Psystar's store remained down on Friday, as its former payment-processing company expanded its explanation of why it pulled its services from the computer maker's site.
Anyone who might have wanted to order an Open Computer last night or today has been stymied by the second interruption in Psystar's online store.
The first interruption, on Wednesday, was caused when Powerpay pulled its services after Psystar violated the terms of its agreement, as reported by CNET News.com.
My colleague Richard Koman, at ZDNet, obtained a statement from Powerpay's CEO, explaining the reasons why his company pulled Psystar's account.
"PowerPay initially suspended and subsequently terminated the merchant-processing account of Psystar for three primary reasons: product/services not as represented in application, sales volumes grossly exceeded, (and) no address verification utilized," Steven Goodrich said in the statement.
Merchant service accounts are set up based on the volume of transactions expected to flow through an online store, Goodrich said. Psystar went well over its expected volume for the year in just a couple of days, as Open Computer orders poured in.
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"In this case, the applicant processed almost 200 percent of his anticipated annual volume over just a few days. In doing so, the applicant never used AVS (address verification services), which is a vital part of validating cardholder consent," Goodrich said in the statement. "This, coupled with the fact that product was substantially different from what was described in the application, left PowerPay no choice but to suspend services. The discrepancy in addresses and other info only add to our discomfort with the account."
After Powerpay pulled its support, Psystar resumed sales of the Open Computer through PayPal, which processed my transaction on Wednesday. I contacted a PayPal representative on Thursday after learning that Powerpay had pulled its services to see what PayPal's policies were regarding these types of issues.
Thursday evening, PayPal sent me this statement: "At PayPal, we take rights infringement very seriously. PayPal's Acceptable Use Policy prohibits the use of our services for 'items that infringe or violate any copyright, trademark, right of publicity or privacy, or any other proprietary right under the laws of any jurisdiction.' We use internal guidelines, as well as reports from rights owners, to determine violations of this policy. We would apply these standards to any products being sold from the Psystar.com site - currently, there are none."
Psystar's Mac OS X-based Open Computer is again unavailable for purchase, after a site outage.
(Credit: Psystar)The curious tagline at the end was put there because a PayPal spokesman said the company was unable to actually verify what was for sale on Psystar's site, since it was down when the company checked it out Thursday.
Charles Arthur at The Guardian, who kicked off some of the skeptical coverage regarding Psystar's ever-changing addresses, wonders if Psystar simply overestimated its ability to run an efficient supply chain.
Right now, it's really hard to know exactly what to make of Psystar. To be fair, there are red flags galore, but it's quite possible that this is a company way over its head, when it comes to running a product distribution operation. It's not hard to find all kinds of coverage this week suggesting that Psystar is an out-and-out scam, but there is little proof to support that conclusion. Absence of detail is not proof of wrongdoing, though it does (and should) raise suspicions.
It seems that one way or another, we're getting closer to figuring out the true nature of Psystar's operation. I called PayPal again this morning to find out if it is behind the current outage, and if so, whether it will allow Psystar to resume business. I also checked in with Apple to see if it has assembled an army of lawyers yet, but I have yet to hear back.
The payment-processing merchant for Mac clone maker Psystar abruptly ended its relationship with the company Wednesday after it discovered what was for sale on Psystar's site.
Powerpay refused to process any more transactions for the Open Computer after learning what it was.
(Credit: Psystar)Powerpay had been the payment processor for Psystar's online store until Wednesday, when it yanked its services from Psystar's Web site. That move sent the store offline for several hours midday Wednesday, halting sales of Psystar's Open Computer, which comes preinstalled with Mac OS X Leopard in violation of Apple's licensing agreement for its operating system.
Psystar posted a statement on its Web site Thursday explaining the downtime. "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."
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."
Psystar has since switched merchant services providers to PayPal, who processed my transaction with the company on Wednesday. A PayPal representative did not immediately return a call seeking comment on that company's policies regarding sales of goods such as the Open Computer.
Psystar is still under siege from the press. A gentleman answering the phone Thursday morning directed all inquires to a press e-mail alias, and if I receive a response from the company, I'll let you know.
UPDATED 11:30am - I managed to obtain the cell phone number for Rudy Pedraza, who appears to be the owner of Psystar. A polite gentleman who answered the phone said that he was not Rudy, but confirmed the number belonged to Rudy. He took a message for Rudy, and promised to have him call back. Right. Holding breath.
The company also attempted to explain the elusive nature of its home address in Southern Florida in a statement posted on their site Thursday. Psystar's address has changed no less than three times in three days since the story exploded on Monday.
"We're in the process of moving to a new location which is now listed on our contact page," the company said in the statement. "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."
Meanwhile, a News.com reader passed along an e-mail from a colleague who had alerted him to Psystar's existence on April 6, a week before the Psystar story blew up on Sunday night and Monday morning. That's the first instance I've heard of somebody who was aware of the Open Computer prior to Sunday evening, but if other people were aware of its existence earlier this month or year, please send me an e-mail or leave a comment below.
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