I wanted to let everyone know the current status of the GB.
So about 4 days ago, I received an email saying that the PP account used for the GB has had a hold placed on it. There were 4 pieces of information I needed to confirm with PP in order to have the hold lifted. One of those pieces of information was delivery conformations for about 20 orders. I contacted paypal and explained the purpose of the funds and why I will be unable to provide them with delivery info at this time. On Friday, I received a phone call from the rep that is handling my case. He informed me that since the account does not have a history of being a merchant, and due to the large amount of incoming funds, they placed a hold on it. I explained the purpose again to him, and he said he understood. He said that in order to release the funds, I would need to provide the shipping info. So that basically means that I am unable to transfer any money out of the account, to GMK, until after the GB is completed and shipped. He mentioned that it was a new policy that was recently implemented. We are currently stuck, in terms of options. I am going to call them again on Monday, and see if I can get some more information and try to resolve this issue. Whatever happens, I will keep everyone informed and I am terribly sorry for all of this. I spoke with a few GB runners prior to this, and none had ever ran into issues their first time. The only thing that makes sense to me is the policy update he mentioned. I have not been able to find this in the policy so I hope that I can get in touch with someone that is more willing to accommodate this than he was.
I did ask him, in the event we have to refund all the orders, if the fees would be refunded as well. He said that they would refund the exact amount that was paid through the invoice. So the only other issue would be currency conversion. Radio and I are trying to figure out the best way to do this, if we are unable to work it out with PP. Worst case scenario is that we will have to provide the difference out of pocket for those orders. Again, I am incredibly sorry for this. I know there are a lot of people really interested in this GB, and we will do our best to make sure it happens. Unfortunately, we don't have the luxury to pay GMK directly, or we would have explored that option already.
I will let you all know more once I have more info from PP.