Ross Herewini
December 17th, 2008, 02:12 PM
Hi Guys,
Anyone who was trying to order yesterday would have noticed that we couldn't accept orders for Paypal at all.
Paypal limited our account because they couldn't believe the amount of activity on our site was genuine. They wanted additional assurance that we weren't marketing the latest, you know pen$$ enlarger, or that maybe we were Nigerian guys with funny hats.
Paypal motto, if in doubt shut it down. And said if I wanted to turn it on ,provide Utility bills, Proof of ID, Supplier invoices, .... I asked if they wanted my honeymoon snaps as well!
They told me even if I provided that immediately, it would still take 24-48 hours for the account to be turned on to allow orders to be placed.
I had some, as we say in Australia, very warm conversations with the Paypal staff on this point. I couldn't believe it. On the launch of our flagship product, they were going to cripple us right out of the gate. What did we do wrong, except try to do the right thing.
My first thought was everyone on DVinfo is going to think, wow it was a scam after all. He spent 10 years in the industry, travelling to the US from Australia to attend WEVA 6 times, spoke there twice and again for WEVA in Australia, won awards, did 700+ weddings, and all just so he could scam us. Man that's planning. That's like Kevin spacey in Se7en, that's scary planning.
I sent all the documentation and called them again, and, I think I advocated our position in what could only be called, a robust, forthright and I some might argue, forceful manner. To quote a sporting analogy, I left nothing on the field.
The upshot being that their management turned our account back on again.
I was warned about using Paypal. I was warned more than once, and I was warned my more than one person. Ok, so I'm a slow learner, but I learnt this lesson well.
So I personally apologise to anyone who tried to put an order in for six hours yesterday, and I apologise to anyone, who had that sinking feeling when they thought they had been scammed.
We are still on track to ship, and I am going to the factory today, to start the hand QC on each one of the first 1000 going out on Friday.
I remember something about Poisson distributions and levels of confidence for testing just this kind of thing. But you know, I don't want anyone to put their shiny new cards in their cameras and get the "media not recognised" or worse yet nothing.
So the first one thousand will have gone through my camera, and will have my personal QC sticker on it, (which is really just some of my address labels which I printed up last night on the laser, with my name on them). I'll record on it to make sure it works, then onto the next card.
So it's not like that guy at Ford who used to put his initials "OK", on each Model T as it came off the assembly line, but I will write RH on the sticker because, ... well cause I can.
I read somewhere that the EX1 slots have a MTBF of 30,000 insertions, so if the first 1000 look ok, (or in this case rh), I'll rely on Poisson distributions for sampling from now on, so I don’t end up with my beautiful EX1 being just a showpiece.
One last note, it took so long for us to approve the artwork for the blister pack inserts because I wasn't happy with it, that they will only be ready for Saturday. Just in time to be of no use for the first 1000. I'll post the artwork in the blog when I can figure out how to, and anyone who wants me to send them the insert, please send me an email, and I'll post one out.
BTW I told the factory, listen I'll go down to Kwikkopy, they can knock them up in about an hour. Then one snag, they needed to be die cut to fit in the blister, that what takes 7 days to do. So sorry about that.
Chris Hurd has been very generous with us in allowing us to post all this blurb up here, and I personally thank him for that, but in fairness to him, I’ll will get on top of this blogging software today, so these long, long posts can be on our site.
Thanks again for the support
Best wishes for the season to all.
Anyone who was trying to order yesterday would have noticed that we couldn't accept orders for Paypal at all.
Paypal limited our account because they couldn't believe the amount of activity on our site was genuine. They wanted additional assurance that we weren't marketing the latest, you know pen$$ enlarger, or that maybe we were Nigerian guys with funny hats.
Paypal motto, if in doubt shut it down. And said if I wanted to turn it on ,provide Utility bills, Proof of ID, Supplier invoices, .... I asked if they wanted my honeymoon snaps as well!
They told me even if I provided that immediately, it would still take 24-48 hours for the account to be turned on to allow orders to be placed.
I had some, as we say in Australia, very warm conversations with the Paypal staff on this point. I couldn't believe it. On the launch of our flagship product, they were going to cripple us right out of the gate. What did we do wrong, except try to do the right thing.
My first thought was everyone on DVinfo is going to think, wow it was a scam after all. He spent 10 years in the industry, travelling to the US from Australia to attend WEVA 6 times, spoke there twice and again for WEVA in Australia, won awards, did 700+ weddings, and all just so he could scam us. Man that's planning. That's like Kevin spacey in Se7en, that's scary planning.
I sent all the documentation and called them again, and, I think I advocated our position in what could only be called, a robust, forthright and I some might argue, forceful manner. To quote a sporting analogy, I left nothing on the field.
The upshot being that their management turned our account back on again.
I was warned about using Paypal. I was warned more than once, and I was warned my more than one person. Ok, so I'm a slow learner, but I learnt this lesson well.
So I personally apologise to anyone who tried to put an order in for six hours yesterday, and I apologise to anyone, who had that sinking feeling when they thought they had been scammed.
We are still on track to ship, and I am going to the factory today, to start the hand QC on each one of the first 1000 going out on Friday.
I remember something about Poisson distributions and levels of confidence for testing just this kind of thing. But you know, I don't want anyone to put their shiny new cards in their cameras and get the "media not recognised" or worse yet nothing.
So the first one thousand will have gone through my camera, and will have my personal QC sticker on it, (which is really just some of my address labels which I printed up last night on the laser, with my name on them). I'll record on it to make sure it works, then onto the next card.
So it's not like that guy at Ford who used to put his initials "OK", on each Model T as it came off the assembly line, but I will write RH on the sticker because, ... well cause I can.
I read somewhere that the EX1 slots have a MTBF of 30,000 insertions, so if the first 1000 look ok, (or in this case rh), I'll rely on Poisson distributions for sampling from now on, so I don’t end up with my beautiful EX1 being just a showpiece.
One last note, it took so long for us to approve the artwork for the blister pack inserts because I wasn't happy with it, that they will only be ready for Saturday. Just in time to be of no use for the first 1000. I'll post the artwork in the blog when I can figure out how to, and anyone who wants me to send them the insert, please send me an email, and I'll post one out.
BTW I told the factory, listen I'll go down to Kwikkopy, they can knock them up in about an hour. Then one snag, they needed to be die cut to fit in the blister, that what takes 7 days to do. So sorry about that.
Chris Hurd has been very generous with us in allowing us to post all this blurb up here, and I personally thank him for that, but in fairness to him, I’ll will get on top of this blogging software today, so these long, long posts can be on our site.
Thanks again for the support
Best wishes for the season to all.