[DEAD!] Novelty DS GB - TSANGAN is rebooting this! GO TO HIS THREAD!

[hazeluff]

Is there any more news on the subject? Has anybody tried calling? It's a shame for this to happen on my first order, just my luck eh?
I hope this all gets resolved, there's not a chance that this is all going to mess up right?

Worse gets to worse, you'll get your money back. But no keys. = (

[Nighted]

I'm not too concerned about the wait considering these group buys can take weeks/months. I don't think a few days PayPal ****arow is that bad (although still a major Charley Foxtrot).

[RColinTaylor]

My account is up for review; I was told one to two days before I will find out if my account limitations have been lifted. I will have more information on this in a day or so; been a bit busy with vacation and sleeping.

Also, if you are expecting an invoice, I haven't forgotten about you. All that paypal will allow me to do is write drafts so I have all of those waiting to be sent out.

[Skoobs]

Cos when you do that, people need to pay money right away (or waits for invoice). But the cart still means money needs to be paid somewhere (e.g paypal). If there isn't enough interested we'd need to refund. This system works.

i wouldnt mind paying right away. and you could use google checkout or something like that.

i think it would be awesome because it could be more automated, there could even be a counter showing how many of each key are already bought and payed for. and it would automatically inform someone, or send an order to signature plastics as soon as the counter (which everyone could see) gets to a certain number of keys.

1. im guessing there are web designers here
2. im guessing if we added a penny for each key/set that was sold, and that amount was put into a separate account, they could get a small chunk of change for their contributions. or the money could to go supporting geekhack itself. or go back into designing the webpage.

[hazeluff]

i wouldnt mind paying right away. and you could use google checkout or something like that.

i think it would be awesome because it could be more automated, there could even be a counter showing how many of each key are already bought and payed for. and it would automatically inform someone, or send an order to signature plastics as soon as the counter (which everyone could see) gets to a certain number of keys.

1. im guessing there are web designers here
2. im guessing if we added a penny for each key/set that was sold, and that amount was put into a separate account, they could get a small chunk of change for their contributions. or the money could to go supporting geekhack itself. or go back into designing the webpage.

I Like the idea. But it really only fits a proper store, where items are sent as soon as they're paid for.

Not everyone wants their money held up, while they wait for a group buy that may or may not happen.

In the case of it not happening/prices change, money needs to be paid again or refunded. That is something that causes quite a bit of hassle.

Also, if we were to send off an order as soon as we hit a counter, we may not be hitting an optimal amount. More people may want it, thus making the keys cheaper if we had waited.

I understand where you're coming from. But It's just not gonna work that way imo.

[tr4656]

The only thing a website could be useful for is not using PM and for orders before payment. The current price would be dynamic depending on orders. It would just simplify things for people.

Sent from my HTC Vision using Tapatalk

[hazeluff]

The only thing a website could be useful for is not using PM and for orders before payment. The current price would be dynamic depending on orders. It would just simplify things for people.

Sent from my HTC Vision using Tapatalk

Meh, I guess. A lot of work to do, for so little functionality.

[NguyenAdam]

12x awesome face red
12x awesome face yellow
12x look of disapproval

United States

[tsangan]

12x awesome face red
12x awesome face yellow
12x look of disapproval

United States

I think orders are closed ;<

[NguyenAdam]

There are late orders.

[noodles256]

what is goin on with this group buy now?

[demik]

we're waiting on paypal to review Colin's account so they can unfreeze it and he can continue collecting money.

[RColinTaylor]

Alright, finally got any one of my browsers to post today.

Here is the current situation: I got a call from Paypal a few hours ago informing me that my limitations had not been lifted and that my active request had been lifted. They now want the Invoice from SP on top of the shipping information for the eight people they originally wanted the shipping information for. I have re-requested the hold to be lifted but at this point I am not very happy with this whole situation.

Now, on to where this puts this buy. This whole Paypal situation is putting a bit more strain on me than I can really handle at this point of the year. The actual work of this buy was supposed to be over: The orders got organized, the background work got done, and all of the invoices have been sent out/organized/paid (for the most part). The plan was to pay SP on Monday the 28th but because Paypal decided I needed to have shipped the product already I was unable to even finish sending out the invoices that have been changed/fixed/updated. With this last hold update on my account we sit at a week of me not being able to do anything with my Paypal account, and that includes using the money that I had in it prior to this group buy.

I asked Paypal about this and I got the answer that I was looking for: If any invoice is refunded then the fees applied to those invoices are reversed. This means that, if I refund everyone's money, nobody has to pay anything on any end of this buy. I bring this up because of one reason: If my Paypal limitation request gets denied this next time then I will be requesting Paypal to refund every invoice sent out between November 20th, 2011 and November 29th, 2011 and in turn be stepping away from this buy in terms of an organizer standpoint. This, for me, is a hobby and a venture to try and get the keycaps that I wanted faster and cheaper than available elsewhere. Unfortunately, that has not turned out to be as easy and smooth as was originally envisioned by me with this ***** of a problem called Paypal.

If I do go the route of refunding and walking away then I will work with any other person who wants to organize this buy from this point on. I have the excel sheet for everyone's orders, the contact for everyone, and the pricing structures given to me by Signature Plastics.

I am sorry if this sounds lame to anybody but this is what I have to do to keep my sanity.

[Fobbah]

Perfectly reasonable, not your fault man.

Getting a group refund is a good outcome (at least from these retarded circumstances). Shame that the buy probably won't go ahead for now.

[hashbaz]

Srsly!  This was such an epic buy.  I'd wager that such lofty volume discounts have only been reached before by R3.

RCT, do you have any sense of whether Paypal would do the same thing to someone else were they to take up the reins?  Did they single you out because your account is newly-verified?  Is pooling money to make a group purchase against their TOS?

[noodles256]

ok, sounds good.

[RColinTaylor]

I fear it may have been a collection of reasons why I got flagged.

-My account was new, and therefore will always be suspicious.
-I used invoices, which I think they expect to be delivered right away.
-I sent out 120 invoices in a twelve hour period.

If someone else does take the reigns for this I would recommend either using a different payment service or doing money-request rather than invoice.

[funkymeeba]

I'm just going to sort of talk out of my ass for a second, but... is there any way we can get some sort of correspondence between someone at SP, RColinTaylor, and PayPal? Surely someone at SP who has seen a bunch of these group buys would be able to elaborate on what is happening.

Then again, who the hell knows how anything at PayPal works. What a useless bunch of morons.

[hashbaz]

Yeah, have you not been able to actually just talk to someone on the phone from Paypal?  Is it that they don't believe you're doing a legit group buy?  Or they believe you're legit but they don't like what you're doing?  Why can't they tell you exactly why your account is frozen?

[RColinTaylor]

I have talked to Paypal on the phone about four times now. Each time I talk to them they are either transferring it off to their review department or telling me it has been rejected.

Formally, my account is locked because I have failed to show proof of shipping to the invoices that have been fulfilled (Its eight invoices currently but I am sure that once I prove those ones it would be even more on top of that that they want proof of).

Today I gave them the website for Sp/Keycapsdirect and the woman on the phone said she would add it to my case file. To them this is a "Pre-Sale" and the concept of group buy has been lost every time it goes to review so I stopped bothering with that terminology. The invoices make me a seller of a product and because I have not shipped that product I am fraudulent, and therefore I have a hold on my account.

[hashbaz]

So it sounds like the invoices are a key component of their problem.  Good to know.  It's still mind-boggling that you can't just talk to a human and get it straightened out.  Formal processes are so useless when nuance and back-and-forth are required.

[NguyenAdam]

I have talked to Paypal on the phone about four times now. Each time I talk to them they are either transferring it off to their review department or telling me it has been rejected.

Formally, my account is locked because I have failed to show proof of shipping to the invoices that have been fulfilled (Its eight invoices currently but I am sure that once I prove those ones it would be even more on top of that that they want proof of).

Today I gave them the website for Sp/Keycapsdirect and the woman on the phone said she would add it to my case file. To them this is a "Pre-Sale" and the concept of group buy has been lost every time it goes to review so I stopped bothering with that terminology. The invoices make me a seller of a product and because I have not shipped that product I am fraudulent, and therefore I have a hold on my account.

Couldn't you dispute and get verification from the individuals whose invoices got through?

[Skoobs]

lol this is ridiculous.

"thank you for letting me use your services, paypal. it will never happen again."

[tapk69]

don´t worry guys , nobody will lose their money .. just the keys... i had troubles with paypal in the past , and i understand both sides.... lets hope this goes on without problems because this was going to be my first group buy , im so sad...

[hazeluff]

I don't want my money, just keycaps!

[tapk69]

i know .. i want the fukin keys too , what can i do with 40$ ? i cant even buy keys anywhere , im from Portugal and im probably the only portuguese with a mechanic keyboard... lol

[Ragnorock]

That's really strange, I didn't have any issues, though my account has been active longer... I'm not sure what to tell you man, that sucks. Hopefully it all gets sorted out, since (lol) I'll probably have to end up doing it if it doesn't.

[hazeluff]

That's really strange, I didn't have any issues, though my account has been active longer... I'm not sure what to tell you man, that sucks. Hopefully it all gets sorted out, since (lol) I'll probably have to end up doing it if it doesn't.

May it be the fact that his order involves more money/people?

[tsangan]

That's really strange, I didn't have any issues, though my account has been active longer... I'm not sure what to tell you man, that sucks. Hopefully it all gets sorted out, since (lol) I'll probably have to end up doing it if it doesn't.

When you have an old account it doesn't get flagged like this, new ones that been active for <6 months will be under the radar, they will start to hold your money till you ship the item out or limit the account all together.

Just like RCT said because he invoiced the people that means PayPal assumes you have the item on hand and will only release once it sends out.

See RCT exactly what I said, the run around and nothing gets done, oh how much I hate PayPal

[hazeluff]

When you have an old account it doesn't get flagged like this, new ones that been active for <6 months will be under the radar, they will start to hold your money till you ship the item out or limit the account all together.

Just like RCT said because he invoiced the people that means PayPal assumes you have the item on hand and will only release once it sends out.

See RCT exactly what I said, the run around and nothing gets done, oh how much I hate PayPal

PayPal... sigh...if only there were a better alternative. If it were me, I'd bank transfer, cept I'm in a different country... Remittance would be such a waste of money.

[7bit]

PayPal... sigh...if only there were a better alternative. If it were me, I'd bank transfer, cept I'm in a different country... Remittance would be such a waste of money.

I really don't understand why there is no proper banking system in the US like we have here in Europe ...

[tsangan]

7bit sabotage this so he can get +4,000 in R4 :rofl:

[hazeluff]

I really don't understand why there is no proper banking system in the US like we have here in Europe ...

What kind of banking system?

[7bit]

7bit sabotage this so he can get +4,000 in R4 :rofl:

Pssst! Don't tell anybody![/size][/color]

What kind of banking system?

SEPA

[tapk69]

Actually the banking system in Europe is **** too... the **** is the same , only the smell is diferent...

[Ragnorock]

When you have an old account it doesn't get flagged like this, new ones that been active for <6 months will be under the radar, they will start to hold your money till you ship the item out or limit the account all together.

Just like RCT said because he invoiced the people that means PayPal assumes you have the item on hand and will only release once it sends out.

See RCT exactly what I said, the run around and nothing gets done, oh how much I hate PayPal

Yeah I've had mine I don't know how many years, I feel bad since I was the one encouraging him to use invoices in the first place, I didn't know this would happen. Either they will let it go or they won't, and if they don't it'll probably end up that RCT and I get together for an evening and rerun everything through my paypal and share whatever profits, (obviously most goes to him since its his gb) unless he really doesn't want to be involved in it at all henceforth.

[tapk69]

if i could order five chinese 20$/month slaves , im sure i could make those keys handpainted in less than a week..

[hazeluff]

if i could order five chinese 20$/hour slaves , im sure i could make those keys handpainted in less than a week..

20$/hour. Thats so expensive. $1/hour is about right.

[funkymeeba]

I think you might have missed something about the whole "doubleshot" qualifier.

[tapk69]

lol... i meant to say 20 $ / a month... 20$ for hour they would be rich...

[7bit]

Actually the banking system in Europe is **** too... the **** is the same , only the smell is diferent...

Your bank is holding back your money without any reason?
Your bank is charging you for incoming payments?
You can't just go to your bank and ask somebody about your account?

[inlikeflynn]

RCT so what is the game plan here? I haven't paid yet after seeing PayPal froze your account over a week ago and don't want to pay into a frozen account and donate that $$$ to them....

[ZeroGraVT]

If they don't want to unfreeze your account then how about telling them to just refund everyone's money.

[hashbaz]

I think RCT said that if the next appeal fails he'll have the money refunded by deleting the invoices or something.

[wompwomp]

Wait, so what's going on here? I've already made my payment and it went through.

Sorry, I haven't really been keeping up with this thread.

[prava]

@RColinTaylor: I was looking at how are we doing here when I found this mess...and so it seems that invoices can only be used when you have the products at hand :der: Is there any chance you could just refund us and we pay you manually? It would be a LOT LESS WORK and I'm sure everybody would be happy to get their keys and It would also put less strain in you. If that would require to write on our side what is that money for (pre-sale on keycaps) I don't think that would be a problem either. Anyway, I'm calling paypal tomorrow, because this is totally bull****. How do they wanna make business?!?!?!

Ah! Almost forgot: whatever the outcome of this GB is I want to THANK YOU. You put a ton of time and effort into making this GB possible, and if in the end its not It won't be because of you.

[Kagami-Hiiragi]

I think RCT said that if the next appeal fails he'll have the money refunded by deleting the invoices or something.

Nooo! I want my keycaps, not my money! This may sound rude (nothing against RCT) but would anybody who has already who has already done one of these things before be able to take the payments or something so we know PayPal will not flag the account? Damn PayPal, is there no way they can just look at this thread, urgh! I understand what it must be like, you phone up customer support and end up speaking to a monkey reading off a script who doesn't even know who they work for.

I never thought getting a few pieces of plastic could be so stressful! Hope this all comes out for the best, thank you for all your work RCT, this must be hell!

[RColinTaylor]

Okay, so, here's what has transpired. Paypal has officially deemed me a threat and is closing my account. I don't officially know why but I guess the invoices and the group-buy process seemed too shady for them. Everyone who has already paid their money is getting a full refund, nobody is paying any money for anything. I am in the process of filling out that form but I don't know how long that will take (I doubt very long).

Now, the important stuff, because who the hell cares about Paypal hating on a whitey.

This buy, as of right now, is not active. Now, with that being said, I am willing to work with anyone on this buy in order to make it work. I will do the shipping, the contacting with SP, everything. I simply cannot do the money transferring, gathering, etc now that Paypal has fully shut down my account. I want these keys, y'all want these keys, this group buy was going to be awesome. I apologize for not fulfilling that fact but hey, what the hell, it was worth a try.

[tsangan]

If you want RCT I can take care of everything, from contacting SP, shipping, and money, only if you want me to of course.

Thank you for all the hard work! And yes PayPal is retarded like that

[demik]

****ing paypal.

we have a word filter now???