Neo900 - finally a successor of N900 - Page 235 - maemo.org

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princefakhan	2015-03-25 , 18:14
Posts: 180 \| Thanked: 180 times \| Joined on Nov 2014 @ New Delhi, DELHI, INDIA	#2341

Originally Posted by pichlo

[OT]
@endso,
True dat!

Whenever I feel that PayPal fees are extortionate, I remind myself of this story...

As a bunch of students in a certain Central-European country that no longer exists, we applied for some voluntary work in the UK. This involved sending an application fee of 50 GBP per person to an agency organising said work - an astronomical amount of money at the time not just for us poor students, but also for our parents.

The bank charged a fixed fee plus a percentage of the amount. There were 20 of us and to save on the fixed part, we sent the money in a single payment. Needless to say, the charges were enormous, coming to about 100 GBP, or 5 each.

A month later, when nothing happened, we called the agency who informed us, as confirmed by sending us a copy of their bank statement, that our application was rejected because the amount of money they received was much lower than the 50 GBP required. It was in fact 45 GBP, meaning that another 5 GBP each, on top of what we had already paid, was lost on the way.

The agency, as a gesture of good will, agreed to refund the money, even though the contract said explicitly that the fee was non-refundable. For a few more months, nothing happened. We did not receive the refund. Following another enquiry, the agency sent us another bank statement confirming that the money had in fact been sent.

To cut the long story short, we did eventually receive the refund. Long after we graduated and went our separate ways. To be absolutely specific, it took 18 months between the agency sending the refund and us receiving it. Another 100 GBP, or 5 per person, was lost again on the way back. If you've lost count, and won't blame you, the total loss was 15 of initially paid 55 GBP each, or about 27%.

Who was the bank sitting on our money for 18 months, you may ask? I know I should not name and shame, but so bad was my experience that I feel obliged to warn everyone I know. It was Československá Obchodní Banka, a. s. It happened 25 years ago and they may have turned around 25 times since then, but to this day, whenever I see a business client using that bank, I see a bright red flashing light and hear claxons. In all my long life, only one other company had left such a bad taste: a car service in the UK. But that is another story...
[/OT]

Huh! Well thank God we have a place called Internet and things like Paypal and Bitcoin exist. :P

Though I was just wondering after looking at a Kickstarter project. Why isn't this one there?

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	endsormeans	2015-03-25 , 18:39
	Posts: 3,141 \| Thanked: 8,161 times \| Joined on Feb 2013 @ From my Gabriola Island hermitage, near the Edge of the World	#2342

@pichlo - THANK GAWD! I'M NOT ALONE! I KNOW EH?!?!?!

banks are the new loan sharks in my opinion...and hell...it isn't even like I'm "loaning" the money... it's mine for !^@$ sake... paypal is a saint in compare to the banking institutions today...even the best of them.

@princefakhan - Kickstarter has it's probs. Takes it's ugly chunk.

I'm in favour of whatever methods make it feasible to give the most of my monies without diverting (vampirically bleeding me off) sums along the way. It means I can give that much more immediately.

__________________
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Owner of :
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1/2 - neo900 pre- "purchased" in 2013. N̶o̶w̶ ̶A̶w̶a̶i̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶r̶e̶f̶u̶n̶d̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶c̶e̶s̶s̶ ̶l̶a̶s̶t̶ ̶f̶e̶w̶ ̶y̶e̶a̶r̶s̶ - neo900 start up declared officially dead -
Lost invested funds.

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Last edited by endsormeans; 2015-03-25 at 18:44.

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	joerg_rw	2015-03-26 , 01:05
	Posts: 2,222 \| Thanked: 12,651 times \| Joined on Mar 2010 @ SOL 3	#2343

re kickstarter: when this started, kickstarter didn't allow non-US bank account, and generally kickstarter isn't really for the type of project we had here, it works best when you already got a working prototype. It's expensive too, particularly when you're opting for the method#2 that would better suit our needs. And the deadline on kickstarter is absolutely contraproductive since we reached that deadline during 3 days without them. we might do kickstarter for a seconf batch, and/or for STEP2 in 201(6/7) ;-)

mini update:
N900 sourcing: I have an option to source a 450 now. We RSN need to collect the needed funds to do this sourcing (150 bucks per N900, which leaves some headroom for 'unforeseen' expenses like import tax and VAT which we might have to pay for now and maybe can get refunded later when we sell that stuff again). After those N900 are ordered, there won't be a guarantee that further cases/mechpart-kits can be sourced later on for late orders - this is an early warning about one half of the preorder timespan window closing.
risk parts sourcing: We need to source several risk parts like e.g. the 1GB RAM (+ NAND) PoP chips now. for that we need funds. so we ask every one of our customers to increase their <300EUR down payment (formerly called 'donation') to at least 300EUR (plus the above mentioned amount for N900 when you want a complete case).
In this context,
webshop: since one day I'm looking into PrestaShop for our order management/webshop - dolibarr turned out to lack the functions we need most: a way our customers can log in and check/edit their order, e.g. to (un)tick the "N900 mech parts" option needed for full device so we know how many N900 to source, the type of modem you want, etc. I hope we'll get that webshop thing sorted soon, it's the main roadblock to kick off the fundraiser for the N900 and risk parts sourcing. Any help appreciated :-)

cheers
jOERG

Last edited by joerg_rw; 2015-03-26 at 01:14.

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	endsormeans	2015-03-26 , 03:11
	Posts: 3,141 \| Thanked: 8,161 times \| Joined on Feb 2013 @ From my Gabriola Island hermitage, near the Edge of the World	#2344

Sooooo...
to be specific...

You need the monies now?
or...
Wait until the shop is set up.. then send the monies?.....

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xman	2015-03-26 , 03:43
Posts: 562 \| Thanked: 1,732 times \| Joined on Jan 2010 @ NYC	#2345

Originally Posted by joerg_rw

..... so we ask every one of our customers to increase their <300EUR down payment (formerly called 'donation') to at least 300EUR (plus the above mentioned amount for N900 when you want a complete case). ....

I'm REEALLLYY ready for this! So I went ahead and bumped my payment by another 200 eur, this brings me to 400 eur! Not sure this is how you want it ... but too late

I only need the board so the extra money should be used to help get to the next step. If you want to refund it if you have a surplus great, if you want to keep it for the teams time and hard work groovy, but that it for me

no more money (for now till I can watch video's of working boards)

I'm believing in you (the team) with my hard earned money and I'm happy to show my support. So lets get this party started.

x

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	endsormeans	2015-03-26 , 03:57
	Posts: 3,141 \| Thanked: 8,161 times \| Joined on Feb 2013 @ From my Gabriola Island hermitage, near the Edge of the World	#2346

hehe..
ya xman...I hear ya...
Just waitin' for the word to be given.
I'm hovering over the paypal donate button to top up mine to 450 euros.

Last edited by endsormeans; 2015-03-26 at 04:09.

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	joerg_rw	2015-03-26 , 04:15
	Posts: 2,222 \| Thanked: 12,651 times \| Joined on Mar 2010 @ SOL 3	#2347

Originally Posted by endsormeans

Sooooo...
to be specific...
You need the monies now?
or...
Wait until the shop is set up.. then send the monies?.....

Everything fine, though the earlier the merrier. We'll set up the web shop so you find all your payments there when you log in first time, anyway. Just PLEASE use SAME EMAIL ADDR in refrence/subject of all payments, past and future. It's our "primary key" to link the payments to your account and a particular device. When you used PP, please do so again, from same PP account. When you absolutely can't use same email addr PP account, please MENTION your PREVIOUS EMAIL in subject, so we can make the link between previous and new payment.

Originally Posted by xman

I'm REEALLLYY ready for this! So I went ahead and bumped my payment by another 200 eur, this brings me to 400 eur! Not sure this is how you want it ... but too late

I only need the board so the extra money should be used to help get to the next step. If you want to refund it if you have a surplus great, if you want to keep it for the teams time and hard work groovy, but that it for me no more money (for now till I can watch video's of working boards)

of course

All payments count for the final invoice when we collect final orders and ship the devices. So no matter "what for" you sent the money, it gets used to build your device and gets accounted for in the invoice.
Soon you will be able to see the serial number of the device(s) you ordered, plus the hardware items we already sourced for you, on your order webpage - as soon as webshop ready to go online.

Originally Posted by xman

I'm believing in you (the team) with my hard earned money and I'm happy to show my support. So lets get this party started.

x

Thanks a lot

one last note, for correctness: these payments from now on won't receive the monthly interest we promised and grant for early donations. The early donations continue to collect interest though, as promised. And the above mentioned amounts (300.- , 150.-) are excl any interest your early donation collected so far, since interest gets calculated with final invoice only.

Important Note: when your initial donation got transferred from GDC to Neo900 UG (or you did it in time and referred to "86.- refund from GDC for original donation of 100.- from YYYY-MM-DD, re-donating it"), then this counts as the ORIGINAL amount (~100.-) you donated, NOT the REDUCED ONE (~86.-some) GDC transferred to UG
I.E.:
You donated 100.- to GDC on 2014-2-2
GDC (or you) transferred 8X.xx to Neo900 UG some time in June
your customer account at Neo900 UG: 100.- payed on 2014-2-2

cheers
jOERG

Last edited by joerg_rw; 2015-03-26 at 06:11. Reason: moved "I.E." block to where it belongs

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	endsormeans	2015-03-26 , 04:43
	Posts: 3,141 \| Thanked: 8,161 times \| Joined on Feb 2013 @ From my Gabriola Island hermitage, near the Edge of the World	#2348

Good enough.
The Word has been given.
Bam-Done.
I'm up to the needed 450 EUR
Mind..I'm sure I'm a bit above that sum from whatever accrued interests...
Looking forward to mah neo.
Edit: oh yea...the transfer particulars from GDC ...forgot about that in my hurley-burley ...so yea guess that puts me at 464-ish EUR

Last edited by endsormeans; 2015-03-26 at 14:11.

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reinob	2015-03-26 , 08:05
Posts: 1,808 \| Thanked: 4,272 times \| Joined on Feb 2011 @ Germany	#2349

@joerg_rw,

I was considering sending this as a PM, but it may be of interest to others.
I originally donated to Goldelico, and then the money was transferred to you.
I want to top-up my donation but w/o paypal, i.e. plain-old bank transfer.

I happen to have your bank account number (as I've "used" it previously). Would it be OK if I send the money there, or is there a separate account for Neo900?

EDIT. Stupid me. http://neo900.org/donate-iban
EDIT. Topped-up to EUR 500. This is getting exciting

Last edited by reinob; 2015-03-26 at 08:17.

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sulu	2015-03-26 , 08:10
Posts: 915 \| Thanked: 3,209 times \| Joined on Jan 2011 @ Germany	#2350

@joerg_rw:
Since you have the e-mail adresses I think it would be best to send an "official" e-mail to actually ask for the money.
There have been multiple risk part warnings in this thread and not all of your customers might be watching this thread so closely.

Sending an e-mail would show everyone this time you're serious.
It should contain the info about prices, "donation" handling and e-mail/paypal you gave in your last post plus a realistic deadline (people might be on holiday).

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