Good Morning.
PayPal is set up for eBay sellers and buyers. And their policies and practices are designed to ensure that if you buy something from an eBay seller, that eBay seller really exists and will actually send you the thing you bought. And all of their verifications are designed to ensure that the eBay seller is a real person, who has the items in stock and is shipping them out promptly.
But in a group buy situation, most of that doesn't apply. Nevertheless, the automated systems at PayPal kick in when a small flood of purchases are made.
So as soon as you all started paying into the new Group Buy Service account at PayPal (thanks for that!), they demanded a bunch of documentation from me to prove I was that eBay-seller they like. And until I do so to their satisfaction, PayPal will keep your money safe from me and my nefarious henchmen at SP.
To be clear, the problems with PayPal were anticipated, and annoying, but
your money is safe.Checking the status this morning, I see that I have proved to their satisfaction that (1) I am a real person, (2) the Group Buy Service is actually what I am doing, that (3) you meant to send money for the things you wanted, and that (4) the Group Buy Service has ordered the items from Signature Plastics.
Now all I need to do is (seriously) show them that the Group Buy Service (5) pays utility bills in my name and work address, (6) has a phone billed to a matching name and address, and (7) can provide tracking numbers for shipments already made. They don't like what I've done for #5 and #6, and I don't know what I'll say about #7.
All of the above is why I wanted to keep the large/vendor orders out of PayPal.
Anyhow, this was anticipated, and we spent a bunch of time and effort doing everything above-board and legally. Now we have to prove it to PayPal.
Now that I know that I was successful in four out of seven attempts on Day One, I'll continue to work on the final three while your payments continue to come in. And today I really will have time to update the OP/status post and address all of the questions about invoices and addresses people have sent to me and/or Matt3o.
TL;DR PayPay is making things hard on the group buy, but please pay the invoices and it will all be worked out.More in a bit,
- Ron | samwisekoi