-order stage, they would just handle it themselves for now. And really, I'm okay with that. Like I've always said, all of this is almost no bother to me, it's really being blown out of proportion in this echo chamber. Besides, it will be worth saying: I was part of that. I helped it become a reality.

 

[mali]

Besides, it will be worth saying: I was part of that. I helped it become a reality.

100% agreement

 

[smanky]

How come some people thought they were paying in local currency?

The order screen I got was very clearly in pounds. And my (American) card was charged some round number of pounds converted to some not-round number of US dollars. (Plus forty-five cents for a conversion fee. Damn bank!)

It said $USD throughout the whole process until you actually went to submit your order, and then it converted it to GBP. I still figured I would be charged USD because that's what they were advertising - $330 USD not 197 GBP. Lucky you only had a 45 cent conversion fee... mine was $11, which isn't that much, but it's money I didn't budget.

 

[j.pickens]

The other mistake they made was taking full payment up front. I understand that they needed our preorders to get the money to finance making the product

This is precisely the rationale for doing preorders. This was stated, up front, by the Pandora team. They even made specific requests to get people to donate additional money to the dev fund, again, before preorders even opened up.

If you didn't like this aspect of the Pandora, you shouldn't have preordered. Plain and simple.

 

[Chairman_Now]

Not trying to be rude but you may not be the best PR spokesperson for this. Though the statement above may possibly be true, that is a very bad way to word it. Telling a current customer, who will likely end up losing their place in line and could easily end up withdrawing all together (along with everyone else on the forum), that anything is hardly your responsibility and to basically just deal with it (it being getting charged for a product that you never received, refunded only about 85% of what you paid and basically out the other 15% unless you replace your order through an unprotected bank transfer).

I strongly suggest that everyone in this boat (US orders, especially) call and do a chargeback NOW.

Each chargeback will result in the full dollar amount being credited back to the buyer, and 20ish pounds being debited from the seller's accounts.

If the seller complains, we can tell them to just deal with it. What's good for the goose, right?

 

[ShyGuy]

You're an ass. What do you gain out of this? Get a chargeback yourself and let other people make their own decisions. Many of us are still very much looking forward to our Pandoras.

Very, very few have developed such a feeling of betrayal as you seem to possess. It's almost as if you're taking an "If I can't have one, no one can!" stance on the issue. Get your refund and go away.

Children.

 

[Chairman_Now]

You're an ass. What do you gain out of this? Get a chargeback yourself and let other people make their own decisions. Many of us are still very much looking forward to our Pandoras.

What did I gain? I got my FULL refund. This is as much satisfaction as I expect to get.

My bank refunded my full charged amount. This, regrettably, cost someone else 47 GBP.

Again, I suggest that others follow this lead. If you don't mind eating a loss, then go for it. I'm not so charitable.