Information Regarding PayPal Refunds
Dear Asylum Delegate
We have some very important information to tell you.
On Thursday we used our PayPal account and Website to sell photo studio and autograph tickets for the Asylum 3 event in May 2009. We also sold Asylum 2 DVDs and Hell Hounds Packages.
Everything was fine until Friday 17th April at 11am when we received notification from PayPal that they are holding over 50% of the funds for up to 180 days and then a further 5% on a rolling 90 days. As you can expect we were very shocked at this and we are unable to accept PayPal’s new terms they imposed on our account. We are talking 6 months that is September before we would get paid for the items you bought from us last week. That is unacceptable to us and we think you will think so too.
Therefore after hours of discussion between the two of us we have been left with no alternative but to REFUND all PayPal payments that we received on Thursday 16th April. We would like to STRESS this in no way affects the event or your ticket you have bought for the event or anything that was purchased before the 16th April. As PayPal was our credit/debit card processor we are unable to take payments via credit/debit card until further notice.
So what next… well all your orders are STILL VALID so don’t panic as you have your Roman Cart Order Confirmation that was sent to you via email.
To Pay By Post (UK Customers only): For those in the UK, you can send us payment via UK Cheque or if you don’t have a cheque book you can send us Postal Orders or Cash (By Special Delivery Only). When you send the payment please send a note with your name address and RC number from your Roman Cart Invoice. Cheques and Postal Orders should be payable to WCM Events Limited. The address to post your payment to is WCM Events Limited, PO Box 915, Dagenham, RM9 9GN.
To Pay Online (UK Customers only): If you have Online Banking you can pay the money directly into our Bank Account, for most UK Banks this is called 'Bill Payment'.
Just follow any instructions your bank gives you and when asked enterthe following details: Pay to WCM Events Limited Sort code 40-39-04 Account number 51690876
Reference: This is your RC Number found on your Roman Cart Invoice.
Please Note: Without the RC NUMBER we will be unable to match your order up.
If you are unable to pay us by any of the above ways please email us to discuss other payment options.
International Customers: Although we can take international bank transfers there is a fee involved usually up to £6 as this is too high we are looking at alternative payments for our international customers, once more your orders are SAFE you will not lose them because of PayPal’s incompetence. This may mean you paying in cash or by credit card upon arrival.
This is simply a PayPal Payment Issue ONLY it hasn’t nothing to do with the event, they just decided that the items we are selling, we are likely to receive a significant number of what they call Charge-backs this is where you the customer would complain about the item you bought and want your money back this is why they have held the money that you paid us, in a special holding account that we are unable to access for between 3 and 6 months as that is the amount of time people can put in a charge-back claim. How they came to that conclusion we have no idea. They didn’t even talk to us before they applied the reserve hold on our account.
We are truly sorry for this and it is going to cause us a lot of paperwork and a lot of patience on your part while we refund everyone and get this sorted out. We have been trying to convince PayPal since Friday but they will not listen to us, we cannot operate with a business that refuses to pay us the money we have taken until six months later. Refunds can take up to 72 hours to process we will do them as quickly as we can.
Just to STRESS again that this in no way affects the event or your ticket you have bought for the event and your recent orders are STILL VALID as long as you received a Roman Cart Invoice email from us you will not lose your purchases, as this is going to take some time we will be allowing extended payment terms but we must ask that all UK payments be paid by 8th May 2009. If payments aren't made in time or you don't contact us we will have to cancel your order and if possible you can re-buy them at the event.
Your Refunds will be in the same way as you paid so if you paid by your PayPal balance it will be refunded to your PayPal balance, if you paid by a credit/debit card it will be refunded to your credit/debit card.
Best Wishes and please accept our sincere apologies but as you can understand we can not let PayPal hold money that you paid to us for 90 days or even longer.
Wayne Munn and Paul Taylor
Below is the email we received from PayPal on Friday at 11.16 am since then we have had phone call after phone call with no luck in getting their decision overturned hence why we have had to get refunds issued to you all:
-----Original Message-----
From: PayPal
Sent: 17 April 2009 11:16
To: wcmeventsltd
Subject: Reserve in your PayPal account
Dear Wayne Munn,
PayPal reviewed your account and your use of the PayPal Website and determined that we need to apply a reserve on the account starting 17/04/2009. Reserves are funds that belong to you, but are set aside to ensure your account can cover transaction liabilities. Your reserve will be set initially at $50,000 USD minimum balance and then at 5% of the processed amount for each day, to be held for a 90 day rolling period beginning on the above date. For example, 5% of the payments you received are held at the end of the first day and will be released on day 91, 5% of your payments are held at the end of the second day and will be released on day 92, and so on. You will be notified if your reserve settings are adjusted in the future. The decision regarding your reserves setting was based on the review of the risk exposure inherent to your account. [1] A risk review is the evaluation of several factors related to an account, which include but are not limited to transactional activity, customer disputes, type of business, and delivery and customer satisfaction time frames.
Sincerely,
Maciej
Merchant Risk Analyst II
PayPal Merchant Risk Management
-----End of Original Message-----
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