The pre-pay deal

[Guest]

Jason, let me first start by saying I appreciate your efforts in making this DVD happen, and I don't want you to take anything I say personally or in too much of a negative way. If it weren't for you, we wouldn't even be having these discussions! So, THANKS.

Now I must say that after reading through the note I just received about the changes in the terms of the DVD pre-purchase, my "scam alert" just started blaring in my head. A $20 deposit is one thing, but requiring the full payment up front has made me significantly more cautious about the whole deal. Basically, the only guarantee we would have after agreeing to an up-front payment is your good name. I simply cannot believe that there is no other way to make this deal work while still protecting the financial interests of both buyer and seller. I understand that the CC authorization will not remain open for the time period that we are talking about, but what I fail to understand is why you feel it necessary to keep authorizations open in the first place. Why can't you handle this as two separate charges, each authorized separately?

I would even be willing to do a 50% downpayment without wincing. But please understand that you are asking a tremendous leap of faith on the part of your customers to insist that the entire thing be paid up front. Those of us who have been burned in the past are wary of making that leap again.

Finally, I know that I can back out of the deal and get my deposit back, and i appreciate that. But I <I>don't want</I> to back out of the deal. I want to purchase the DVD set!

Bill (who is only anonymous because he is too lazy to sign up )

[Jason R]

The only thing I will say on the whole matter is, to me, the #1 ideal situation would have been for BMG to have put the DVD out years ago. I probably would have kept my job there too. I'll avoid that rant. Everybody knows it all too well.

With that aside, I think it is a fair situation. I also think that the criticism is fair, and has never been mean-spirited. And AU realizes that it is asking for a lot.

That is why the pre-order price is $15 less than retail ($115, check it out on the AU site, since pre-orders are over that has been the price). That is why a lot of extra stuff is going into pre-order versions.

That is also why we have maintained a constant flow of information here and by email. As things are completed, we will post them. As artwork is cleared, I hope to give previews. Nevertheless, the most important thing, to me, is a press release from BMG. This has basically been written and is going through various levels of bureaucracy at a certain company. (which I know very well...) However, the press release should be out soon.

Everybody can legitimately claim and feel that they are a part of this because, quite frankly, nobody was in a rush to put this out before the fans spoke up.

So, is a lot of this pretty unusual for ordering a DVD? Of course. It hasn't been tried before, and we learned, and are still learning lessons along the way.

But, I think as you start to see the pieces come together, you will be very pleased.

Jason

[bellacat]

[danguyf]

If it's any consolation, credit card transactions are authomatically insured for everything beyond the first $50 (coincidentaly roughly 50% of the cost of this boxed set), so that is the most you could lose in a scam.

Another Universe has a good name, at least among my friends and from what I've heard online from those who have bought from them before. I don't think they'd be risking the good name of their company in order to try to scam a group of people for what is, ultimately, only a tiny percentage of the money AU brings in every month.

IMHO, the worst that could happen here is that everyone gets a full refund this August, once the six months have passed. Whereas the more probable scenario is that we all get MSCL in its entirety on DVD at last.

[Jason R]

1) Is every pre-ordered being charged full price or just certain orders? Are we being charged shipping too?

-In the past few weeks, some showed as full charges, and some showed as $20 (and there was an authorization for the rest). The latest updates asked to approve charge for box set, also allows for cancellation. Shipping is not being charged yet. In vast majority of cases, i.e. USA (sorry, fans from abroad) orders before 3/1 there was no ship charge. The others will be contacted about a week before shipment.

2) Why can't AU give us something in writing before we authorized full payment?

Email is the quickest and most cost effective way to contact this many people. However, a proof of payment will be snail-mailed to you confirming your order.

3) Will they cancel the DVD if a lot of people cancel because of the full price deal?

No way,no how. DVD is *not* being cancelled. There is no way to turn back now. So far, *very few* have cancelled. Amazingly few. Like 2%. That is very low.

[Guest]

<blockquote>
Nevertheless, the most important thing, to me, is a press release from BMG. This has basically been written and is going through various levels of bureaucracy at a certain company. (which I know very well...) However, the press release should be out soon.
</blockquote>

How long do we have to decide on the full-price or cancel issue? Can I wait until I see the BMG press release? You are right about that increasing my comfort level and I would like to wait until I see that.

<blockquote>
It hasn't been tried before, and we learned, and are still learning lessons along the way.
</blockquote>

One lesson that I think you and AU should take with you from this experience is trying to find a better way to do pre-order deposits. Thanks for your response.

Bill

[LFonseca]

I don't mean to be rude. I don't participate here because I really don't have the time. I do appreciate Jason's efforts to get the series on dvd. But I'm affraid what is happening here is corporate greed taking over good sense and a big fat company asking fans to pull down their pants or else.

Let me see if I get this straight.

AU charged $20 US to my VISA as a pre-order for the MSCL boxed set. This was *charged* to my card, it was on my last invoice and was paid by me. As opposed to a card verification, which only affects my credit limit, until it is actually converted to a debt or expires.

So what exactly is the problem? Now I have to pay the full cost 4 months in advance because you can't keep the credit card verified? It was a debit in my card for $20, not a verification.

Why can't they wait until the boxed sets are ready and then charge the rest?? Since I would not be able to cancel "because I wanted to" (ie, without a valid reason like delays) and in case I did, I would loose my 20 bucks, I would expect the same courtesy from the other side. Now it's either pay in full or your pre-order goes down the trash?

No offense but what the hell are u people? Amateurs? AU doesn't know what they are doing half of the time, but this being a "fan-managed" operation I sincerely expected better judgement and not a half-wit excuse. If you don't have enough money to produce the boxed sets without full payment in advance, fine, that's one thing, but be honest about it. Otherwise, try to have your brains instead of wallets do the thinking. People will not want to loose $20, if they were willing to pay that in advance it's because they want the set. And even if people cancel, say 5%, they'll still loose their deposit of $20, which AU gets to keep, and you'll still be more than able to sell whatever leftovers you keep probably at a premium.

Your so-called "choice A" leaves the costumer indebted for an ammount of close to 100 bucks which he'll loose, for instance, if AU bankrupts. I'm not saying this'll happen, but it's a fact to consider, specially considering the way AU deals with its costumers in other areas. Additionally, the costumer pays for a product 4 months in advance of delivery, and we're not talking about a special, custom designed, hand-crafted 100 grand product either, but common, everyday, $.50 a piece to manufacture dvds. And all this for a printed pre-order certificate. Yay! The alternative is giving up on the product altogether? Damned if u do, damned if u don't.

Want the legal argument? Fine. When a person pre-orders he gets into a legally binding contract where he either buys the product when it gets released or looses his deposit. AU is obligated to either deliver the product or if that is not at all possible return the money. However, cancelling the pre-order, even if returning the pre-payment, because it decides to change all the rules and the costumer doesn't agree, I'm affraid not. Maybe it's legal, I'm sure they stuck a clause like "we have the right to cancel any order for any reason" somewhere to make it so, but it certainly says a lot of the way AU sees it's costumer, and I certainly don't like being thought of as the cash cow.

Now let me make this simple for you, I am not cancelling my pre-order and I'll not pay one penny more before the product is released or there is a decent explanation for this situation. In fact, I'm going to ignore the email altogether, and I urge everyone to do the same. WE ARE BEING PLAYED. It's a simple fact. AU wins either way. If the launch date comes and your card doesn't verify they win $20 and get stuck with an extra dvd to sell, which I'm sure won't be that difficult considering the response. If your card does verify, they make the sell as expected.

What kind of professionalism can we really expect from a company that doesn't make a simple business plan about a product, whose site doesn't work properly, who haven't even figured out international shipping costs? What stops them from asking for more money tomorrow? And going a little back, what about the shipping costs themselves? Will they charge them on shipment? What if your card then doesn't verify? Do you loose the full ammount previously paid? What if you change address? Too many questions.

Jason, I know this probably isn't your fault on a personal level, but as the middle-man and the can-do person I would strongly suggest you talk to whoever is in charge and put things back in track.

Yes, I understand if the powers that be delete this, but heck, can't blame a guy for trying. BTW, I'm not cancelling my order, but not authorising any more charges until delivery either. Cancel it if you must.

Luis Fonseca, lems@lems.jazznet.pt, who is having a really bad week.

[LFonseca]

Again, sorry for venting.

Just for fun, I'll add AU's reply to my email, and my reply to theirs. This is getting interesting. I'm sorry to say but this company doesn't care about their costumers especially those outside the US. Have a look at their international shipping rates and consider that if you allow this to proceed you're giving them "carte blanche" to charge you whatever shipping they want. If they can't keep a simple agreement, what makes you think they'll do anything right?

Their mail:

Hello Luis,

If you wish to cancel the order, you will be refunded your $20.00 deposit,
as was stated from the beginning if there were any changes. We have no
intention of changing the rules on you and then keeping your money.

The $20 you were charged for the pre-order was for the pre-order deposit,
and was never intended to be a pre-authorization. The remaining balance
We found would not stay as a pre-authorization for as long as we needed to
make sure that the money would be there when the product was ready to ship.
Because of this we were forced ask permission to charge the full amount
ahead of time, to make sure that we would be able to cover all costs of the
production in the event of non-payments and cancellations.

The DVDs are right now being produced by BMG and are expected to ship on
6/18/02, less than 3 months away.

We are very sorry that we had to change the way things are done, but we
tried to make it clear from the start that this may be a possibility, and
allowed for a full refund of the deposit if customers were unhappy with any
changes that came along.

As for the production quality of the DVDs these are being totally
re-mastered and custom designed, with a special Lunch Box case designed just
for the pre-order release, not to mention the extras disk.

We are sorry you are upset with this situation, and would gladly refund you
your full pre-order deposit, but hope you will still keep your order with
us.

Justin Martin
AnotherUniverse.com
Web Administrator.

My reply:

What you are doing is bad business practice to say the least. I am a businessman myself, it's not that I don't understand what you are doing, it's that it's blackmailing your costumers into either paying full cost in advance or not getting the product at all. This would be all fine and dandy except a), it's not the type of product you'd expect to have to pre-order 4 months in advance, and b), it's a change of plan after you "supposedly" sell out 5000+ pre-orders for a product which will sell as hotcakes with the excuse that you are affraid you'll be out of money when the product is available.

Let me tell you a few additional things while at it:

1, whoever though this through, if he worked for me, would now be out of a job > bad preparation > bad research > lack of interest.

2, how commited are you to this product? Why not take 5 minutes to figure out shipping costs to every potential costumer? heck, let me do it for you. Shipment of a 2 pound package costs $20 to every destination in western europe. Add what, $10 p&p, $30. Want me to do the rest? Again, very, very bad preparation. If you don't want to sell this, fine, but never, ever, promote a product you're not commited to, nor leave any easily (or difficultly for that matter) answearable questions unanswered.

3, when I pre-ordered this, your website couldn't even figure out how not to charge me for p&p. Guess what, it takes 30 minutes to do a pre-order form, 1 hour if you want it to interface with an sql database, to take a pre-order in whatever format you want. Again, this shows a very bad lack of commitment to this product.

Why should I think you'll do anything better? Say, imagine I do go through with the order and allow you to charge the rest to my card. What stops you from saying shipping to Europe will cost $100 (which btw goes inline with the completely ridiculous shippping costs you list for your other products)? 90% of the world is not the US. And then if I don't accept that, I'll no longer be in my right to cancel this order, will I? $39.95 to ship a single comic book to the UK? Oh, yeah, that's very, very fair. It costs $2 in stamps, if as much.

My point is, this sudden and unjustified change of plans just proves you cannot be trusted. What I wrote before remains and I do fully hope you'll honor your initial agreement.

Should I quote your "bill of rights"? "We're not satisfied until you are! We work hard to provide you with a safe, secure and simple shopping experience."

Get real, people.

Have a nice day.

[somamoons]

Sorry to butt in here, but you said you're having a bad week, and it appears to be affecting your views on this situation. Please do not read this post as a flame, because it's not. I'm just trying to help clarify.

1) You said AU are amateurs. They aren't amateurs. They've been around for years - I've bought stuff from them and they have always performed as professionally as I would expect a business to.

2) You said that if people cancel, they loose their $20 deposit. That's NOT true. The emails have said numerous times that if you choose to cancel, you will be refunded ANY money you have paid, including the $20 deposits.

3) Yes it sucks that the fans have to pay up front, but I do believe this was an unforseen mistake. As the email said: "AU has never had an authorization period this long and ran into an unforeseen situation. We learned that the CC authorization cannot remain open for 3-4 months without becoming invalid." I think this is pretty self explanatory why they have to charge everyone now. And being the first person to notify them that the charges where occurring with the debit cards, and then seeing them struggling to figure out what to do, I believe that this truly was unforeseen.

4) I don't really see what's so inflammatory about the email they sent you. They explained clearly that they were sorry about the unforeseen charges, and told you that a full refund (including your deposit) would be given anytime you decide to cancel.

5) Yes, the international shipping rates are extortionist. You should blast them for that. Unfortunately they have the right to charge whatever they want.

6) "What stops you from saying shipping to Europe will cost $100?" - AU's international shipping charges are listed on their website. If they try to charge you more, you can sue.

Hope this makes you feel better.

[Ross Rojek]

As we told all the international orders, we would charge exact shipping when we were ready to bill, minus $6.00 (about the free shipping for the US).

Things change. Particularly when working with a company like BMG.

We didn't sell out of 5,000. we sold out of 2,500. Which, BTW, is less than BMG is requiring that we purchase.

If this will "sell like hotcakes" then why wouldn't BMG put it out?

So we'll refund your $20 and if you wish to purchase the DVD when it is physically available, we'll be more than happy to sell it to you then. We may not have any of the collectors version left, but we will have the 19 volumes for a while.

Yes there are issues with the international shipping. We'll re-do them when we've got the time.

And yes, actual production of a DVD is about $0.50. But that doesn't count authoring, sub-titling, licensing fees and the like. Our pricing has already gone up from what BMG first told us, and we're going to eat those fees. But all BMG's costs we have to pay. Plus the stuff we're doing in addition.

[Guest]

I didn't let my bad week interfere.

1) AU are at the very least bad business. a) No company that charges $40 bucks to ship a comic that weights 50g and costs $3 to Europe is worth 30 seconds of my time. It's a disrespect to everyone outside of the US that could be interested in their products. b) They exist only on account of getting exclusive items noone else has. If this was not the case, they'd be long gone.

2) False. You only recover your deposit if your cancellation is due to changes or unexpected delays. You can't cancel "just because". I never said they wouldn't give back the money in this case, I did say you are not free to cancel without reason, apparently that's their exclusive right (and again an abuse).

3) Again, you are wrong. Having $20 bucks of your money is more than enough reason for you not to cancel. It's called a "signal" or downpayment, or whatever. If you don't buy, you don't get your $20 back, and that is incentive enough to keep cancellation to a mininum. And they can deal with problems with credit cards if and when they come up, when the items are ready to ship. I'm sure it's a lot less trouble than dealing with the mess they just created.

4) The email is bull. The so-called explanation is nothing but a smokescreen to hide corporate greed. They want your money and they want it now. That's fact. Everything else is an excuse.

5) Yes, they do, but they have the obligation to say how much this product will cost you in a whole, including shipping. Besides it's a disrespect for anyone outside the US. Sorry, this is my opinion, but I'm sure nobody buys from them elsewhere, it's not extortion it's downright robbery.

6) - Again wrong. Their "press release" or whatever claims "exact shipping cost will be charged. Can we really trust this after this mess?

Luis

[LFonseca]

You know what, I'm tired of this crap, this was supposed to be a good thing and you turned it upside down with nothing but corporate greed, so I'm not waiting for a refund I'm calling my credit card company today to reverse the charge. This a problem for you? Good. At this point I no longer care whether or not I get this set. It'll be available from someone else at some point.
Have a nice life.

[Ross Rojek]

That's ok with me. I'll let the bookeeper know that you'll be doing a chargeback, and not to worry about your credit.

Corporate greed? If we sell more than 4,000 we start to make money. Until then it's a loss leader.

It may be available from someone else at some point. Between now and next year, anyone who wants to resell it, has to buy it from us. After our excusivity is over, BMG may decide to put it out themselves. However since they don't sell direct and have to take returns from retailers, this project isn't and doesn't look like it ever will be on their release schedule.

[Ross Rojek]

Actually there has been very little problem with this. Last count I saw, less than 10 people had choosen to cancel (including you).

Actually a vast majority of the international customers are repeat customers. And while they do buy some exclusives, most of our sales are currently available products. About 30% of our total sales come from overseas. And overseas shipments account for most of out "lost in transit" packages that we can't track.

[danguyf]

I don't think that AU is "a big fat company", as companies go. BMG fits that bill, and that's why they haven't deigned to release MSCL in its entirety themselves.

I agree that payment should be handled differently in the future.

You are wrong to state that "even if people cancel, say 5%, they'll still loose their deposit of $20"; anyone who cancels gets a full refund, deposit and all. You state, in a later post, that "You only recover your deposit if your cancellation is due to changes or unexpected delays. You can't cancel ''just because''."; well, this *is* a change ergo you can cancel and get a full refund -- it says so right in the email. Again you say "If you don't buy, you don't get your $20 back", which again is blatantly false.

How is it that "AU deals with its costumers in other areas"? I've never had any problems ordering from them. (And why are we talking about costumers? Does AU sell costumes? Or do they simply sell costume-related materials to costumers so that they can make these costumes? ^_^)

You state: "and we're not talking about a special, custom designed, hand-crafted 100 grand product either, but common, everyday, $.50 a piece to manufacture dvds" To which I would add: in special, custom designed packaging and with a bonus disc.

"They exist only on account of getting exclusive items noone else has. If this was not the case, they'd be long gone." This is the first AU-exclusive of which I'm aware (which is not to say that there haven't been others, just that if there have I haven't purchased one of them). Everything else I've purchased from them I could have gotten from my local comic store, Suncoast movie store, or gaming store. From what I've seen, the vast majority of what they sell are non-exclusive items, and yet they remain in business.

And then the most laughable part: "The email is bull. The so-called explanation is nothing but a smokescreen to hide corporate greed. They want your money and they want it now. That's fact. Everything else is an excuse." That's a fact, is it? And how do you know this, pray tell? I've watched Jason in action, through email exchanges initiated through mscl.com, trying to resolve all of the customer's issues, and I really don't think it has all been a "smokescreen" performance for my benefit.

You seem to have a great deal of bitterness by this last message. I hope that outside factors and/or your erroneous conclusions haven't lead you to do something you'll regret later (and if so, I hope you don't take it out on the next guy, as I begin to suspect you have done here). "It'll be available from someone else at some point." Yes, it's called eBay, and you should expect to pay a lot more than $100. And if someone else brings the set out a year from now, remember that it won't include the bonus disc or the lunchbox packaging.

We'd all like a few more details and a little more reassurance, perhaps, but jumping to unfounded conclusions and then railing against a company that is taking a risk to give the fans what they want is counter-productive and merely clouds the issue(s) by stirring up emotions.

Lastly -- yes, we could have just deleted your post, but we wouldn't do that. I believe that there is nothing to fear from the truth.