Transfers... Tranzfers..

[Kayday]

Amex card user here :

I'm assuming VISA, MC, Discover customers were refunded so what I want to know is what reason the bank has for not refunding money back to AMEX customers? I don't have a problem reordering through bank transfer. Heck I'll buy 4 or 5 Pandoras all paid through bank transfer just to get the ball rolling and I'll sell off the rest to anyone who needs one. I just want this problem resolve ASAP.

 

[Creature XL]

Amex card user here :
Heck I'll buy 4 or 5 Pandoras all paid through bank transfer just to get the ball rolling and I'll sell off the rest to anyone who needs one. I just want this problem resolve ASAP.

If your really want to do this, this would help a lot of people (in your case 4 to 5 ).
IF you have to pay $50 for the bank transfer you can charge $50 / 5 from your five "customers".

I hope you or orthers will do things like this to help their fellow overseas.

 

[Monk]

QUOTE
I don't know about Europe, but in America, if someone (say, on eBay, or by telephone, or any other form of communication regarding sales not in a physical shop) asks you to pay for anything by direct bank transfer, it's like a big flashing sign that says SCAM.
You do know about Europe, I told you about Europe, and gbax operates out of Europe.

I am in the country of my birth, in Europe. "Send transfer now for product which will exist sometime in the future" also spells "FRAUD" here in large neon letters.

I'm not saying that IS what's happening here, but it isn't good practise in Europe just like it isn't good practise in the rest of the world.

IMHO this thread could do with two things.

1. For customers (which most of us are, right? We're largely in the same boat) to stop attacking each other.

2. For clarification/data from Craig.

That is all. IMHO. YMMV. PCMCIA.

 

[Racemaniac]

QUOTE
I don't know about Europe, but in America, if someone (say, on eBay, or by telephone, or any other form of communication regarding sales not in a physical shop) asks you to pay for anything by direct bank transfer, it's like a big flashing sign that says SCAM.
You do know about Europe, I told you about Europe, and gbax operates out of Europe.

I am in the country of my birth, in Europe. "Send transfer now for product which will exist sometime in the future" also spells "FRAUD" here in large neon letters.

I'm not saying that IS what's happening here, but it isn't good practise in Europe just like it isn't good practise in the rest of the world.

IMHO this thread could do with two things.

1. For customers (which most of us are, right? We're largely in the same boat) to stop attacking each other.

2. For clarification/data from Craig.

That is all. IMHO. YMMV. PCMCIA.

it only reeks of scam when you're sending that money to nigeria or so
it's still pretty common here with deals over the internet. many sites/forums where you can buy/sell things between the users, operate like that, for the simple reason that there are no extra costs in transferring the money, and that they have a reputation system that shows how reliable a seller is.
here craig and the others have been part of this community for years, have had shops sellings gp32/gp2x stuff for years, and thus we know their reputation like that. so paying by transfer is very normal imo. this is no big business we're dealing with (yet), this si the start of a project that could really go somewhere, so ofcourse there are going to be some problems from time to time. we're finally reaching the goal, and due to the banking crisis the banks are asking the customers (us) to put their money where their mouth is.
and i don't see any reason anyone shouldn't.
if so many people drop out becuase they don't want to transfer the money (which i'd think is pretty sad), i'd be willing to order a second one, and pay by transfer again, just to give this project a good start.

 

[Monk]

I am in the country of my birth, in Europe. "Send transfer now for product which will exist sometime in the future" also spells "FRAUD" here in large neon letters.

I'm not saying that IS what's happening here, but it isn't good practise in Europe just like it isn't good practise in the rest of the world.

IMHO this thread could do with two things.

1. For customers (which most of us are, right? We're largely in the same boat) to stop attacking each other.

2. For clarification/data from Craig.

That is all. IMHO. YMMV. PCMCIA.

it only reeks of scam when you're sending that money to nigeria or so
it's still pretty common here with deals over the internet.


I'm over 40, have never lived abroad, do buy stuff, and have never paid for anything over the Internet via bank transfer. As I recall I once accepted payment via Western-Union money transfer from a guy in Ireland as that seemed the easiest way (I cannot, myself, accept Credit Card payments).

It seems to me counter-productive for people to keep shouting "it is NORMAL BUSINESS to hand over your money with no guarantee of receipt of goods so just suck it up!". It seems to me it is causing more unease than Craig's original post in this thread.

If I cancel, it won't be soley because of OpenPandora's - rather odd - behaviour, it will be because of the apparent cheerleading accompanying them.

I've seen lots of companies go to the wall in the last few months - ones which always seemed secure. Names I would have trusted. OpenPandora haven't told me why they want my money without giving me a date (or even a month) that my product would ship - and people saying "Oh, that's how we always do it in Europe, it's fine" frankly makes Europe look a rather odd place.

 

[stustaff]

Monk Europe is pretty odd but this is NOT normal practice at all...

That link doesnt show a shop? just part of this discussion from earlier so not sure what you mean?

I was assuming the iDEAL system in and of itself would be sufficient. But here is the site. Even though it doesn't list participants (a huge one is the dutch amazon bol.com) it says it processed more than 25 million payments in 2008 alone. Considering there's only 16 million people in the country, I think that's a lot.


That is again not a link to a shop selling products to consumers and expecting them to pay via bank transfer! you stated it is normal for people in europe to buy goods via a bank transfer IT ISNT! you still havent shown a single shop showing Bank transfer as a payment option.

Im going to stop posting I think now as this is going nowhere fast, I think the way AGAIN this has been thrown out by Craig in a forum and then left to run with no responses from Pandora team even though they MUST know what is going on is terrible.

I think what they have designed is fantastic and if they actually make some im probably going to do a bank transfer, but not until then as so many delays do make me concerned BUT not as concerned as this lack of communication and poor business sense do.

 

[Racemaniac]

Monk Europe is pretty odd but this is NOT normal practice at all...

That link doesnt show a shop? just part of this discussion from earlier so not sure what you mean?

I was assuming the iDEAL system in and of itself would be sufficient. But here is the site. Even though it doesn't list participants (a huge one is the dutch amazon bol.com) it says it processed more than 25 million payments in 2008 alone. Considering there's only 16 million people in the country, I think that's a lot.


That is again not a link to a shop selling products to consumers and expecting them to pay via bank transfer! you stated it is normal for people in europe to buy goods via a bank transfer IT ISNT! you still havent shown a single shop showing Bank transfer as a payment option.

Im going to stop posting I think now as this is going nowhere fast, I think the way AGAIN this has been thrown out by Craig in a forum and then left to run with no responses from Pandora team even though they MUST know what is going on is terrible.

I think what they have designed is fantastic and if they actually make some im probably going to do a bank transfer, but not until then as so many delays do make me concerned BUT not as concerned as this lack of communication and poor business sense do.

want european shops with bank transfer?
first of al the gp2x.de site where you can buy the handhelds that this site is all about works with transfers
besides that
i'm atm looking at buying a nintendo ds flashcart, i'll probably buy it from http://www.sidderwebshop.nl/ , you can either pay by transfer or by "iDeal", never heard of iDeal tbh, so i'll pay by transfer (i'm in belgium, they in the netherlands). how do i know they can be thrusted, i looked on a site that reviews shops like that
i wanted some stepmania dancemats, so i looked around a bit, found this site with fair prices: http://www.mayflash.eu/ . what do you see among the safe payment options: bank transfer. how did i pay? bank transfer, what did i recieve 2 weeks later? my 2 dancemats.
i'm into anime/manga, the biggest online shop in things relating to it in belgium is archonia: http://www.archonia.com/index.php?page=hel...&hsection=6 . they have 2 methods of payment, credit card and bank transfer. i know lots of people who are into anime/manga, and buying there and paying with bank transfer is VERY normal, and often done.
and lots of pc gear i ordered from pc shops here in belgium i also payed in advance by bank transfer. it's just as accepted as credit card here

if you're buying common things from big shops. then i agree that credit card is often the way to pay it. certainly the big and international shops.
but once you get into the niche market, small one man online shop selling things (like the pandora atm). it's very common to pay by bank transfer, in advance. you just make sure the shop you're at is reliable (which we know of the team behind this all), and that's it

 

[gaterooze]

Yet another communications cock-up. Yay.

They have my email address. I'm subscribed to the unofficial blog. I check the official blog daily. I check the new posts search nearly always daily.

Ordering was opened up via Google Checkout? What, for ten seconds? I knew nothing about this. WHERE WAS MY FUCKING EMAIL?

You got the wrong idea, mate. They were slowly e-mailing *individual* customers with the Google Checkout details so that their account wasn't overloaded. They only got through 10% of the reorders before the account was maxed out.

You didn't miss anything, don't worry.

 

[Racemaniac]

i do agree though that it seems best they have some account in the usa where people can transfer money to, to avoid huge expenses, and making everything even more complicated than it already is...

 

[x68000]

I've kept out of commenting for some time, but have to agree with many others in this thread, that you just can't throw something like this out there with an inadequate amount of instruction and just leave it at that...........again!

I can't imagine many mail order businesses having these kind of issues when taking orders. It just seems that there has been a huge level of short sightedness and a lack of professionalism in regards to the running of this business.

Craig really needs to step up to the plate here, give us some solid instruction which may ease peoples worries. No more posts hidden in forums, get this onto the pandora front page and let's get this all in order.

 

[Racemaniac]

I've kept out of commenting for some time, but have to agree with many others in this thread, that you just can't throw something like this out there with an inadequate amount of instruction and just leave it at that...........again!

I can't imagine many mail order businesses having these kind of issues when taking orders. It just seems that there has been a huge level of short sightedness and a lack of professionalism in regards to the running of this business.

Craig really needs to step up to the plate here, give us some solid instruction which may ease peoples worries. No more posts hidden in forums, get this onto the pandora front page and let's get this all in order.

that i also agree on. just dropping such a bomb, and then leaving again -_-
they do lack common/business sense... the issue is probably simply that they're completely swamped with work. finalizing the last bits of hardware, negotiating with the companies that will produce it, dealing with the bank mess, working on the software, etc...
they probably vastly underestimated the financial part of this endevour, and probably had terrible luck with the bank crisis happening just now, causing the banks to go to panic mode, causing this kind of shit.

i can very well understand some people being negative about this. but lets face it, we're a community here, not your regular relation between customer/shop. that is the reason we have to pull through a bit, and stop looking at everything as defensive as possible. if we choose to work together with the pandora team, we can make this project a success. that's what a community like this, which has been active for years is all about.

i'm seriously getting tired of the people here who seem to have little better to do than to spread panic and be all negative. "bank transfer is not a normal means of payment", yeah, that's probably why i don't even have a credit card, and can still buy just about anything of the internet at reliable shops here in europe. since it's not normal, and noone does it/offers it -_-.
i'm seriously wondering how you americans make deals over the internet. can you pay person to person with credit cards???

 

[stustaff]

Racemaniac - fair enough some shops do take Bank transfer have never used one myself or even seen one! It appears mainland europe may be a little different to the UK.
However it seems your getting confused as to what a bank transfer is? are you? A bank transfer is when you go into a bank or on line and type in a IBAN number, account details etc etc and then sign a form to pay a fee of X amount usually £5 to £15 I get the idea you dont do that every time you buy from a shop?? so I think your using a different meaning of bank transfer than us UK and US people?

If I want to buy something from a person I would send him a cheque, or use an online payment system such as paypal google checkout etc.

However none of this removes the increased risk of bank transfer as opposed to CC, When you buy something from one of those shops via Bank transfer I assume the item your buying actually exists?

My concern is that when they opened paypal ordering which explicitly states items must ship within 30 days, when they took credi card orders knowing items must ship in 30 days(or if they hadnt checked details beofr taking many thousands of pounds in payment) it seems to show a lack of business/common sense which puts me off using a payment system with no guarentee to buy from them!

If it had been bank transfer from the start and the reasons why made clear to the community then they would of had my money already.

 

[Racemaniac]

Racemaniac - fair enough some shops do take Bank transfer have never used one myself or even seen one! It appears mainland europe may be a little different to the UK.
However it seems your getting confused as to what a bank transfer is? are you? A bank transfer is when you go into a bank or on line and type in a IBAN number, account details etc etc and then sign a form to pay a fee of X amount usually £5 to £15 I get the idea you dont do that every time you buy from a shop?? so I think your using a different meaning of bank transfer than us UK and US people?

If I want to buy something from a person I would send him a cheque, or use an online payment system such as paypal google checkout etc.

However none of this removes the increased risk of bank transfer as opposed to CC, When you buy something from one of those shops via Bank transfer I assume the item your buying actually exists?

My concern is that when they opened paypal ordering which explicitly states items must ship within 30 days, when they took credi card orders knowing items must ship in 30 days(or if they hadnt checked details beofr taking many thousands of pounds in payment) it seems to show a lack of business/common sense which puts me off using a payment system with no guarentee to buy from them!

If it had been bank transfer from the start and the reasons why made clear to the community then they would of had my money already.

due to huge fraud, and complete 0 protection with it, cheques barely exist here anymore. shops no longer accept them, noone uses them, everything here is being done by bank transfer, since you still have some evidence of what's happening and certainty that you got the money.
i don't know how your cheque system works, but here, of someone sends you a fake cheque, you're out of luck. completely. if you send an item with cash on delivery, and the reciever pays with a fake cheque to the delivery person, then that's too bad for you, you lose the money, not the delivery firm.
so yes, everything here is done by bank transfer, usually done through online banking, which is also widely available. ofcourse this does indeed vary from country to country. in france (a neighbouring country to belgium), the cheque is still pretty common. despite the ease of frauding people with it... (or maybe they have better laws concerning that)

i do agree with the assessment that they might not have known enough about the payment systems. wether it's their fault, can be argued about. people just can't be expected to know everything (certainly not when it's an effort of a community like this, not big bussiness professionals), or even be expected to expect everything (a nightmare with credit card payments, where they've been using credit cards and paypal with their small online shop(s) for years.)
they probably were to comfortable with having worked with it in their online shops for so long, not even thinking to consider that with the longer delivery time of the pandora, things could go wrong (and with a bank crisis happening, causing the banks to go into panic)...
you're right that they made a mistake. if it was sych an obvious/easily preventable one, remains discussable... i can understand where they come from, and can see others easily making the same mistake.

 

[Esn]

Someone needs to write a good, thorough FAQ/guide about this whole developing situation and sticky it. There's too much misinformation floating around here, though there are some excellent points being made, too.

But it's too chaotic. People are panicking more than they would be if everything was written out somewhere in a thorough and logical fashion.

 

[Monk]

i'm seriously getting tired of the people here who seem to have little better to do than to spread panic and be all negative.

I was all ready to agree with you before you continued with

"bank transfer is not a normal means of payment", yeah, that's probably why i don't even have a credit card, and can still buy just about anything of the internet at reliable shops here in europe. since it's not normal, and noone does it/offers it -_-.

Just stating the facts that in some parts of Europe, at least, bank transfers are not a day-to-day method of payment is being "tiresomely panic-spreading and negative"?

i'm seriously wondering how you americans make deals over the internet.

I'm not American. I'm British. I've used credit cards to order over the Internet, including buying DVDs from various companies, including one that took my money repeatedly "in advance" before shipping the goods. They did very well - good prices, and reliable (if unpredictable) deliveries.

Until they folded. With gobloads of MY cash in their pockets.

Fortunately I'd ordered via Credit Card, so I was able to fill out the paperwork and get my money refunded, even though the company did not exist any more. So I have personal first-hand experience of a company with a good reputation who repeatedly and reliably provided me with hundreds of pounds worth of goods - until they folded, owing me goods and/or money that they could not and would not refund.

I actually have more faith in Craig and co than that, but the badgering here is making me sick. Literally. I have a stress related disorder, and us attacking each other just, well - it stinks. Badly. If we're supposed to be a community, shouldn't we be a bit less, well, antagonistic?

 

[sam fisher]

Here in England, which is in Europe by the way Eniko, which is where GBAX is based we never pay for anything by direct bank transfer unless we are stupid usually.

 

[Racemaniac]

Here in England, which is in Europe by the way Eniko, which is where GBAX is based we never pay for anything by direct bank transfer unless we are stupid usually.

here in belgium paying via bank transfer is *very* common. not so to big stores and generic purhcases, but once you go into small stores and niche things, it's really very common. and when you pay to another person, where in some countries a cheque is apparantly still used, here it isn't. it's too easy to fraud with a cheque, with bank transfer you've got proof you made a payment, and have got something to claim back if it goes wrong.
so yes, bank transfers are very often used here. it's our way of getting money from person a to person b without meeting them in person. and is thus also often used when dealing with small shops (see my post showing my recent internet buys and payments by transfer. and then i'm not mentioning all the sites and forums where people can buy/sell things among eachother, all relying on people paying by bank transfer to eachother).

it seems to be a very cultural thing, but here bank transfer is one of the most normal methods of payment.

 

[desowin]

That is again not a link to a shop selling products to consumers and expecting them to pay via bank transfer! you stated it is normal for people in europe to buy goods via a bank transfer IT ISNT! you still havent shown a single shop showing Bank transfer as a payment option.

Poland is in Europe, and most online shops here offer (often it's preferred) to pay using bank transfer. It's very good for domestic orders, but can be real pain for international ones.

but I guess it's not the case in western Europe

 

[Iorgy77]

@Racemaniac:
I think you are confusing Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) with bank transfer which is actually direct deposit. Direct deposit usually isnt instant where as EFT is.

 

[Racemaniac]

@Racemaniac:
I think you are confusing Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) with bank transfer which is actually direct deposit. Direct deposit usually isnt instant where as EFT is.

ehh, care to explain the difference?
many of my examples have been me ordering from shops in the netherlands (neighbouring country), thus transferring my money to a bank account in another country.
the money is immediatly deducted from my account, and once they recieve it, the product gets sent.

that's how it's often done here. the same with purchases between persons. you transfer the money, once they got the money they send the item.

which is as far as i can tell what is expected from the pandora team here. (with admittedly a bit more delay in the sending. but we know that's how it is)