Mijn Klacht:

Sinds juni bevriest Paypal de community-funding van een project dat Voortkomt uit de Nokia N900 (een 2008 model Super Mobiel, dat nog dagelijks door 10.000den fanatisch enthousiaste N900 gebruikers wordt gebruikt. (Ikzelf bezit 3 van die toestellen!).

Het project is opgezet vanuit het Forum van de website MAEMO.org (Maemo + Meego zijn de Nokia besturingssystemen) die op de N900 zijn geïnstalleerd.

De doelstelling van het N900.NEO project is dat de N900 wordt geüpdate met de laatste moederborden en communicatie middelen, zodat de N900 nog jaren in de toekomst kan worden gebruik!

De funding houdt in dat er vvoldoende middelen bijeen gebracht worden om de update en de aanschaf van de daarvoor benodigde onderdelen bijeen te brengen.

Het is een schande hoe mensen benadeeld worden en dat men zo minimallistisch communiceerd dat het lijkt of PAYPAL, in financiële problemen verkeerd en door zo mogelijk meerdere van dit projecten te frustreren, Ontzettend grote sommen geld onder zich kan houden!

Zij zouden als er juridische problemen zouden zijn het geld minimaal moeten afstorten op een 3de rekening van een notaris, ipv van de DIEF te spelen!

Gewenste Oplossing:

Als u na lezing van bijgesloten e-mail van N900.NEO iets kan doen om Paypal tot de orde te roepen zou dat door duizenden hogelijk gewaardeerd worden.

Wij geloven in de N900 EN in de beloften van deze Mobile-freaks!!!!

Hier is de tekst van de zojuist ontvangen e-mail:

QUOTE:
Dear Neo900 supporter,

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.

UNQUOTE