Group Buy Interest?

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I am also working with the NAMM shipping that will offer a great savings for shipping outside of the states.
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i know it's not that relevant at the moment... but can you give us any facts? is there a weight limit (usps seems to have a limit of 70lbs which sucks because this would mean that i'd have to split my order into two packages)? how much are the savings in % or can you give us a calculation?

i'm interested because this will affect how much i order.

cheers,
flo
 
Marcadiablo said:
Whats their explanation for the not to give you your money? They are acting like crooks.
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Acting like? If they weren't crooks, they wouldn't have a binding arbitration clause. The minimum cost for binding arbitration is $250 (typically split 50/50 between you and the other party, e.g. PayPal) even if you cancel before the arbiter spends a single second, and it typically runs up past a grand. Their binding arbitration clause prohibits you from combining claims with others. As such, PayPal can steal several hundred dollars from you before it makes sense to call them on it.

What PayPal doesn't realize (or, more likely, hopes their customers don't realize) is that their clause would be found unconscionable by the courts (at least in California and the rest of the 9th Circuit) for this reason. They could have asked for the terms of service to be binding under the laws of a more conservative district and they'd have no trouble with that clause. As it stands, though, it's not worth the paper it is printed on....

PayPal/eBay is pretty much the scum of the earth as companies go. They're the only company that ranks lower than both Microsoft and Verizon on my trust-o-meter....
 
dgatwood said:
PayPal/eBay is pretty much the scum of the earth as companies go. They're the only company that ranks lower than both Microsoft and Verizon on my trust-o-meter....
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Don't forget State Farm. They had this nasty habit of raising your car insurance rate without notifying you. Then when you paid your next bill it wasn't enough so your insurance got suspended and they sent you a $200 penalty.

We hates them my precious...
 
Somnium7 said:
Don't forget State Farm. They had this nasty habit of raising your car insurance rate without notifying you. Then when you paid your next bill it wasn't enough so your insurance got suspended and they sent you a $200 penalty.
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If some part of State Farm did that, then that qualifies as incompetence, not malice. They'd have no prayer of getting away with that. All you'd have to do is walk into court, show the bill, show the check, and ask for punitive damages. Open and shut, easy case. The lawyers would eat them for breakfast and they'd be out a couple hundred thousand bucks for trying to cheat you out of a couple hundred....

A more likely explanation is that they sent out an updated bill and the postal service delivered them in the wrong order. I've had weird stuff like that happen occasionally when I've made changes to my policy near the end of a plan period. (Same thing would apply if you had a wreck near the end of the period.) Even still, I didn't get a bill once and didn't pay entirely. They sent me a warning and gave me an extra week to get the payment in. Most carriers would probably have dropped my coverage under those circumstances. My parents filed claims a few years ago for hail damage and a pipe bursting... I think within the same year, or maybe consecutive years. Many other carriers would have dropped the policy on the first significant claim. State Farm didn't flinch.

I've never found State Farm to be anything but honest in their dealings, at least so long as your agent is competent. (That certainly has the potential to be a big "if", though.) Don't get me wrong, State Farm has been accused of a lot of wrongdoing over the years, but what I've seen is generally local corruption or ineptitude, not the company as a whole being evil. Heck, their auto insurance division is a mutual company (not quite a nonprofit, but pretty close). Not sure about the other divisions.

They're also only charging me a little over half what Geico wanted for an equivalent car insurance policy, and most years, I actually get money back from them after they reevaluate the overall cost of claim payouts in the region and effectively retroactively adjust my bill down....

State Farm is nowhere near as horrible as Verizon, whose mandatory arbitration clause was recently ruled unconscionable in the 9th circuit because they were screwing their customers en masse for smaller amounts of money, whose charges for text messages come to more than a million dollars per gigabyte, who refuses to sell phones to customers except with a contract renewal (usually with substantially worse terms), who continually reduces their number of minutes, raises rates, makes nights & weekends later, etc. all while providing the worst customer service experience I've ever encountered in a mobile phone company. (Yes, even worse than Cingular/AT&T, who despite continuing to bill me for my cell phone, also started billing my employer for the same account.... Don't get me started on how breathtakingly inept all of the U.S. Telcos are.)

State Farm isn't even in the same league of evil as those other companies.... :D
 
Oh my!

One of my auction sites has PayPal available as the primary payment method for all site fees. I never had any trouble with them before but now you guys have me all worried.

Damn, what's a merchant to do? Are there any good instant payment services that "most" people know and like? Google Checkout? MoneyBookers maybe?
 
RawDepth said:
Oh my!

One of my auction sites has PayPal available as the primary payment method for all site fees. I never had any trouble with them before but now you guys have me all worried.

Damn, what's a merchant to do? Are there any good instant payment services that "most" people know and like? Google Checkout? MoneyBookers maybe?
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There was a friend pointed me to this one today: https://www.revolutionmoneyexchange.com/

I've personally not had time to check it out, but he says it REALLY GOOD... I'm sure it would be at least worth looking into..


On another note:
I went for the job interview today... It went really well...but I won't know until the end of the week if I got the job or not... But I feel really confident...


Randy
 
Randy,

Great news on the job interview! Keep it up, man. I know I don't need to tell you this, but do all you can do and leave the results up to God! I'll keep ya in the prayers....

Chris
 
I'm sure you'll get the job, Randy, if good works / karma has anything to do with it.

Has anyone heard anything from Paypal? I haven't. To tell the truth, I've never had a bad experience with them, but based on recent posts, I'm hoping they didn't give my money to the guvrmint :eek::D

I could contact them, but I don't want to complicate things - they get uppity when a payer asks a question about a payment.
 
antichef said:
Has anyone heard anything from Paypal? I haven't.
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I just checked, and nothing yet. But it doesn't alarm me, really--in times past I've waited quite a few days for things to go through. It just takes time. So I figure it could take a while...maybe we'll know something by the end of the week. I'm checking my account a few times daily, and will post here the moment I see any activity.

And I think you're right, Antichef--contacting them will do nothing but complicate the process. Just have to sit back and let the system do its thing, I think...
 
Hey Randy. Great news on the job front. I'm sure you'll get it, Bro.

As an aside, If payment won't be via a credit card, I know that I, and I can only assume, a large percentage of others will not be able to participate.

I know you are rushing to get this ship righted and whatever you decide for the greater of the group is fine. I just thought I'd give a voice to those of us who were planing on using some short term debt to fund this purchase.


Good luck again on the job.
 
I just spent another hour on the phone with Ppal. I was told "they will call me today" I get the same story every time I call.
 
chance said:
I just spent another hour on the phone with Ppal. I was told "they will call me today" I get the same story every time I call.
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Thanks again for everything -- please don't stress on it too much, and if there's anything I (we) can do to help, just say the word...
 
antichef said:
Thanks again for everything -- please don't stress on it too much, and if there's anything I (we) can do to help, just say the word...
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I'm working on getting a new payment processor in place... It's not impossible but very difficult...

Should have updates today....worst case in the morning...


Randy
 
antichef said:
Also, if the paypal refund isn't a done-deal, and it turns out to be wiser for Chance to just keep my paypal payment and then start working with another service for those who haven't paid yet, I'm fine with that, too, even if my fees turn out to be a little higher in the end (the difference is likely to be worth less than any hassle involved with eliminating the difference)
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I'm fine with this too. My money is already with Chance in the US.

Randy, I realise that you have a wheeze up your sleeve, and you said you would be looking after the non-USA participants. But if it's easier for Chance to keep the funds I've already PP'd, that's fine with me.

As of today have had no e-mail from PP and no funds have been credited to my PP account.

Dave.
 
redddog said:
Hey Randy. Great news on the job front. I'm sure you'll get it, Bro.

As an aside, If payment won't be via a credit card, I know that I, and I can only assume, a large percentage of others will not be able to participate.

I know you are rushing to get this ship righted and whatever you decide for the greater of the group is fine. I just thought I'd give a voice to those of us who were planing on using some short term debt to fund this purchase.


Good luck again on the job.
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Thanks guys...

I am working on this, and my goal is to provide the best solution... AND also optional methods for you to use... Ideally, I'd like to have a credit card solution (which I think I have secured) and an online check ACH process (which I think I have also secured) and I've been reading about another possibility: Revolution Money Exchange. "recordinghacks" on this board sent a link to me. I've been reading and researching it on the web and so far I've heard nothing but praise for it... I am going to give them a call today and discuss "our" group buy payments with them to see if we can use them without all of the hassles that PayPal has put us through...

In the meantime, please visit: http://www.revolutionmoneyexchange.com and also research it on the web and let me know what you think of this as an option as well..

Thanks in advance,

Randy
 
maccool said:
I'm fine with this too. My money is already with Chance in the US.

Randy, I realise that you have a wheeze up your sleeve, and you said you would be looking after the non-USA participants. But if it's easier for Chance to keep the funds I've already PP'd, that's fine with me.

As of today have had no e-mail from PP and no funds have been credited to my PP account.

Dave.
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Nah, everyone will get their money back and we'll start the payment process over... PayPal WON'T process the money, period... They've stated this over and over again... BUT they just won't refund it either!! Go figure!

I'll say this, and this is pure speculation, since there is no way that I nor anyone can prove it, but I'm also basing this on my years in this industry and what I've seen happen in the past:


We paid via PayPal. We used their system and their bandwidth by doing so. Now PayPal doesn't want to process the money. In this case, they'd have to refund ALL the money INCLUDING the processing fees... There is and still is some manual labor that must be performed by PayPal to refund the money... That being said, I'm sure that PayPal is holding on as long as they can, drawing interest on this money, in an effort to pad their pockets and pay them for us using their system and bandwidth, and to cover the labor of their employees having to manually issue refunds...since they know if they don't process the money they won't be getting anything...



I want to say something else just to give you an idea of what's going on inside these processor's heads:
The total dollar amount for this GB isn't exactly pocket change...almost $300K... Processors aren't eager to fund that kind of money to pay for something that hasn't even been manufactured yet...and when it does get manufactured will be in a different country, even more limiting their recourse should something happen... The processors are thinking: What if all of these people pay... and 3 months down the road, before the products ship, Chance runs off to Mexico...etc., then all of these people who have paid, charge all of this money back... WE (the processor) ARE LIABLE and will have to refund/eat this money, which, again, isn't chump change.

Yeah, we all know that the above senerio isn't gonna happen, but the processors don't know that, nor can you convince them of it with words...they want proof on paper with someone putting up large amount of collateral... which isn't gonna happen, and it's their money we're playing with... It's kind of like a poker game and when they see all of this, they just fold...

Right now I have a processor that has verbally agreed to do it and some paperwork has been passed back and forth and it's almost a done deal... Not tooting my own whistle, but the only reason that I've made it this far with any processor, is because I'm known in this industry...even with that, it's still hard to get someone to front you that kind of money on your word, with no collateral and the deck is stacked against them...

Right now the rates for CC processing that we've discussed so far, aren't as cheap as I was hoping for, but they are still cheaper than PayPal...

I'll give updates as all of this progresses throughout the day...

Thanks for everybody's patience through this, I'm sure that it's as stressfull on you as it is me.

Randy
 
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