April 17th, 2008
Psystar: We're legit, but our merchant gateway dropped us
This Psystar meets Mac clone saga gets more curious by the minute. Psystar, which has received a ton of press for offering Mac clones loaded with OS X, said it’s not a sham. Instead, the company notes that its merchant gateway “dropped the ball on us and refused to process any more transactions from the company.”
We’re in the process of moving to a new location which is now listed on our contact page. The first new address posted (10481) was in error and our correct address is 10475 NW 28th Street. PSYSTAR was, prior to this past week, not ready to handle the enormous production capacity demanded by the online community. Due to the incredible response we have now expanded to a larger commercial unit to handle the supplies and assembly of Open Computers. THANK YOU for all of your orders.
Midday yesterday our store was not receiving any orders. This was due to the fact that our merchant gateway, Powerpay, dropped the ball on us and refused to process any more transactions from our company. We have reverted to Paypal until we can find a high-volume merchant. Apparently Powerpay was not ready to handle the community’s demand for Open Computing.
If you’re experiencing problems with our online store then please send a detailed e-mail to support@psystar.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it that will include the following facts about the computer that you’re trying use our website with:
* Operating System
* Web Browser and version
* any error messages that you may receive
Due to the wave of orders for Open Computers coming through there is currently a 10 to 12 day build time for all products.
Is this company (all resources) run by high school kids? How about taking Visa like most legit vendors?
In any case, I’d steer clear from this mess until Psystar proves itself. I’ve been seduced by a sham $150 laptop before and know the drill with faux vendors.
Update: News.com’s Tom Krazit has the following quote from PowerPay:
Louisa Deluca, vice president of loss prevention for Powerpay, said on Thursday that her company dropped Psystar because it violated the terms of its agreement with Powerpay. She declined to cite specific violations, but said “there are plenty of reasons why we shut the account off. We did not know that’s what he was selling, we learned that yesterday.”
So I see some folks disagree with my take on Psystar, but here’s the point: When a payment processing outfit cuts you off all of a sudden it may raise a few alarm bells–especially when no one has heard of this outfit until a few a days ago. Maybe Psystar is the next HP or Apple, but I’d rather let you trusting souls be the guinea pigs before I pay up for a Mac clone. If it sounds too good to be true it probably is. If Psystar ships a few hundred thousands of these pups then buy away. But right now this outfit sounds risky to me.
Update 2: The Psystar store seems to be working and I’ve gone through the checkout process without pulling the trigger. Anyone want to go for it?
Update 3: I placed an order, but just when I was about to seal the deal for $604 with shipping I got the following bug.
Go figure. The damn pulldown menu won’t work.
Update 4: Richard Koman has a long statement from PowerPay’s CEO on the matter.
Also see:
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and Editorial Director of ZDNet sister site TechRepublic. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 04/17/08
