Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Breaking news: 2co cancel Medison-orders!

Several persons have reported both on different forums and in e-mails to me that they have had their orders canceled by 2checkout, the payment provider Medison uses. The mail has been sent to the persons that got a shipping notice and had their credit cards charged three and a half weeks ago. The e-mail contains the following text:

"Dear 2Checkout customer, I thank you for your patience regarding your Medison Celebrity Laptop. I apologize, but due to certain logistical problems, your laptop will not be able to be delivered at this time. 2Checkout.com has issued you a full refund and you should see this on your statement within 5-7 days. 2Checkout.com will contact you and inform you when you may replace your order for your Medison Celebrity laptop."

This means that 2co confirms that these orders was marked as shipped in their system before any actual shipment was made. What surprises me most about this is that it seems like 2co will keep on having Medison as a supplier, even that this is a clear violation of their own Terms of service for suppliers. The terms clearly states that the suppliers account should be "immediately suspended":

"If 2CO ascertains that Supplier is allowing or conducting any of the following listed activities, the Account will be immediately suspended and funds for completed sales of products or services to 2CO will be withheld from Supplier pursuant to Section 13:
[...]
Prematurely Marking Products as Shipped to Customer: Notifying 2CO that a Product has been shipped to a Customer prior to shipment having occurred."

I'm getting more and more confused about 2co's actions each day, I wonder what they really are up too?

---

Update: As a reader noted in the comments, it is not currently possible to place any orders trough 2co currently, after the first page it gives an error. I of course ask 2co why this is, and if they actually have suspended the account after all!

46 comments:

Anonymous said...

try to buy a laptop from medison, he isn't a supplier

Anonymous said...

Hmm, click the buy now and you see the 2CO checkout page, type quantity higher than 0 (such as 1..), and click the button to checkout.

I get this: "Parameter Error."

Repeated several times.

Anonymous said...

Maybe someone FINALLY got fired at 2CO?

Anonymous said...

If you're so confused as to what 2CO is "up to", then why don't you actually call them and ask them yourself? I have used 2CO's services before and they are certainly a legit company and not trying to cheat anyone out of anything....

Here is the link to contact them -
http://www.2checkout.com/community/?p=280

Tommy TruthSeeker said...

@1&2: Thanks, i have updated the post with this info.

Unknown said...

Valdi's pants full of shit :) I am sure they WILL NOT take any orders anymore. They FINALLY realized they were the first company to sell $150 laptops

Tommy TruthSeeker said...

"If you're so confused as to what 2CO is "up to", then why don't you actually call them and ask them yourself?"

Me and several other persons have tried to get any usefull answers for a long time from 2co, both via their forum and other ways. Just some days ago they claimed to journalists that laptops actually had been received by customers, which of course wasn't true. Check their forums yourself and you will find their nonsense-answers.

Anonymous said...

Wasn´t http://www.medison.se/ suppose to close down?? No it is working again.

Tommy TruthSeeker said...

It's hosted by another hosting-company now, bravenet.

Anonymous said...

Hm, well that's weird - when I called 2CO, I was told that they had suspended Medisen's account. I got my answers promptly and they were very frank in telling me that on the phone.

Anonymous said...

"Valdi's pants full of shit :)"

Will you stop with this, I told you I replace my pants within 4-6 weeks, didn't I?

Anonymous said...

"Hm, well that's weird - when I called 2CO, I was told that they had suspended Medisen's account. I got my answers promptly and they were very frank in telling me that on the phone."

Can you please post the phone here so Tommy can confirm.

Please no one else call, let's not turn this into phone hooliganism.

It's best one trusted person confirms, and we trust Tommy as our blog host.

Also: is by suspended meant temporarily, or permanently..?

Tommy TruthSeeker said...

Why should I call? I prefer written communication as it's easy to be misunderstood and misquoted (just ask Valdi, it happens to him all the time!). It's just as easy for them to reply on their forum, and that way the answer is verifiable by all parts.

Anonymous said...

Why should I call? I prefer written communication as it's easy to be misunderstood and misquoted

I'm any experience, tickets and forum posts is the worst way to get fair and quick answers (compared to a phone call).

Not just 2CO, but anywhere. But as you wish.

Tommy TruthSeeker said...

I agree that it's quicker, but it's still hard to get documented answers. I have used e-mails and ticket-systems for all other contacts on this blog, and I haven't had a single problem getting an accurate and prompt answer from anyone but Medison and 2co. And as decribed by other bloggers and media, their answers can't be trusted anyway. If I get an answer via phone that afterwards is shown as not true, my quotes as a blogger is worthless.
Plus, I don't feel that comfortable with my spoken English, you should know how much I use blogspots built in spell-checker on this blog ;)

Anonymous said...

I can confirm that 2co has suspended Valdi's account. Welp, that is the end of that.

Anonymous said...

..and that was the end of sweet Molly Malone .. :-)

Anonymous said...

OMG - how the hell are we going to pass the time now, since this soap is over ?

Or, wait, let's wait for the release of the sequel, Valdi 2.0 ! :)

Anonymous said...

"Plus, I don't feel that comfortable with my spoken English, you should know how much I use blogspots built in spell-checker on this blog ;)"

You know, I don't feel comfortable with my spoken English, but in the end turns out it doesn't matter. They'll understand you and you'll understand them :)

Anonymous said...

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Anonymous said...

Tommy get ready to be sued.

I was in the toy-store and bought myself a lawyer. He can say "We'll talk about the fees later" and "I'll get your ass in court".

Anonymous said...

Yes Valdi - you pooped your pants for nothing, because now you can't sell them !

Anonymous said...

By the way check this posted on 2CO's forums 3 months ago:

"2CO Staff you are quickly making this forum into a farce by not answering the actual questions being asked. If this section of the forum is to answer vendors questions, help both our relationships and improve 2CO, then i suggest you actually start answering the hard questions you are being asked about your service by your contracted, paying vendors."

Looks like 2CO isn't any easier on their vendors, before, and most likely after the Medison farce.

Anonymous said...

"Yes Valdi - you pooped your pants for nothing, because now you can't sell them !"

Forget the pants, I paid over $150 for brand new hosting just 2 days ago, and that's useless to me now!

That's a substantial amount of the funds I had present for this venture.

Damn it, with those $150 I could've ordered a laptop from myself.

What do I do now :( ?

My wife will kill me...

Anonymous said...

As a suitable epitaph to this story: out of the 394 posts on the Customer forum of 2CO, 352 relate to Medison, and that is 89 % !!!!!

I think (ahem , I guess, at least) 2Co curse the day they entered into the suicide pact with Valdi :-)

Anonymous said...

''I think (ahem , I guess, at least) 2Co curse the day they entered into the suicide pact with Valdi :-)''

I think they are too apathetic to even curse about anything. Probably in few months they'll look back and think "wtf we kept this running for so long, oh well, whateva, whateva.. let's see what other mess we got ourselves into today.."

Madsen said...

Yeah, it seems that medison.se is up again, but seeing as at least two different sources claim that 2CO has suspended Medison's account, it's probably no use for Valdi. He has no dealer anymore - and the lack of an FCC approval (and EC too?) only confirms what a lot of us have been saying all along. There is no $150 laptop.

Following is my (probably premature) take on a post-mortem for this whole affair...

Even though I'm sure this whole incident has been really rough on Valdi (and probably will be for a while yet) I hope he's learned something from it. I'm quite certain though, that he'll probably blame the various bloggers who's been sceptic from day one, while he obviously could've solved this whole thing by simply posting a few pics and/or disclosing a little more information.

That's not to say that I think he's quite done yet, I think he'll still make one or two last futile attempts at bringing the $150 laptop to the world. Don't get me wrong, the idea is very noble and I'm sure he had only the very best of intentions, but somewhere along the road he should probably have consulted someone who actually lives in the real world - someone who could have told him that on the internet, when things seem too good to be true, people usually think they aren't true. That seemed to be the thing that surprised him the most.

Thanks to people like Tommy, those of us interested in following the development on this matter, had the chance to find a lot of it in this one place. Let me just say, that I think most were/are here because this whole thing is really, really far out - even fascinating. If Valdi had just backed down and disappeared when someone first suspected it for being a scam, then it would have been "just another failed scam on the internet", but the fact that Valdi fought so hard to convince people that it wasn't almost made it believable. That is, until Valdi started appearing as a pathological liar without any sense of reality whatsoever. Too bad he didn't succeed - the world really could use a $150 laptop.

For me, this has been an interesting, sometimes a bit scary, story of the human mind and the social workings of the internet.

Sorry for this overly long post, just couldn't stop once I got started. :)

Anonymous said...

anders.k

You are quite right.

The other interesting aspect of this saga is the actual number of people who DID order, and the moste likely enormous crowd of supporters/believers sitting on the fence ready with their credit-cards just in case ...

The gullibility of mankind is unsurpassed ! :) It is sad that common sense goes out the window in such cases.

Anonymous said...

I want to greet you all with Jamiroquai's Virtual Insanity song!

Great job all, thanks Tommy for your hard work, and to the guys doing the translations, wiki updates, and notifying us of the news as soon as they come.

Oh yeah what we're living in (let me tell ya)
It' a wonder man can eat at all
When things are big
That should be small
Who can tell what magic spells we'll be doing for us.
And I'm giving all my love to this world
Only to be told
I can't see, I can't breathe
No more will we be
And nothing's gonna change the way we live
Cuz we can always take and never give
And now that things are changing for the worse,
See, it's a crazy world we're living in
And I just can't see that half of us immersed in sin
Is all we have to give these

Futures made of virtual insanity
now always seem, to be governed by this love we have
For useless, twisting, our new technology
Oh now there is no sound for we all live underground

...

Anonymous said...

and now it's official:
link to the death sentence

Anonymous said...

Gosh, this "Parameter Error" on the 2CO web site is just a so incredible "Valdish" way of communicating to customers.

Medison and 2CO have very similar qualities...or I should rather say "lack of qualities". Both share a totally unprofessional approach to running a business.

Can it be done any worse than this?

Anonymous said...

Now even the first checkout page shows errors and won't run.

Funny thing is, they refunded the "shipped" orders, but apparently keep the other funds locked.

I suppose that they're waiting for their deadline and will finally release the entire thing out.

Anonymous said...

I just got the mail that I'll get my money back. Thanks 2CO for handling this pretty well and thanks to everyone helping to cover this madness. I wonder what the hell Valdi was up to in the first place...
Now I'll have to get a 300€ laptop for my grandma... :-/

Anonymous said...

Parameter Error


Incorrect parameters were supplied, therefore this purchase cannot begin.

If you are attempting to purchase from a web site please contact the web site so that they can correct the error.


They have shut down medisons access to the 2co-site, so that's fair enuff - the site MUST display some reaction, even if customers access from a site that is no longer allowed in.

Anonymous said...

In the light of the current events, I've decided the following business plan:

I will buy all 300 000 laptops for U$ 150 from myself.

I will sell them all at U$ 400, so crazy bloggers won't tell me I'm a scammer and scare my partners away.

I will turn easy U$ 250 profit in the resale, thus ending with 75 million dollar clear profit.

I'm practically rich the moment I agree to sell to myself all those laptops at U$ 150, and what do you know, I agree to that!

Laughingly,
Valdi "75 mln dollar" Ivancic
Medison Europe Ltd.

Anonymous said...

And all your moms are ugly!

Sincerely,
Valdi "75 mln dollar" Ivancic
Medison Europe Ltd.

Anonymous said...

Does this look familiar?

Anonymous said...

anonymous: interesting, it looks like the same (or similar) machine.

But it costs 1599 brazillian real (over 800 USD)

Anonymous said...

THIS CELEBRITY LAPTOP THING DOES NOT EXIST, IT NEVER DID AND IT NEVER WILL! IT'S THAT SIMPLE.

COMPANIES NEED APPROVALS FROM FCC, UL ETC. TO ACTUALLY SELL A LAPTOP.

THERE ARE NO US$150 LAPTOP APPROVED AT FCC. THERE IS NO MEDISON COMPANY KNOWN BY FCC.

HELLO...DO YOU UNDERSTAND ENGLISH?

ENOUGH...PERIOD


(My keyboard normally don't behave in this way)

Anonymous said...

Peter, dude, we UNDERSTAND, but it doesn't mean Medison won't try to import machines as a reseller (FCC won't check your machine on the airport, so it's viable to assume Valdi has no clue about FCC's requirements).

Anonymous said...

FORGET IT, THIS IS SOMEONE PRETENDING TO BE ME

NOW I LEAVE YOU WITH THIS AMUSING SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE CLIP ABOUT PEOPLE WITH VOICE MODULATION PROBLEMS, WHO CAN'T TALK QUIET

WHO WOULD'VE GUESSED IT TRANSLATES TO ONLINE POSTING??

Anonymous said...

I guess someone really has great fun in pretending to be someone else incl. me.

Whoever it is, PLEASE get a life.

Fact is that if you are caught selling this product in the USA without approval, you will be subject to heavy fines by the FCC. You are not allowed to import goods unless they are FCC approved.

2CO should be held liable in this case if actual non approved products are delivered.

Anonymous said...

I forgot to mention: In this case FCC approval is required because of the WIFI functionality.

Anonymous said...

"Whoever it is, PLEASE get a life."

No, I got one, but I had nothing better to do with it in that particular moment.

This kind of thing is only nice unless it's done to you.

You've attracted my attention so you told us about a dozen of times that you need FCC approval, and that it's because of the WiFi.

Face it: we'll continue to speculate since we know Valdi has no clue about the FCC fines or any of this.

What about your life, got anything better to do than keep shouting about FCC and the WiFi requirements?

Anonymous said...

I'm busy managing product development of real consumer products dude.

To find out that Mr. Valdi and 2CO actually have no such computer they can legally sell didn't really take that many minutes of my life.

Valdi can pretend a lot but this he can't lie about.

A laptop project will not enter it's mass production ramp-up before critical approvals are in place simply due to the risk of doing costly rework. Valdi has claimed he already have units ready for shipment. The logic is so clear to me, but I'm sure Valdi don't even know how foolish his story really is.

Anonymous said...

I'm busy being busy as well, dude.

Have fun.