Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

Naturally it makes complete sense to observe the legal ramifications and do proper consultation before taking any steps.
Rash immediate un-consulted action could be costly.
Cautious well consulted, planned and timed action may sidestep potential unforeseen cost...possibly resolve the issue with little ...if no upset to timelines and availability of funds..

Agreed.

Fact is ...I'm guessing this situation is precedent setting with paypal and their policies...how this is handled, dealt with and resolved will spell whether other enterprises invest their time and monies into paypal as a result of the outcome of this situation...

Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

The donation page gives your IBAN as DE55 7607 0024 0043 4332 00, and your BIC as DEUTDEDB760.

Strictly speaking, your IBAN does not include your BIC, which suggests that they are incompatible.

Is there an account number that goes with the BIC for SWIFT?

Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

Bank number is 760 700 24 which is equivalent to BIC DEUTDEDB760
Account number is 043433200

Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

I talked with my lawyer and will receive more feedback tomorrow.
Meanwhile there was some discussion on IRC and some customers went ahead and posted an email to PP, using this template. While I'm suffering headache from this stuff. :(

so much for today, more tomorrow
/j

Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

Ok... but what do you recommend? What would be the best strategy?
Start sending mails or wait a little until you see if you can solve the situation, and if not then send mails?

Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

Sorry I wasn't clear enough. While I talked to lawyer today, I didn't manage to get and thus come up with any recommendation yet. I'm talking with lawyer again tomorrow, until then same statement as quoted in my last post applies: >>until then I don't want to recommend any action<<. Would be a pity if I would recommend sending mails now and in 2 days it turns out we should have added one little detail to such mail and I would need to ask you to send a mail *again*. Maybe my note about headache was ambiguous? It's caused by PP, not users who already sent mails.

cheers
jOERG

customers who used PayPal: ACTION NEEDED
 

[back reference - root: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php...90#post1484790 post #58 in this thread]

OK, now more details from my lawyer, she sent a letter to PP today. Still no comments/criticism on the plan of customers sending emails.
So, to support that letter of my lawyer, now I'd like to ask all of our customers who did a PP payment to us during last 8 months to send a email to PayPal stating what they want their money to get done with.
Many thanks to IRC user edwin who provided this (slightly modified) template:
Please use the PayPal "Receipt for Your Payment to Neo900 UG (haftungsbeschränkt)" email you received, or log in to your PayPal account to find the dates, amount, and transaction code.
[edit]An "email" form can be found on your PayPal account webpage in footer under "Help&contact" or somesuch. Pretty unconvenient, it obviously sends an automated reply which you need to answer with same msg again to pass that first 'firewall'. I received the notification about "Reserve" From: "Europeanservices AT paypal.com" <europeanservices AT paypal.com> anyway[/edit]

Thanks to all customers for helping with this issue and sorry for the inconvenience
jOERG

[edit] ps.: we wouldn't mind if you keep contact@neo900 .org in BCC of any such mail

Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

Now that there is a standardized form.
And a proper plan.
Sent mine out to paypal.
Personally I have had good experiences with paypal.
I'm sure others haven't.
But for myself I have found them understanding and compassionate.
We'll see how it unfolds.

Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

I've sent the standardised message to them using the "Contact" section of their website. If they permit an actual email to be sent to them at any point, I will bcc contact <at> neo900 <dot> org.

Edit:

Warning:
PayPal automatically responds with an automated message to avoid a human answering your query. To get a human involved, you must reply to their automated reply!

Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

Prompt, helpful and crystal clear answer.

I then responded with bare (as brief as I can be :D) essentials in hopes of bringing the whole issue to the forefront of their attention and for everyone to a speedy and satisfactory resolution to this issue.




"Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2015 00:07:31 +0000
From: webform@intl.paypal.com
To:
Subject: RE: RE: Questions about payment statuses

Dear Paul Carlin,

Hello! My name is Celine from PayPal Products and Site Support. I apologize if the previous response did not properly address your concern about the payment for the Neo900 Development Support.

In my desire to clarify your concern, I tried calling you at 250-714-0787 and was not able to reach you. I'd be glad to assist you via this email.

I assure you that the €276.00 EUR payment has been successfully credited to the account of Neo900 UG (haftungsbeschränkt) on March 26, 2015. If the merchant claims that they did not receive your payment, I strongly suggest that you advise them to contact us directly. This way, we'll have the permission to check their PayPal account and provide the payment details.

We can be reached at 1-888-221-1161 during these hours:

• 4:00 AM to 10:00 PM PT, Monday – Friday
• 6:00 AM to 8:00 PM PT, Saturday – Sunday

It's been a pleasure to have assisted a valued customer like you. Thank you for choosing PayPal to process your payments.

Sincerely,
Celine
Consumer Support
PayPal

Hi Celine,

Terribly sorry about that.
2507140787 was an old phone number the other phone number is my current proper cell number.
Concerning the funds specific...
I am glad the funds have been properly received and are accessible to the neo900 foundation,
otherwise the necessary parts and components for the devices they are making for our community could not be purchased.
Thank you so much for the very timely elucidation Celine.
I have had nothing but the best experiences when dealing with paypal support.
Quick, informative, excellent in resolving issues and helpful.

To offer some small insight..

It is my understanding that other fellow members of our tech community are attempting to verify the same information since it has come to our attention that their paypal funds directed to the neo900 project...and the project's paypal accounts ... have been ...for the lack of a better term ...frozen...due to the necessity of (most likely automated) policies of protection implemented by paypal.
It is an understandable reaction concerning the nature of modern day crowdfunding and protecting the interests of donators from potential collapse and loss of their donations...

The neo900 project however from day 1 has not been a crowd funded project.
In short.
The project team members (who are also fellow members of our community for many many years are of upstanding nature..) have purchased and tested some few components and devices at their cost and time which have the highest chance of success...
once success through trial and testing has been achieved ..
then finding an affordable manufacturer for those components is necessary.
The most affordable method then is a bulk purchase of those parts...
We are then informed as to that cost to purchase in bulk those components ....
and then we are informed of the individual cost for our own device...
at which point we all pony-up the necessary money to buy the needed components for the construction of our devices.

In conclusion (perhaps too brief) the project we support is not crowdfunding.

Hopefully what little info I have provided will help in the clearing up what appears to be a simple misunderstanding.

Thanks again Celine.
yours Paul"

Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

Hmm, as far as I understand PayPal's classification, there is "crowdfunding" (money used to finance - more or less - every step of the project, and the outcome of it all not being guaranteed), "pre-selling" (company has other sources for conducting its business, and sells additional items, which it is certain to deliver, given that the underlying effort is already covered by those other sources), plus presumably a number of other categories not relevant in this case.

According to this scheme, the Neo900 project would be very much "crowdfunding". As I understand it, it is PayPal considering us doing "pre-selling", which causes them to apply those restrictions.

Again, to my understanding, the principal difference is that crowdfunding is a "best effort", where all parties involved accept the possibility of failure, while any form of regular sales, which would include "pre-selling", considers failure to deliver in itself as a breach of contract.

If PayPal were to consider us as "crowdfunding", it seems that they would not impose such crippling restrictions.

So I'm afraid you may have sent a message that could be understood as being quite contrary to what you have probably intended to express.

When clarifying this, perhaps it is best not get too hung up on specific terms, but rather focus on the underlying concept: the funds sent through PayPal are expected to be used by Neo900 UG (e.g., for purchases, remuneration, services, taxes) long before any goods can possibly be delivered, the parties involved trust each other to act in good faith, and nobody has any reason to expect PayPal to exercise any oversight.

Disclaimer: Joerg has the final authority on Neo900 UG's official interpretation of all this. Alas, he's probably sound asleep at the moment, and I'm commenting without first checking with him because I think there is a risk of proliferating misconceptions.

- Werner

Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

I believe I clarified everything succinctly.
1- parts/products is tested.
2- parts/products are sourced.
3- we are told the cost.
4- we pony-up the money to do a sane bulk purchase .
that is my understanding in short...
wished the customer support to understand I knew...
and what I said.

Doesn't sound like either crowdfunding or pre-selling to me.
Sounds like something else completely

If any of what I just said (in short) isn't the process ..
then I am completely misguided.

Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

Email sent. I modified the template a little bit, this one's a bit more generic in the sense that it applies to NeoN board down payments too (the URL and quotation differ so it made sense to reword it and leave them out). Feel free to use it:

There was no BCC option available in the web form but I will forward any replies that I receive to keep you (Neo900 UG) in the loop.

Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

PayPal have replied, saying that Neo900 UG have received the funds. I think they are completely ignoring the part about the funds being frozen!

I'll reply to get clarification about the frozen funds.

FYI PayPal tried to call me first, but I was at work. They then "emailed" instead.

Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

Yes, that's exactly to the point. PayPal lets me know that they had to decide whether our project is crowdfunding or pre-sale (no other choices). And they decided to classify us as pre-sales which automatically ensues the reserve we are suffering from.
They base this decision on what they think is insufficient information about the crowdfunding nature of the project and the risks this implies.

So please everybody don't try to explain to PayPal how Neo900 project works or has worked so far, just let them know that you are aware about the risks since you a) have read the TOS and b) you understood them and you also understood from beginning that this is crowdfunding in the sense that PayPal sees the difference between crowdfunding and pre-sales. *)



There's yet another POV on this, which would be along the line that the "down payments" are a payment for already accomplished R&D and sourcing of some few components, so that we can use the funds we used for financing that can now be used again to do further sourcing and R&D.
But this POV is not the argumentation path we are currently following , and for you, our customers for now the only important thing is to let PP know you want the funds on our account to get unfreezed and you are aware of the risks and you waive any rights to roll back their payment for refund.*)

Please use wicket's very fine template above, and refrain from detrimental incorrect explanations of details about the internal working of the project - we already provided comprehensive and more precise data about all that to PayPal

*) In case you actually didn't understand that Neo900 is crowdfunding with risks, please let us know so we can refund your payment right away now
many thanks
jOERG

Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

Sure thing.
I have no prob at all with not explaining anything or attempting to.
Especially when others are far more informed than myself.
My intent was not to make things more difficult ..
rather the opposite..
it was to illumine the fact others were in the same situation as myself and to find out as well about this problem of the freezing of funds even if they were gotten to the Neo900 account...

I simply did not see it as an either / or

A- crowdfunding
or
B- pre-selling.

More like C- "down payments"

That Paypal cannot see that 3rd option and it must be either A or B ..
that is too bad. ( there always should be at least a rational 3rd option in my opinion).

Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

IANAL but I am actually with PayPal on this. It is either A or B.

It all comes down to the payment recipient's obligations to you, the sender, if the project flops and you never see the product. The seller either has an obligation to refund you the money or not. There is no middle ground.

The question that is left open is whether it is A or B. PayPal is very much skewed in favour of the buyer. I am not saying that it is a good thing but you need to keep that in mind. Treating the down payments as pre-selling makes it easier for them to cover you, the buyer, so they choose that option as the default. You need to convince them otherwise.

Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

I got a similar reply.

Do you have a case ID for the dispute so that I can reference it in my reply?

Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

Sorry, there's no usefull case ID since there's no actual open dispute. Until they answer the FAX my lawyer sent to them. Please refer to Neo900 by name and by the email addr you see in your payment details. You might add "to: Risk Management" on top of message body, maybe they actually do the right thing then and forward to whom it actually does concern.


However is pretty interesting a statement.

/j

Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

They are acting as if everything is fine, and that Neo900 UG is taking pretending they haven't received the money.

I really hate PayPal.

Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

you need to make it very clear to paypal that paypal specificly is withholding the funds that you contracted them to transfer to neo900UG not that neo900 is doing anything wrong

maybe:

hello,

you seem to be misunderstanding me. it is paypay specifically i have a dispute with. i contracted you "paypal" to transfer $VALUE to neo900UG but infact you "paypal" are withholding a portion of that as security. i have not instructed you to do this, and as this funding is to be used for research and devlopment for a device that has no guarentee of being completed, withholding prevents neo900UG from doing the needed research and devlopment which the funds are intended to assist in.

so could you "paypal" please release all the funds immedeatly, and completly, unwithholding to the neo900UG as i contracted you "paypal" to do.

Thank you,
$FULL NAME

Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

As a bank they have no business playing mafia and deciding who gets what. They are just a f*cking payment processor with an ego. If this is legal then we need some kind of "banking neutrality" rule. Call the EU, quick!

I'm no expert in banking and no expert in German bureaucracy, but I'm sure the Bankenaufsicht (www.bafin.de) would like to hear about such practices.

To those who have received a reply from Paypal: please reply back and explain it again, like in kindergarten-speak: the money is on their account but they can't touch it. That's the problem. The "dispute", if any, is not against Neo900 but against Paypal.

[EDIT] Didn't see @chainsawbike's post. Nice!

Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

Good catch! The mere thought of that ever happening had most likely never even begun to speculate about the merest possibility of crossing their mind and they have no plans for how to act in such a situation.

Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

This in turn clearly means that 180 days after your payment, PayPal must make the funds available to us.

Thanks for providing the mail citation

/j

Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

daily update: Lawyer informed me that PP informed her that the FAX arrived (4 days ago, with deadline for answer of today) and is now getting forwarded to PP's legal department. Let's see. Please keep sending mails to them, I think it helps a lot.

/j

Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

It's not that easy. There's plenty of situations were (x or (not x)) is not true.

But in this case it was easier to anticipate: alice pays to bob, via mallory. That makes three parties in my book, so the money is either in the hands of alice, of bob, or of mallory.

Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

Purpose and risks of payments

To make sure we're all on the same page regarding the role and purpose
of the various payments in this project, we'd like to re-state and
summarize them:


Donations: the first financing round consisted of the collection of
donations, to pay for the costs of initial prototype development and
to determine whether the level of community interest was sufficient to
warrant developing the Neo900 in earnest.

For this purpose, donations of EUR 100 or more were informally counted
as an intent of later obtaining a complete device. As far as price
calculations are concerned, donations or EUR 100 or more are
technically considered as if they were loans.


Down payments: further financing towards completion of R&D and the
purchase of materials for production. The down payments let us plan
the number of units to produce - and thus the materials we have to
source - as well providing the funds for the sourcing.

Due to some of the materials being difficult to source and sometimes
having very long lead times, this sourcing has to begin a considerable
amount of time before the projected beginning of production, and it is
generally necessary to be able to execute purchases shortly after
quotes have been obtained. It is standard practice in industry that
such purchases are paid for in advance.

Therefore, the project needs to have access to funds well before
development has completed, with all the risks this entails. This phase
is therefore similar to that of projects crowdfunded at an early
development stage, i.e., that the payments received by the project are
to serve the specific agreed-upon purpose, but that there are still
considerable risks involved that can alter the outcome of the project
or even cause its demise. These risks are shared by both the project
supporters (potential loss of their payments) and the people
developing the product (potential loss of income and intangibles).

We have listed these possible risks in detail in the "terms and
conditions" presented in the Neo900 shop at the time of making down
payments:
https://my.neo900.org/index.php?id_c...content_only=1


Final payment: the down payments only cover part of the expected
total cost of the project, as detailed here:
https://neo900.org/estimate

We therefore plan a third and final financing phase when the project
is ready to move to production, and it is time to purchase the
remaining materials, to pay for the production services, and to set up
the logistics for distribution.

This will be a low-risk phase, similar to that of projects that seek
crowdfunding at a very mature development stage.

The final payment will be the difference between the total cost of the
selected product(s) (i.e., NeoN or Neo900, in the respective
configuration) and the total of the payments made that far, including
the loan-like interest we calculate on the original donation.

The reason for separating the final payment from the down payments is
mainly that we cannot accurately predict the final cost before
completing R&D and subsequently obtaining quotes for the remaining
steps. An accurate cost figure is necessary because this
community-driven project operates with essentially no profit margin
and therefore cannot accommodate unexpected budget excursions.


We hope to have communicated all these points with sufficient clarity
in the past, and that the expectations of our supporters are thus in
line with the above.

If you have any questions or concerns, please post here or contact us
at contact@neo900.org

- Werner (on behalf of the Neo900 team)

Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

All this hoobalooba with paypal makes me happy I transferred my share of the pile via standard-oldfashioned-and-regulated Bank Transfer. :D

Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

Call you happy to be inside SEPA with same currency.

Re: customers who used PayPal: ACTION NEEDED
 

I tried, but I got:

----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
/home/werner/mail-backup/werner
(reason: Service unavailable)
(expanded from: <xxxx>)

----- Transcript of session follows -----
554 5.0.0 mailfile: *file*: child died on signal 25
554 5.0.0 Service unavailable

Re: customers who used PayPal: ACTION NEEDED
 

Sorry, that was a local problem on my server.
Despite the gloomy error message, this didn't affect regular delivery.

- Werner

Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

I didn't had the time until now but I have also send an email to paypal (through the messages menu on their webpage as I didn't found any mail address).
Waiting for a response from them.

Any updates on this?

Edit : well, I received an automatic e-mail where it was written to respond to the mail if my issue wasn't resolved, which I did, and that in 24 hours someone will contact me. It was more than 24 hours ago, and no mail or phone call....

Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

So, yesterday someone from PayPal called me but I just had the time to hear she was from PayPal and confirm I was the person she was looking for then I couldn't hear anything and she hang up. Nobody called me since then, so I don't know exactly what is going on.

My question from last post remains : how is the situation with PayPal now?

Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

I too would like to know if there is any update to the paypal issue.

I found the wire option in the store and attempted that. unfortunately according to my bank, there were a few bits of information not provided by the store, so I could not get it to go through.

Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

Hello. Is it already too late to send a down payment by SEPA to take part of the first Neo900 batch ?

Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

Hello.

I'm late to the party, does the problem persist? Should I send the e-mail to PayPal?

Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

Sneak preview of the newsletter we'll send out in the next days:

PayPal trouble delays project
=============================

If you have been following the project on IRC (Freenode #neo900) or
on talk.maemo.org, you will already have read that we are having
problems with payments made through PayPal.

We have now collected some more information, and we would like to
give you a comprehensive update on the situation, and how it affects
progress of the project.


What happened
-------------

PayPal established a "reserve" on the account of Neo900 UG, preventing
the project from using the balance of currently EUR 37'934, which at
the time of writing represents more than two thirds of the liquid assets
of the project.

While communication with PayPal has been polite, we were given the
impression that our funds would be liberated within a reasonable amount
of time, and we provided PayPal with the information they requested at
various points in the dialog, PayPal have not removed the blockage and
have not even clearly indicated as to when they would be willing to do
so.


Timeline
--------

In June, PayPal surprisingly blocked withdrawals from the account of
Neo900 UG. The explanation we received was that PayPal needed Neo900 UG
to provide various pieces of information regarding its business, and
that the block would be lifted once we provided this information.
Incoming payments were still possible.

Since some banks occasionally block accounts while waiting for routine
paperwork, we were not overly alarmed at that time.

Towards the end of July, PayPal also blocked incoming payments. Given
that we were at the time busy preparing for and then attending
CCCamp2015, it took a few weeks before we could provide all the
requested material, which we did at the end of August.

A few days later, PayPal allowed incoming payments again, but also
informed us that they would establish a "rolling reserve" on the
account, with details to follow in the following days.

We interpreted this to mean that incoming payments would be held for
some days or weeks, to ensure their validity. This still sounded
somewhat reasonable.

The next shoe dropped in September, when PayPal revealed the conditions
of this reserve:

- almost all of the existing balance in the account would be held for
the reserve.

- a percentage of all incoming payments would be held to further grow
the reserve, until reaching a total amount of USD 200'000.
(We had about EUR 40'000 in the account at that time, to spend
mainly on advance purchases but also on on-going development.)

- PayPal elected to set the percentage to withhold to 100%.

- the conditions for releasing the reserve were not clearly spelled
out, but there was an implied suggestion that funds entering the
reserve might be released after remaining there for 180 days.

Considering that the project operates with minimum margins, just having
most of its assets frozen for an unknown amount of time would be
disastrous.

PayPal wrote that such a reserve was normal for "card sales", suggesting
some confusion on their end.

We were hopeful that these aggressive conditions were merely the result
of a misunderstanding, and PayPal themselves suggested that the reserve
could be lifted or at least improved once additional formalities are
completed.

We continued to accept payments through PayPal during all this,
expecting PayPal to act in good faith and to see a speedy resolution
as something in their own interest. However, after several exchanges
with PayPal failed to produce results, we decided to prevent further
damage and removed payments through PayPal from our shop.

Payments made by wire transfer to the Neo900 UG bank account are not
affected by all this.


Why are they doing this to us ?
-------------------------------

When blocking the account, PayPal indicated that they only needed
additional information about the account owner (Neo900 UG) and that
the blockade would be removed once the information was provided.

PayPal indeed did as promised, but replaced the blockade with the
reserve. Once again, the message was that more information (the
company's registration number) was needed to loosen the reserve.
That loosening never happen, despite providing the information.

PayPal also suggested that our supporters may not be sufficiently
aware of the crowdfunding nature of the project and the associated
risks, which in turn would increase the risk of unhappy customers
wanting their money back.

In further communication, there have been hints that the reserve
may be loosened after a while, or that part of the funds could be
released if we can present paid (!) invoices for project expenses,
but we basically got the impression that PayPal are stalling, and
are not interested in releasing the funds the project needs to
proceed.

One may now think that PayPal are simply malicious. Some people
who had experienced similar issues seem to have reached this
conclusion:

http://garethhayes.net/paypal-warning/

However, we eventually found (thanks to "ravelo" who pointed us to
it) a much more plausible explanation: PayPal may simply be
responding to the chargeback risk that comes with accepting credit
cards:

http://www.digitalmarketer.com/paypa...chant-account/

Unfortunately, PayPal choose to do this in a way that is extremely
intransparent and harmful.


Why did we use PayPal at all ?
------------------------------

Neo900 UG initially only accepted payments through wire transfer.
However, after many supporters asked for a means to pay by credit
card, due to wire transfers being difficult and expensive for them,
we looked for a way to accommodate these wishes.

Directly accepting credit card payments is known to be difficult,
especially for a small start-up like Neo900 UG, but PayPal quickly
emerged as a supposedly friendly option.

While there had been reports in the past about similar incidents, PayPal
have not received much bad press in the last years, and we felt that
these issues must have been resolved since. What we did not understand
at the time is that using PayPal would not solve the underlying problem
inherent with accepting credit cards, and in fact make it worse.

PayPal proved to be very popular. For example, the project received in
September almost 60% of the payments through PayPal.


Consequences
------------

PayPal's aggressive blockade of most of the assets of Neo900 UG has
the following consequences for the project:

- to avoid throwing good money after bad, we no longer accept payments
through PayPal in the shop. We continue to accept payments through
wire transfer (SWIFT, SEPA).

If international wire transfers are expensive or difficult in your
country, you may want to consider to use TransferWise
(https://transferwise.com/), which may offer better conditions.

- in order to avoid misunderstandings of the kind PayPal allege, we
have also posted a summary of how this project is financed
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=1485640
and we have made small changes to the terminology used to describe
our project on neo900.org and in the shop.

- since most of the liquid assets of Neo900 UG are blocked, we had to
halt all advance purchases.

- we had to suspend all technical work for the time being, to focus
the remaining resources exclusively on restoring the financial
viability of the project.


Communication with PayPal
-------------------------

Several supporters of our project have contacted PayPal to inquire about
the status of their payment and to ask that it be passed to Neo900 UG.

The most common responses were:

- PayPal assured all our customers that their payment went through and
that it has been credited to the account of Neo900 UG.

While this is technically correct and we can see incoming payments
in the list of transactions and the account balance, it is at the
same time misleading in the sense that all this ends up being part
of the reserve and we cannot withdraw and use it.

- PayPal refuse to provide customers with any details about the state
of payments that have been credited to the account of Neo900 UG,
claiming privacy policies prevented them.

We therefore think it unlikely that payments that ended up in the
reserve can be liberated through a dialog between our supporters and
PayPal.

However, we believe that PayPal may change their risk assessment if
enough customers assure them that they want payments to be liberated
to Neo900 UG and that, if PayPal complies with this request, they will
consider the transaction as successful and fully concluded, even if
the project should fail to deliver or run into any other problems.

We believe that such statements from customers would give PayPal the
assurance that, if chargebacks should occur regardless, they could
counter and successfully challenge them.


How to fix it
-------------

We contracted a lawyer and had her send a letter demanding that PayPal
release the funds. PayPal responded one month later basically
reiterating their position and stating that the hostile blockade should
not have surprised us, for their terms and conditions grant them
sweeping liberties.

Furthermore, since PayPal so far has not provided clear indications of
which payments are affected by the "freeze", and we cannot deduce this
from the information available to us, we have asked PayPal to provide
us with a list of the transactions affected. We are awaiting a response
to this request.

To strengthen our case and to ease PayPal's worries, we would like to
ask you, if you have made a payment to Neo900 UG since April 2015, to
consider contacting PayPal on your own, assert that you understand
the crowdfunding nature of this project, and request that your payment
(which may or may not be affected by the freeze) be released.

For your convenience, we have prepared the following template:

---------------------------------- cut here -----------------------------------

Dear PayPal,

regarding my transaction, ID <transaction>, the seller Neo900 UG
(haftungsbeschraenkt), informed me that PayPal has frozen the funds
in a "Reserve".

To my knowledge, this is due to a misunderstanding whether this
transaction constitutes a pre-sale or a crowdfunding payment.

I hereby want to make clear that it is a payment for crowdfunding, and
I fully understand the risks associated with that. So I would like to
request PayPal to release 100% of the funds to the seller, upon which
I would consider the transaction as successful and fully concluded.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. I hope Neo900 UG will
swiftly gain access to the funds to complete the project.

Kind regards, <name>

---------------------------------- cut here -----------------------------------

In the above template, please fill in the following fields:
<transaction> the ID of your PayPal transaction (e.g., 3UF390823E5159484)
<name> your name

We are very sorry about this complication that delays project progress
and unnecessarily molests our customers. We hope you nevertheless keep
up with your incredible support and enthusiasm.

Thank you for your help !

- The Neo900 team

Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

Thanks Werner,
I need to add that I sent an email to PP, see attachment (german) and we hope for them to reconsider, particularly when a lot of you send the email template from post above.

I'm really sorry for the delay and all the inconvenience this is causing. Well, except for the mere hardware development I'm doing all that for the very first time, so maybe it's how Murphy has it his way.


Also sorry for that but it was for health reasons that I been way too quiet during last few weeks, and for same reasons I have to announce that I'm not available during next 3 weeks. Werner (wpwrak) will be a great temporary replacement for me

cheers
jOERG

Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

This is sad news. But unfortunately not uncommon - even banks does this.
Also, I think this is not unexpected due to the kind of project - If you look at the conditions that trigger this, I also fear the Nokia and especially Jolla case might have influenced what triggered.

https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/brc/account-reserves

Hope its sorted out soon.

Re: questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

Would it be too far stretched to assume some lawyer at Paypal has read the Neo900 specs and concluded it is not something they want to sponsor.
I remember their behavior towards WikiLeaks.

FLOSS stack and privacy

Neo900 can be used with 100% Free Software stack. Forget about spying and influences of intelligence agencies. If you turn off GSM modem from the software, you can be sure it's really turned off.