Christian Owens

An update, on the PayPal situation.

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 18:42:26 -0500

A quick update on my recent PayPal fiasco. It turns out all you need to get PayPal Mass Pay is $50k a month, why was this so difficult to find? And why couldn’t PayPal just tell me this? Instead of denying the service even existed, and making a complete ass of themselves in the process.

According to 2 days of research, and some helpful folks on Twitter, you require around $50,000 USD per month is sales, to qualify for an account manager. Do you know what an account manager gets you? Access to PayPal Mass Pay.

Now, I’m wondering, why couldn’t PayPal just have told me this? It’s not like it’s some big secret, although they do make the information extremely difficult to find (info is under the “What You Get” tab and then one of the options under the “Support” sub-tab).

Beats me.

Success.

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 18:26:21 -0500

Success.

My recent experience with PayPal Customer Service.

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 07:18:49 -0500

As some of you may know, I run a digital daily deals site, with a small close-knit team of awesome individuals. We (unfortunately) use PayPal to process our transactions.

A few weeks ago, we had the idea that we’d use PayPal Mass Pay (a service which I’ve used before) to automatically settle payments to our Employees, Affiliates and Vendors each night and pay out their earnings via PayPal. Awesome idea right? We only have our profits of sales going into our bank account, our employees are more motivated and our vendors are super happy!

Not the case.

I’ve used PayPal Mass Pay (and it’s associated APIs) many times in the past, it was a super convenient way for me to automate payments/ rev-share deals on software/ apps/ hacks that I’ve been a part of, thinking that it’d be an awesome way to integrate nightly payments into our current business, we set about coding systems that let us calculate payments and generate Mass Payment documents each night. We used PayPal’s developer sandbox, and it worked great.

Now came the time to implement this into our production site. So I login to our PayPal Business Account, navigate to “Send a Payment” then to “Send a Mass Payment” (they’re not exactly hiding it). I’m expecting to see the standard “Upload a Mass Payment Document” big orange button. Instead I see a grey button, and this message:

“We’re sorry, but your PayPal account isn’t currently eligible to send mass payments. Please contact either PayPal Customer Service or your account manager.”

“Ah, Ok then.” I think to myself, it seems like a simple fix, I’ve used this service before on this very PayPal account, so it won’t be a problem re-enabling it for our account. I’ll give them a call.

But I forgot. This is PayPal.

PayPal Customer Service Representative #1:

Me: Hi there, we have an existing PayPal business account with you, and we’re looking to you use your PayPal Mass Pay service to automate payments to our suppliers. We’ve used Mass Pay heavily in the past, but I’m getting a message saying we’re currently ineligible.
PayPal: Sorry, Mass Payments don’t exist.
Me: Excuse me? I’m looking at a page entitled ‘Send a Mass Payment’ and it says to contact you to enable the feature.
PayPal: Please Hold.
*Awkward Hold Music*
PayPal: Hi yes, you can’t use Mass Pay it’s invite only.
Me: Oh, I see, how does one go about getting invited?
PayPal: I don’t know.
Me: Is there anyone I could speak to who would know?
PayPal: No. You just get invited it’s automatic.
Me: Okay. What’s the criteria to be invited?
PayPal: I don’t know.
Me: Could I speak to someone who does know?
PayPal: No, no-one knows.
Me: So you’re telling me not one single person inside PayPal knows the eligibility requirements for PayPal Mass Pay?
PayPal: That’s correct. It’s automatic. Once you have a big account, you get invited.
Me: What about the person who implemented the automatic invite system, would he know the requirements?
PayPal: Maybe, but I don’t know who that was.
Me: Can you think of anyone who might be able to tell me what the requirements are?
PayPal: You can contact sales, they might be able to give you more information.
Me: Ok, can I have the numer?
PayPal: (UK) 0844 388 0470

Ok, so I dial the sales department, hoping that they’d be able to shed some light on the situation. (Hoping that I’d just spoken to one rather incompetent Customer Service representative).

PayPal Sales Representative #1:

Me: Hi there, I was referred to this number by one of your Customer Services representatives. I’m an existing PayPal customer, and we want to begin automating our payments to suppliers by using your Mass Payment servi—
PayPal: Sorry, we don’t offer a Mass Payment service.
Me: I’m on your website right now. Looking at your Mass Payments service.
PayPal: What’s your PayPal email address?
Me: billing@xxxxxxxx.com
PayPal: Please Hold.
*Awkward Hold Music*
PayPal: Yes, that feature doesn’t exist.
Me: I was just told by your Customer Services department that feature most certainly exists, but it’s by invite only.
PayPal: Have you been invited?
Me: No, I’m trying to go about finding the criteria to be invited to PayPal Mass Pay, and how someone goes about starting the process.
PayPal: Well, you haven’t been invited.
Me: Yes, I understand that. But I’ve viewed all of the sales pages on your website, and your Mass Pay fee calculator, and it’s something we’d love to use.
PayPal: Those pages must be a mistake, because Mass Payments don’t exist.
Me: I’ve been told they do, and I just have to be invited. Could I speak to someone who can tell me what it takes to be invited?
PayPal: No. Nobody in the company knows that.
Me: Ok then. Thanks for your lack of help.
PayPal: Thanks for calling PayPal.

So, thats my story.

PayPal says their clearly available feature ‘Mass Pay’ doesn’t exist, and that not a single person inside the company knows the eligibility requirements.

Well done PayPal.

sade: mhmm mhmm

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 13:40:59 -0500

sade:

mhmm mhmm

Hi, Do you have an email you can be reached on regarding a possible interview, highly interested in your work :)

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 07:00:03 -0500

me@christianowens.com

radioon: Proof that we’re in a Gosling bubble.

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 17:57:20 -0500

radioon:

Proof that we’re in a Gosling bubble.

siliconvalleyryangosling: Hey girl. We exceeded all projections...

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 06:04:30 -0500

siliconvalleyryangosling:

Hey girl. We exceeded all projections for Q4. But you’re the only year-end bonus I need. Happy Holidays.

siliconvalleyryangosling: Hey girl. It’s okay you only have...

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 07:05:00 -0500

siliconvalleyryangosling:

Hey girl. It’s okay you only have 0.001% equity in your company. You are the primary shareholder of my heart.

Bedphones!

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 11:33:13 -0500

Bedphones!

A reflection on the last few years...

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 19:28:06 -0500

Wow, have the last couple of years been incredible. It has had its ups and downs, but I thought I’d take a minute to reflect on some things from the past, and talk about moving forward, as we approach 2012, I want to make everything clear.

First off, I’d like to make myself accesible to anyone who wants to reach out, if you have a question or just want to say Hi, the best way to reach me is by email, here. I’d just like to say, I love reading the emails I do get, however, I get a lot, so give me time if it takes a while to respond.

I started in on this incredible journey, in about 2007 and what an awesome journey it’s been so far, I’ve met people I never thought I would meet, I’ve solved problems I never thought I would solve and I’ve accomplished more personally, than I ever thought I would. — Of course this isn’t a fairy tale, it hasn’t been without its problems. I made some mistakes in the past, and I’ll go into that right now.

When this all started, I was young, hell, I still am young. I still have a lot of learning and a lot of growing to do. Over the last few years, I’ve on occasion, been poor at communicating with the people who have attributed most to my success — independant software developers. If you don’t know what an independant software developer is, grab your iPhone, iPad, Android, Mac, PC or Windows Phone, check out all those incredible apps. The majority of those are made by these indie devs. I know, those guys are awesome.

On a large promotion in the past (called Vote Bundle) we had some serious issues with PayPal, we had an incredibly successful sale, and sold a lot of software in partnership with these developers. It was awesome. However, we had a problem, PayPal decided to limit our account, and hold the funds, we negotiated and negotiated with PayPal, yet nothing no budge no sympathy we were stuck. For the most part, the involved developers were understanding but after repeated attempts (and months passed) at trying to get PayPal to pay the money that was ours, all we were hit with were more delays. Understandably, the developers started to get angry.

This lead to a few of them blaming me entirely, I’m not saying I wasn’t partly to blame, we should have done more pre-planning with PayPal to ensure this wouldn’t happen. Although in my defence, I didn’t even know this could happen, let alone it actually happening to me. — Some of these developers were pretty vocal about what happened, and I completely understood their frustration, I was as frustrated as they were, but there was nothing that could have been done.

Fast forward a few weeks, and after repeated phone calls and several attempts to get higher up the PayPal food chain, we managed to get most of the money released. We were finally able to pay the developers everything they were owed, and the situation was resolved. Although, some of those post still remain online, I’m glad, regardless of what the developers said at the time, that this was resolved.

After that came the mistakes that were my fault. I do try my very hardest at what I do, to keep everyone happy and to still have great deals for everyone involved. Myself, the developers and the consumers. Unfortunately, during one promotion earlier this year, I let personal issues get in the way of business, and this caused me to neglect my corporate duties and we were 2 weeks late paying some developers for a promotion we’d ran. That one, is completely my fault, all I can do is apologize for that, and assure you all that it’ll never happen again.

We’ve made mistakes before, but we’re trying not to again, here’s what we’ve implemented to make sure everything is clear, and everyone is paid on time.

Standard deal agreements for everyone we run deals with. Indicating clearly and concisely the terms of the agreement and the payout schedule.
An industry standard 70/30 payout split, where the developer payment is split into two parts, 70% paid within 30 days of the end of the promotion, the remaining 30% paid within another 30 days. This allows us to protect everyone involved. The developers get the bulk of their payment quickly, the company is protected from any customer chargebacks, and the customer is protected by allowing us to always have the funds available to process refunds in a timely mannar.
Automated tracking and management systems for payments in and accounts payable. — We never had this before, and the majority of the issues for us were caused by organizational issues, with the masses of data that we go through.

I’ve also had the following things implemented to protect our customers, and to make sure they’re completely happy with everything our daily deals services are offering.

Secure payments by PayPal. — Although we mentioned that this was an issue in the past, we’ve upgraded our accounts and we’ve paid PayPal reserve funds to ensure our PayPal account is always open. PayPal is the safest method of payment for consumers, which is why we want to use it. One of the most important things, is that the people who use our services are protected.
We’re always approachable. — In the transition from Mac Bundle Box to Get Dealy, we decided we needed to put customer support at the forefront of our company. We’re always reachable by email (support@getdealy.com) and you can send a reply to any email sent by Get Dealy (including automated ones) and get a reply from a real human. We get a lot of email, but we’re working on getting our response time right down.
The “Purchases” page. When we moved from Mac Bundle Box to Get Dealy, we realised everything was segmented, no one had access to their previous purchases and it meant more email and slower responses from us. So with Get Dealy, we automatically store purchases in your account, and you can access them at future dates if you need to.

So thats my mistakes and how we’re trying to fix them, but we’ve done a lot of great things over the past few years too.

Mac Bundle Box donated 10% of its profit to various charities on most of the promotions it ran, and we’re working with a top charity now to get this implemented for all purchases on Get Dealy.

We transitioned Mac Bundle Box into Get Dealy and started offering not only incredible deals on Mac software but deals on Creative resources and now deals on materials for Learning and Education. We grew it from about 8,000 to over 65,000 active users in just 6 months.

Every day I learn how to do my job better, and I thank everyone for their feedback along the journey. I’ve made mistakes, everyone does, but I’ve rectified every mistake I’ve made, and continues to try and build something incredible, and it could never have been done without the support of our amazing team, Andrew, Harrison, Matt, Mike and Rachel. Thanks for your support over the last few years (or months, depending on how long you’ve been working with us) and for your dedication to not only Get Dealy, but to the enterprise as a whole.

I’m going to continue doing what I’m doing, I’ll probably make more mistakes, but I’ll learn from them, and grow as a person, becoming better at what I do with everything I do. Each mistake, error or correction I have to make means this organization becomes stronger as a whole.

I hope anyone who decides to read this will support it in growing. Remember, don’t always believe what you read, because there’s always more to every story. If you read something about me, it could be true or it could be false. I’m going to make the rest of 2011, and the rest of my life, about being the best me I can be. Got a question, want me to clarify something, email me, or grab me in person. I’ll be attending a bunch more events over 2012, so I’ll be in various cities around the world. Drop me an email, and send me a tweet, if you want to grab coffee.

Sidenote: It’s late, and this is a one-draft post, so please excuse any spelling errors and/or gramatical mistakes.

The biggest sale in internet history starts soon.

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 05:14:45 -0500

The biggest sale in internet history starts soon.

I hope that guitar was over 18.

Sun, 09 Oct 2011 22:40:19 -0400

I hope that guitar was over 18.

What could this be? ;) (Taken with instagram)

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 07:16:45 -0400

What could this be? ;) (Taken with instagram)

A series of photos Steve took in my office testing Photo Booth...

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 06:06:04 -0400

A series of photos Steve took in my office testing Photo Booth filters in 2005. Rest in peace.

– Mike Matas

Think Different.

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 20:41:22 -0400

Think Different.

Unfillable.

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 20:39:15 -0400

Unfillable.

I have a coffee company, how did that happen?

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 16:10:35 -0400

As some of you may know, I recently started my first endeavor into a business orientated around physical products. I didn’t exactly pick the easiest of products, I picked a consumable product, coffee.

In addition to being consumable, adding another degree of difficulty, it’s also the worlds second most traded commodity, meaning the price of the raw materials differs drastically not only from week to week, but from minute to minute.

Regardless, I decided to start this company back in December of last year, and it’s been six months of pure planning and then at the very end of August we hit that all important milestone and launched our first two blends of coffee into the world. Around one month on and we’ve made some exciting developments.

We’ve completely revamped our packaging, and we’ve been selling a considerable number of bags of coffee each week, and we’ve even done our first event, having a booth at the renowned Oxford Food & Wine festival, all thanks to a very helpful organizer who was kind enough to invite us.

In the month, we’ve also launched our wholesale department, selling coffee in bulk to restaurants, cafés, hotels and other establishments and we’ve got some awesome locations on board, and some exciting developments to announce in the coming weeks.

All in all, it has been an amazing experience thus far, selling an incredible product to some incredible people. Hopefully this is the birth of a brand, and I can go along for the ride and watch it flourish into one of the cornerstone brands of the next decade. We shall see, but as always, I’m hopeful.

Peace, love and coffee.
Christian

sade: stilljenn: LOL, you know I sat here doing this shit for...

Mon, 05 Sep 2011 06:57:34 -0400

sade:

stilljenn:

LOL, you know I sat here doing this shit for like, five minutes, right?

Reminds me of this brilliance:

this is everything

appleinside: Ho appena acquistato il bundle di 10 ebook (iBooks...

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 12:09:54 -0400

appleinside:

Ho appena acquistato il bundle di 10 ebook (iBooks compatibili) editi da Smashing Magazine e offerti in sconto da Get Dealy per $ 27,00 (€ 19,00 c.ca al cambio).

Spero di non avere troppi problemi a decifrarne i contenuti (sono in inglese) ma sono altresì fiduciosa sul fatto che mi aiuteranno a migliorare le mie competenze in ambito grafico.

Se siete interessati all’offerta, sbrigatevi, perché rimangono 15 ore di tempo allo scadere della promozione.

It’s in Italian, but it’s today’s Get Dealy creative deal, we partnered with Smashing Magazine to offer 10 of their eBooks for just $27. (A huge saving): Check it out…

This is beauty.

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 20:22:12 -0400

This is beauty.