Joojoo terms of sale violate PayPal rules

It would seem that the Fusion Garage lawyers have become so embroiled in the Michael Arrington litigation that they've neglected to read the PayPal User Agreement. There in section II, subsection 4, dubbed "Prohibited Transactions," it states that the seller agrees "not to use [his] PayPal account to sell goods with delivery dates delayed more than 20 days from the date of payment." Why does that matter -- well, because the sole means to purchase the Joojoo at present is by placing an 8 to 10 week pre-order, payable exclusively through PayPal. We shouldn't jump to conclusions though -- maybe Fusion Garage freed itself from the pesky rules by offering to sell a few special edition PayPads?

[buoy Posted Dec 21st 2009 4:34AM]

Act first, think of the consequences later.... that's kinda scary!

[Luffy Posted Dec 21st 2009 4:35AM]

Running FusionGarage, so easy a caveman can do it.

[42 Posted Dec 21st 2009 9:33AM]

@Luffy : that goes with my advertising slogan I came up for commercials:

Hi, I'm a CrunchPad, and the JooJoo was my idea.

[ch3burashka Posted Dec 21st 2009 1:57PM]

@Luffy
You don't know how hurtful that is: we cavemen are people too!

Ignorant bastard...

[Mekkel Richards Posted Dec 21st 2009 3:14PM]

@(Unverified)

It doesn't matter who created it, Hitler wants a fucking CrunchPad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhozjQJKR_0

[EI8HT Posted Dec 21st 2009 4:37AM]

more bad joojoo

[Saad Posted Dec 21st 2009 4:40AM]

Can't it be that they have a special agreement arranged between them and PayPal?

[mmalsed Posted Dec 21st 2009 12:10PM]

@Saad no - the purpose of the time limit is so customers have the chance to contest the charges and get their money back and that's a pretty hard date-limit. . .

[macserv Posted Dec 21st 2009 1:05PM]

@Saad If I were Paypal, I'd steer clear of making any "agreements" with these guys.

[lemonus Posted Dec 21st 2009 4:41AM]

unless the way the payment works is that they take your details and only debit a few days before its shipped.

[Machinedog Posted Dec 21st 2009 4:44AM]

@lemonus Doubtful.

[DJWaffles Posted Dec 21st 2009 4:44AM]

Nothing makes me feel confident in a transaction like a company with no product that only takes paypal.

[Michael Scrip Posted Dec 21st 2009 4:58AM]

@DJWaffles

The whole thing just screams "eBay scam" too. No one even knows about the thing anyway... just us Engadget readers.

"Here's a great new product! Even though there's only been a few grainy YouTube videos of the thing... send us $500 now!!!"

Is a pre-order really necessary? Do they think they're gonna run out?

[Andareed Posted Dec 21st 2009 5:20AM]

@Michael Scrip
> Is a pre-order really necessary? Do they think they're gonna run out?

I suspect they may need cash now.

[Michael Scrip Posted Dec 21st 2009 5:41AM]

@Andareed

They've already burned through $3,000,000 of investment money by this point... how much do they think they're gonna get from people pre-ordering a $500 "phantom" product?

If they seriously *need* cash 2 months before the product is even gonna ship... it's far worse than we all thought...

They might be doing this to show how many pre-orders they get so they can ask for more money from investors... but the whole thing is shaping up to be the first tech-blunder of 2010... if not the biggest.

This time next year... if the JooJoo is on store shelves in Best Buy and Walmart... I'm eat my words. (god that name sucks!) But this last-minute cash hustle doesn't look good.

[gerrrg Posted Dec 21st 2009 4:49AM]

psst...
"by placing an 8 to 10 week pre-oder"

Maybe it should be a pre-odor, with all this foul stuff going on at Fusion Garage.

[brie987 Posted Dec 21st 2009 4:50AM]

If Joo Joo is a Noo Noo after 10 weeks would PayPal be responsible for getting your money back as they insure purchases made with them to some extent. Sounds shady but Fusion could be exploiting this to get quick money and hold on to it for some time leaving PayPal to deal with angry customers. Would this be possible?

[psc2 Posted Dec 21st 2009 6:32AM]

@brie987

Depends... I believe that if they (FusionGarage) send you ANYTHING... then your sol, even if they send you a card saying that they won't send the product then you're not covered by PayPal's protection, as they sent you *something*, even if it didn't match the product you were supposed to get, and its up to you to take it up with the law yourself. However thats just what I've read, I could be wrong.

[snowglyder Posted Dec 21st 2009 11:59AM]

@psc2

They wouldn't even have to send ANYTHING, since you'll be waiting 8-10 weeks to get it, and you're well past Paypal's 45-day coverage.

Paypal: "Um, sorry. You should have called within our 45-day period."
You: "But Joo-Joo told me to wait 56-70 days for it to arrive."
Paypal: "Joo-Joo doesn't make our policies. To show you our appreciation for being a Paypal customer, we can send out a bottle of KY for your troubles."
You: "It's too late for that."

[brie987 Posted Dec 21st 2009 12:38PM]

@snowglyder Hahaha, KY will have to be sent in an Easter basket because that is when you find out : JOO JOO+YOUR $= VAPOR.

[NewL Posted Dec 21st 2009 5:00AM]

Why would you even pre-order this thing? I very much doubt there's going to be a shortage, even if they only produce a few thousand units.

[MaximumXP Posted Dec 21st 2009 5:07AM]

@NewL I always assumed that pre-orders generated some capital for mass production, but I could be wrong.

[Michael Scrip Posted Dec 21st 2009 5:45AM]

@MaximumXP

Read my comment above. They've already spent $3,000,000 so far. They're not gonna make any sort of dent in their debt by offering pre-orders on a product that doesn't exist... using PayPal.

[Nick L Posted Dec 21st 2009 6:37AM]

I get the feeling no-one from JooJoo bothered to learn from Pandora's experience... Paypal forced everyone to be refunded for exactly the same reason. I ordered in september 2008, was refunded soon after and... cancelled my order. People should get a pandora in 2010: I can see quite why credit cards, paypal - everyone - didn't want that risk.

There's also restrictions on many merchant acquirers' agreements around this, and quite possibly restrictions exist at the processing network level, too...

[Andurilan Posted Dec 21st 2009 7:00AM]

DO NOT WANT.
Between the pricing jump, the litigation, shady and evasive behavior of Chandra in the interviews I've seen him in, i would suggest you do not buy the BooBoo. Because it's got fail written all over it. Just my 2 cents.

[bebop Posted Dec 21st 2009 7:34AM]

joo joo is in deep doo doo

[DeviantmacG Posted Dec 21st 2009 7:44AM]

JooJoo you ain't foofoo-ling MeMe

[joshl Posted Dec 21st 2009 8:01AM]

This "news" was on Gizmodo a week ago. What took you so long, Engadget? :(

[7egend Posted Dec 21st 2009 8:03AM]

PayPal should show know mercy to Fusion Garage and it's Klingon CEO.

[7egend Posted Dec 21st 2009 8:03AM]

@7egend

You guys should show me no mercy for using 'know' instead of 'no'.

[ChrisEngr Posted Dec 21st 2009 8:11AM]

Fusion Garage should be giving away a piece of Chandra's passport as collateral for each Joojoo pre-ordered.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 21st 2009 10:06AM]

Paypal is evil..do NOT use them whatever you do.

[Chip Posted Dec 21st 2009 10:26AM]

Open Pandora made the same mistake of taking pre-orders through Paypal. It did not work out well for them either. Paypal is untrustworthy at any level.

[Wesscoast Posted Dec 21st 2009 10:28AM]

Guys, if you keep saying that the name JewJew is gonna catch on.

We're gonna start seeing those ... um... *checks pic... grey earbuds all over New Y--- er.. Wall Street... My God the plan is working, its genius!

[spin cycle Posted Dec 21st 2009 11:26AM]

Whatever. Fanatec did the same thing. They took my money June 3rd and shipped my racing wheel November 22nd.

Clearly Arrington ratted on Joojoo, hoping to make their lives miserable.

[ch3burashka Posted Dec 21st 2009 2:05PM]

This is less surprising knowing how rushed the release was: less than a week after their break-up with Arrington. I thought it was fishy, and this just confirms my suspicions.

[MichaelF Posted Dec 21st 2009 4:38PM]

Paypal better shut this down... if they don't then they can add hypocritical to the list of their evils.

I never use Paypal anymore - and with good reason. With Amazon Payments and Google Checkout, there's little reason to.

[axcohn Posted Dec 21st 2009 6:21PM]

To be fair to Fusion Garage, the PayPal policy on pre-selling is well-hidden. Engadget cites a 2003 version of the PP User Agreement, and later versions do not have this language in them. That language is now available only in the Help Center on PayPal's web site, and you either have to be fairly clever in constructing a query to find it or know exactly which links to follow (it's not intuitive).

PayPal has been monitoring Fusion Garage for some time and is aware of this pre-selling violation.