Reordering Update

[javaJake]

Hmmm...

Credit Cards: Temporarily impossible.
PayPal: Permanently impossible.
Bank transfer: I haven't talked to my bank yet, but from what I gather the fees are upwards from $20. I've already paid $30 just because I didn't pass security checks on my first order (so I got refunded, had to re-order again). In the end I got slammed with three sets of fees for international ordering. I don't know, maybe I can pay the fees one last time. More thought is needed.

 

[jdh2550]

I will do a bank transfer if I have to - however, it sounds like there are at least a couple of viable options that might allow us not to make the banks richer just for hitting a few buttons on their terminals (I mean, heck, how can it possibly cost them $45 to do a transfer?)

BTW - Someone above said "let's not try something new and untested". I'd like to suggest that whatever method is used that Craig (or whomever) contact them and say I have about $500,000 (or whatever) of orders coming in - what do I need to do to make sure you don't freak out? i.e. be pro-active. Surely there's a bank out there that would like the X% that they'll get for that? Same goes if you decide to try PayPal again - try talking to them rather than dismissing them out of hand.

Oh yeah, and my first thought when I read about the 40% rule was - so is Amazon.co.uk going out of business????

 

[Rockthesmurf]

Don't worry - we are not going to be beaten by a bunch of bankers

s/ba/wa/g

 

[Prometheus]

Oh yeah, and my first thought when I read about the 40% rule was - so is Amazon.co.uk going out of business????

Mine was "This must apply to new merchant accounts being opened at this time, since they had to start from scratch with the new bank". Was I the only one? :lol:

 

[gaterooze]

Perhaps all the AUSTRALIAN buyers could band together and we could do one big transfer per state/capital city.

I would be up for this, but I can claim the P on tax for my business, so I'll want an individual receipt

I can vouch for slaanesh's trustworthiness though, I've bought stuff from him on eBay.

 

[noisome]

What about mailing cashier's checks? I can mail mine out today, and Monday next week, OpenPandora can receive it and cash it. No fees to me, no fees to them.

Noisome

 

[TheGrandPubaa]

Hello everyone,

<snip>

We are willing to discount the bank fee from the Pandora price, as we are charged a fee for accepting credit cards anyway.

Opinions, solutions, ideas? I know it's a bastard, let's just try to work though it, some kind of reward for people going the extra mile to pay via a transfer is possible.

I am in the US. I pre-ordered within the first 20 minutes. I got my refund. If all else fails I would be willing to do a bank transfer minus fees if the unit is shipped soon after I pay this way.

I just wanted to say: same here.

...I just have no idea how to go about doing an international bank transfer. I've never dealt with that before...

 

[Asmo]

they want to see a flow of cash of at least 40% not in credit cards

How would they know what was 40% at any moment? I mean, right now, if 1000 or so have already paid by Transfer that means they would now be happy to see around 1000 card orders? Why not stagger the orders then, would they not be OK with seeing another 1000 or so CC orders 30 days later?

Oh and yes we can take Cheques/Checks I assume, unless there is something stopping us taking international cheques.

Woah there, yes there is - without accounts in those currencies your Bank will hit you for conversion fees, and if the cheque is drawn on an obscure Bank they don't have ties with it could take them aeons to clear it and incur even more fees!

 

[paddy]

i really cant see the same problem everyone else seems to have with
the current bank payment issues and craig should read this and take note.

stick with paypal for reorders,let everyone know thats involved
that paypal will be the way to go,set a date for jan-feb feb is
preferable as it gives the pandora time to develop and it can keep
everyone at ease.

once the feb date is set,start shipping batches of 100 pandora units
payable via paypal 5 days before ship,and every 7 days after send
another 100 pandoras out with payment.

this is prolly what would have happend anyway,seeing as theres
stock-part delays and you cant ship 3800 pandora units in one
go,so its not really a problem to let everyone know some facts
on shipping.

this way paypal shouldnt be a problem,all orders including usa
are fine,everyone knows where they stand and everyone can
reorder safely,and to top it all off make it a vital task to have a
completed pandora video very soon so everyone can be happy
and look forward to a great newyear.

most if not all will want to use paypal,and some can only really
use paypal now as other methods are not possible.

i thought i had missed my chance but i can reorder
mid jan for sure and shouldnt be a problem for me,ohh
and if i saw fully working pandoras in the hands of say the first
100 buyers,then i would gladly pay you a cash order
without the paypal or c order.

 

[cosurgi]

Oh and yes we can take Cheques/Checks I assume, unless there is something stopping us taking international cheques.

Woah there, yes there is - without accounts in those currencies your Bank will hit you for conversion fees, and if the cheque is drawn on an obscure Bank they don't have ties with it could take them aeons to clear it and incur even more fees!

Or use a travellers cheque. I used one when I was travelling and it works exceptionally well. If your cheque gets stolen - you don't lose money, because there is a security code which you simply keep separately than the cheque (e.g. in a shoe instead of a wallet .

So people could buy travellers cheques, send them to Craig by snail mail, and then email him the security code.

I think that I used 'Thomas Cook' but they are all the same, basically. You just need to go out of the basement and visit one of their offices in your city.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveller%27s_cheque

 

[j.pickens]

I like Paddy's thinking, but I'm guessing this is not an option.
This is because, just like credit card transactions, Paypal reserves the right to debit the seller's account when a problem occurs.
From the new bank's perspective, the Paypal money is "suspect", no matter how upstanding Craigx and Open Pandora Ltd. are.

This is only a guess on my part.

By the way, I got my refund on Dec. 5th, and ordered by wire transfer from the US the same day.

Someone earlier mentioned that it was very difficult to do.
Took me 5 minutes, but I did have to walk into the bank to do it.

 

[Iorgy77]

How about I just send cash in a brown paper bag?

 

[j.pickens]

So people could buy travellers cheques, send them to Craig by snail mail, and then email him the security code.

I think that I used 'Thomas Cook' but they are all the same, basically. You just need to go out of the basement and visit one of their offices in your city.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveller%27s_cheque


This sounds very possible for those not wanting to waste the bank wire transfer fees.
Anybody know if this would work?

 

[CronoTrig]

There's no way I'm ordering thru Paypal (or any similar service), especially not after what happened originally.

 

[Phawx]

I could get a merchant account set up, have all the orders placed with me through CC and have all the NA bound Pandora's come to me in one shipment.

There is a lot of stuff that I would have to worry about though. Like I wouldn't ship to anyone with a P.O. Box and I would only ship to the address where the CC was.

I have no idea how many orders are for NA but I'm sure it would be a lot of work for no profit in the beginning. The only way I would really consider it is if I could get exclusive rights to sell in NA and hope that a second batch comes along. Also, while I was in charge of everyone else's money, I'd have to wait for the Panda's to arrive to NA before I transfered the money.

I'm talking about this with some friends of mine to get a domain and do all the web work to make an ecommerce site. There is a lot of stuff to worry about on my part, the only thing I am looking to gain out of this is to be the official NA distributor.

Obviously, I've only been around for two months and there might be an NA distributor already, but if I am the last option, I might consider doing it. However, if you can get someone else to do this, I am fine with that as well, because I would like to pay by CC as well instead of bank transfer.

 

[j.pickens]

I know I posted twice recently, but a comment earlier about saying the banking problem was suspect warrants a reply.

Read this article, from today:
http://tinyurl.com/3wbkfe

From the article:
QUOTE
As suppliers struggle to secure trade credit insurance they risk losing money if the buyer cannot pay. Alternatively, they can cease trading with companies that represent the highest risk


What is says is, that in the UK, credit insurance is almost impossible to get right now.
What is this? It is the means by which companies make payments to other companies.
One company orders something from another. The ordering company gets a letter of credit from a credit insuror. When the goods are delivered, the insuror makes payment.
This is the technique upon which the entire capitalist system works.
It is breaking down.
So, the earlier comments about "never having heard of something like this" with the Pandora is true.
Nothing like this has ever happened before, for at least 70 years, anyway...

 

[Chip]

most if not all will want to use paypal,and some can only really
use paypal now as other methods are not possible.

Paypal is not a reliable option. Their fees are absurdly high, and they locked our account the last time for no particular reason. I know a lot of you have latched on to the idea that it had something to do with the delay between ordering and shipping, but I assure you Paypal is not that smart or involved. There was never a person who said "Hey, I wonder what all these orders are for" and went and did some research and found out that the product wouldn't ship for a couple months. You could pay me $200 for a bucket full of unicorn poo over Paypal and it wouldn't be a problem for them. But if I tried to sell a million dollars worth of actual merchandise that I have ready to ship today, there is a very good chance their "fraud detection" algorithms would lock my account and keep my money for 90 days just because they can.

Craig had a Paypal account that rarely saw more than a few hundred dollars per month in transactions. Then, all in one week, there were tens of thousands of dollars in international payments. An algorithm in Paypal's computer system flagged that as "probable fraud" and locked the account. If we take Paypal again, the same problem will occur. There is no way around it.

We're looking into using a couple different options right now. Hopefully Paypal won't need to be one of them. At the very least their abusive pricing scheme will cost us even more money. At worst, there is a good chance they'd just re-lock the account and you'd have to get refunded again.

 

[aranson]

I just looked into the wire transfer rates for the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.

$30 for the transfer (not including the wire)
$15-$30 for the wire, depending on the destination.

And that's not including such fun as currency exchange fee, you used our flesh-and-blood tellers fee, or fee-to-pay-for-the-administration-of-all-our-fees fee.

All told.... ouch

Yeah, just let us know any less painful alternatives, we seem like easy to get along with people here.

 

[Frogboy]

Some have suggested throwing in a free TV-Out cable; some a mini-keyboard; some Goole Checkout. I have the ultimate solution to trump them all and it's likely even less expensive on the Pandora team than the rest. Behold, the Pandora Craiginator Special Edition for all of those who order by bank transfer. For those who will only order by credit card, myself included (although you could throw me some love for coming up with the idea), will just have to settle for the plain, boring, regular version of Pandora.

Of course, you don't have to call it the Craiginator. You could give it a more "professional" title but I'd guess that most of the people who ordered via bank transfer already are probably hard-core enough fans that they would probably rather have it that way. Those persuaded to change their minds may be as well. That one is up to you, guys.

Of course, I could be wrong. My idea might suck. What do you all think? How many of you would change their minds on the bank transfer in order to be able to land one of the very few, collectable, special edition Pandoras?

 

[MarkoeZ]

QUOTE
I don't mind signing all your cases


With a thick silver marker on the inside of the casing? now that's a limited edition

Craiginator edition sounds nice too though

But as most here i'd just like it to get on the market (in my hands!), thumbs up!