Reordering Update

[gaterooze]

daffy: this was more a discussion point than solid information - craigix wanted feedback on methods to pay. What would have been the point of an e-mail? Better that comes once the final method is decided and solid information can be given.

I like that this semi-consultation took place, some good ideas have come out of it.

 

[valhalla]

Give me a break. Is it a scam or what ? Do you realize how bad it looks ?
How can a bank REFUSE to GET money ? They are in a crisis !!!
All they want IS money.

No, all the banks want is people who asks them money and then pays back the interests, because that's the way they make money. If you give them you money, then they have to give you back interest, and as small interest on bank accounts is, for them it is a cost.

it sucks, that's how the banks work, and yes, the banking system sucks, but this is not something that pandora can change.

 

[fettouhi]

This sucks big time... I'll reorder now via bank transfer. Just need to e-mail openpandorasales@gmail.com to get the info again (deleted the reorder mail because I thought CC was no problem).

Regards

André

 

[joa]

It is really hard to transfer funds abroad? With hsbc online banking it takes about 5 clicks to send money anywhere in world. yes there is a £10 fee or so...

 

[EmuGuy]

GamerSection.ca is a Canadian reseller...I emailed them a few weeks ago to see if they would carry the Pandora, and they replied that they plan to, once production ramps up of course.

My point is, could they help? I ordered my GP2X through them, no problems.

As a Canadian, I'd like to avoid re-ordering in US dollars, since our loonie has dropped a bunch since then.

Good luck with this mess, Craig and team...it sounds like a nightmare! :unsure:

 

[krooked]

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.

A massive amount of support shown for people wanting to pay through paypal couldnt get the company to give an exception and let the orders process?
i had assumed paypal was contacted and tried to be negotiated with, but it doesnt hurt to ask.

 

[cools]

I'd actually like to know my place in the queue before deciding what to do.

If it's near to the start - I'm going to get a Pandora very, very soon after release (which I'm really hoping for since I got in very quickly on the UK pre-orders) - then I'll happily send a bank transfer.

If it's not, then I'll wait till something is sorted and I can order with a credit card.

(For anyone wondering about protection - as far as I'm aware with bank transfers you have NONE.)

 

[lardman]

QUOTE
(For anyone wondering about protection - as far as I'm aware with bank transfers you have NONE.)


Yeah, it's a case of you personally taking the company to court/negotiating with the liquidators to obtain a refund or part thereof, with a CC, the CC company does this for you and accept any loss they might make while paying you back the full amount immediately.

That's my understanding anyway.

 

[Bosbeetle]

The pound almost equals the euro now £1 = €1,06 thats really low. The team is losing a lot of money to the european market now. Dont know what the deal is with the dollar though.

On the other hand I (living in the netherlands) might do some serious CD/LP shopping in english stores soon

 

[finisterre]

I was going to suggest Cash on Delivery too.

I'm sure some couriers will do this. Although I'd imagine they'll take a cut for providing the cash collection service.

 

[TaG]

For u.s doing a fund transfer this way there is personal risk but you got to have faith in the team. Keep supporting the team guys . Come on they deserve it! There are not many people in this world brave enough to do what they have done!

I have been lurking on the forums for some time now but i felt now was the time to speak up. Lets put our support behind the team! Yay pandora!

Faith is belief despite the absence of evidence.
doesn't seem appealing to me
I tend to agree. It's not just if you trust and have faith in the team (which I do), but in the banks and suppliers. If one supplier of a key part goes under the project can seriously suffer and there could be ridiculous delays. Given how screwed up banks and businesses are right now I can understand those that want to avoid risk.

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 along the lines of my suggestion, though I think Chip may be right that there is no point taking Paypal.

But by waiting until there is finished units, some stock and taking smaller batches of funds to pay for those that are virtually ready you could avoid most of the issues with banks and those that are cautious.

There's no way I'm ordering thru Paypal (or any similar service), especially not after what happened originally.
Not all are the same as Paypal... There has to be a benefit to phoning some of these services and seeing whether they can provide the right service.

You could pay me $200 for a bucket full of unicorn poo over Paypal and it wouldn't be a problem for them.
That's tempting - I was going to order two buckets but need to keep the funds for my Pandora...

 

[daffy]

daffy: this was more a discussion point than solid information - craigix wanted feedback on methods to pay. What would have been the point of an e-mail? Better that comes once the final method is decided and solid information can be given.

The straightforwardly informational content posted today by craigix is:

1. Although credit card orders were said to be forthcoming, that now appears to be difficult and it is unclear when credit card orders will be possible
2. This is because the banks won't let us take more than 60% by cc, because of the banking crisis
3. We've tried every bank we can; they all say the same thing
4. (from another thread)We can take cc orders once we have about 1800 orders by other means; we currently have about 1000
5. We are looking for ideas about how to take payments. Please offer suggestions on this thread.

Why would it not have been appropriate to send out this information to everyone who preordered? Not to mention all the clearly major official information (eg 256MB) that went up here and only here or a month or something later on the blog/website.
I'm sure Team Pandora are really nice people. They seem to be bending over backward to produce a great product at the lowest price they can, and are being all-around decent, afaict.
But their communications effectiveness is godawful. A clusterfuck, to be frank. Anyone with the tiniest clue would know to communicate clearly and simply with customers. Doing so (ie all official statements going out on the blog and via email and regularly; the boards being only for discussion) would take less of their time and of ours.
Someone who has ordered the Pandora and wants to know what is going on has to play "hunt the wumpus" here to know what's happening. It's pathetic.

 

[mali]

You are right in some points but it isn't likely to change anything. Let's just work out a solution and get this problem solved.

 

[renegadechic]

As far as I can tell the official line is currently "the CC reorders will hopefully happen soon", which is more or less correct. That over all is the situation or the planned situation. Really until a proper functional solution is worked out it is probably better not to get everyone confused, especially if in the end we are able to make CC happen somehow. Also I think there is some hope that the forum members i.e. people who know and hopefully trust craig & co, may understand the situation better and help them out by doing bank transfers where they can. People with little interest in the community or who are simply unfamiliar with them are of course less likely to want to do things away from CC.

It is not that the communication is ineffective, it is more that without any definite answers we are left with speculation. That isnt their fault but in their efforts to keep people in the loop, we see the difficulty, confusion and frustration that they do. If they posted everything as a news update I am fairly sure people would be more confused.

There is probably also a lot of panic avoidance. We have seen how crazy a few people have gotten over the refund situation, imagine how more casual consumers with little knowledge of the project would feel if all that stuff was shouted out. It would diminish the confidence in the company more than it already has, which would be massively unfair.

Ultimately, we all want our Pandoras, we all want to trust in the company but we also dont want to be screwed over. At this stage I would actually wonder if (funds allowing) the wary people, who refuse to do anything other than CC orders until they see the product in the hands of others, technically forfeit their place in line. That way they could see its not all a scam and then once that confidence is gained, make a more direct transfer. Of course that doesnt resolve the international order fees but it might at least get the ball rolling a bit better. The most difficult thing would be that the Open Pandora team would be taking on greater risk making units for people without any guaranteed funds, just a load of people who have said they will pay when they see it. It would be a massive risk and I dont honestly see it as being likely, but then I think a very decent proportion of people are just waiting on more physical evidence to be confident in the product, and once that is managed demand for the Pandora will skyrocket.

Its a very tricky situation.

 

[joa]

Hi craigix...

Given the suggestions i think once you have picked a method. Give people a time frame in which to pay for it. If people have made no contact or payment then I would put their pre-order up for sale again.

What with the video of a fully working pandora soon to be a reality, This will raise alot of excited and I don't think you would have to worry about those pre-orders selling, using the payment method that best suits you.

 

[Brockway]

So, with the Xoom thing. I can't seem to get the recipient information right. It asks for first and last names, address, town, county, postal code, and the address information in the email doesn't match up. I'm not entirely sure what goes where, and it won't let me go to the next step without a first and last name. Help please?

 

[TaG]

Ultimately, we all want our Pandoras, we all want to trust in the company but we also dont want to be screwed over. At this stage I would actually wonder if (funds allowing) the wary people, who refuse to do anything other than CC orders until they see the product in the hands of others, technically forfeit their place in line...

I think that the easiest way to get people to stop panicing is to show that there are 50 or 100 Pandora's ready to go. Also, if they are able to confirm that they have the required parts that should help (if it's possible).

 

[oblivioner]

I think I'm done with Pandora, sorry, it's just too much. Credit card payments offers both low costs and the security that you can claim the money from your bank if things go wrong. Besides so many problems here and there, screens, mats, etc, I'm pretty tired of all of it.

If Paypal becomes an option then maybe I'll think about it again, but I'm full of all the Pandora problems right now.

Also Wibrain I1 has surfaced again with Feb 09 release date when I thought it was dead, so I think I'm going to get one instead, and probably go for 2nd batch Pandora by mid year if it's already out and doing well.

 

[RajTakhar]

Ultimately, we all want our Pandoras, we all want to trust in the company but we also dont want to be screwed over. At this stage I would actually wonder if (funds allowing) the wary people, who refuse to do anything other than CC orders until they see the product in the hands of others, technically forfeit their place in line...

I think that the easiest way to get people to stop panicing is to show that there are 50 or 100 Pandora's ready to go. Also, if they are able to confirm that they have the required parts that should help (if it's possible).

Tag is definately talking sense here - the most logical step would be to get a small chunk produced - sent out to first batchers who paid by Bank Transfer - then try and get another 800 Credit Card users to pay by Bank Transfer - this would enable the Credit Card situation with the banks to be resolved

Heck the initial units could be sent out to the press instead of people who paid - as no doubt there will be a flurry of arguments over whoever gets their Pandora's first

I've bought from Craig before so I was happy to pay by Bank Transfer once the paypal mess arose

We are so close to getting the units out there and the community is obviously concerned by the lack of protection by paying by Bank Transfer as opposed to Credit Card - I can see both sides of the argument.

Maybe a GPH type incentive like a lollypop with first batch may do the trick :rolleyes: sorry just thinking back to GP2X days

I've heard some many times in this forum how the the first batchers are like investors - but yet - I don't hear many people being brave like investors and just paying by Bank Transfer which should be free in Europe.

I guess what really needs to occur is for someone to offer another method of payment which protects the individual yet gets the money over to OpenPandora team a bit like Escrow or maybe NoChex, WorldPay, etc

 

[kattle87]

So, with the Xoom thing. I can't seem to get the recipient information right. It asks for first and last names, address, town, county, postal code, and the address information in the email doesn't match up. I'm not entirely sure what goes where, and it won't let me go to the next step without a first and last name. Help please?

I've made some rough calculus with Xoom fee calculator ( https://www.xoom.com/sendmoneynow/money-transfer-fees ). If you are using standard payment method (you pay Xoom via CC, Paypal, or Debit card) you are paying 335 $ for sending 200 £. If the team decides to "lower the price" since they do not pay incoming CC fees, say they want 191 £, you spend 320 $ (everything included).
Convert it and you get 219 €. Add some $ or € for CC fee (if your bank has one), and we get a really good solution to this mess, both for American and European people.

Hope this helps