MacDailyNews - Where Mac news comes first

 MacDailyNews Poll

Deal of the Day

5 Day Most Commented

Opinion Archive

Current Headlines

Latest Joy of Tech

  • Latest Joy of Tech!

MacNN

AppleInsider

Macworld UK

TUAW

MacRumors

Yahoo! Finance AAPL

iTunes Top 10 Albums

Mac OS X Downloads

Sat, Jul 04, 2009 - 02:52 PM EDT  —  AAPL: 140.02 (-2.81, -1.97%)  |  NASDAQ: 1796.52 (-49.20, -2.67%)

Payment-processing merchant severs ties with would-be Mac-cloner Psystar
Thursday, April 17, 2008 - 05:10 PM EDT

"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," Tom Krazit reports for CNET.

"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," Krazit reports.

"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,'" Krazit reports.

"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,'" Krazit reports.

"Psystar has since switched merchant services providers to PayPal, who processed my transaction with the company on Wednesday," Krazit reports.

Full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Anyone who buys something from that outfit risks making Steve Ballmer look sane.


Bookmark and Share

Always -- Free ground shipping with orders over $50 at the Apple Store.

Reader Feedback: = registered.
Unregistered users: Feedback from multiple usernames are subject to deletion. Off-topic and posts from suspected astroturfers will be removed.

Apr 17, 08 - 05:25 pm Comment from: poop

yo mamma

Apr 17, 08 - 05:34 pm Comment from: neomonkey

No comment, and you can quote me on that.

Apr 17, 08 - 05:37 pm Comment from: Demon

Wait till PayPal gets wind of it.

Apr 17, 08 - 05:47 pm Comment from: mike wrotch

I ordered mine today! I can't wait til it gets here and works for 2 weeks until apple updates their operating system...then i'll turn it into a psyquarium for my fishies.

Apr 17, 08 - 05:49 pm Comment from: Hm...

This is one time the smart move by Apple Legal would be deafening silence. A EULA is between Apple and the 'End User,' not the vendor: as long as PoopStar didn't steal any of Apple's microcode/bios, etc., it would be a difficult to win court case.

Wait a sec - they could file in Texas...

Apr 17, 08 - 05:49 pm Comment from: Joe

Eh didn't I call this yesterday, go look at my post.
I explicitly said this could be a scam to get peoples credit card info or to sell other products to people from the attention of this with the short term goal of getting shut down.

Apr 17, 08 - 05:50 pm Comment from: JadisOne

I don't blame that merchant for stepping away. They would've surely been listed in the lawsuit that is on its way to Psystar's owner's desk.

Apr 17, 08 - 05:51 pm Comment from: shiva105

Hell, I say more power to Psystar. Worst case, they put together a crappy system and people realize why Apple's license says what it does. Best case, they actually get more people to try Mac OS X who then become converts. Regardless, Apple isn't competing in the exact market segment that Psystar wants to sell to (cheap minitowers), so I don't see the harm.
Then again, I don't hold alot of EULA's in high regard. As long as Psystar isn't pirating Mac OS X, let people do what they want with something they purchased.

Apr 17, 08 - 05:51 pm Comment from: zek

If you buy with credit card it's insured anyway isn't it? So no worries if the goods don't arrive, you just get a refund.

Apr 17, 08 - 05:59 pm Comment from: Gosh

Surely Apple should stop selling Mac OS X to Psystar!

Or is Psystar illegally installing the OS?

Apr 17, 08 - 06:10 pm Comment from: Gabriel

With every new story on this Psystar "company", the people running things sound less and less competent.

I'm still convinced that there someone else behind things, using Psystar for their own ends - either as a major prank (the phone number with all the sixes in it sure looks fishy when you know the original starting price of the Apple I), or as a serious attempt to challenge the exclusivity of OS X to Apple's own hardware. The apparent cluelessness of the Psystar folks certainly indicates to me that someone with more of a purpose is pushing them to continue.

Apr 17, 08 - 06:12 pm Comment from: HotinPlaya

@JadisOne
"I don't blame that merchant for stepping away. They would've surely been listed in the lawsuit that is on its way to Psystar's owner's desk."

You are probably right on! That is probably what Apple told them what would happen, if the did not shut it down, now

@zek
"If you buy with credit card it's insured anyway isn't it? So no worries if the goods don't arrive, you just get a refund"

Wouldn't that be a compelling reason for the processor to shut it down?

They probably were not truthful when they got the merchant account. There is a magic number, of what your monthly sales are forecast to be, if it is under $10,000.00 , it is very easy to get a merchant account, over $10,000.00 you need bank statements, and must have assets to coincide with the business you plan on doing.
If they gave untruths on the amount of business they expected , and all of a sudden they are doing way more than their application said, red flags would go up

Apr 17, 08 - 06:16 pm Comment from: Quad Core

Eh didn't I call this yesterday, go look at my post.
I explicitly said this could be a scam to get peoples credit card info...

If they're using a merchant like PayPal, etc. They never get to see the card info.

Apr 17, 08 - 06:18 pm Comment from: qka

"Psystar has since switched merchant services providers to PayPal, who processed my transaction with the company on Wednesday," Krazit reports.

"A fool and his money are soon parted."

Bye-bye!

Apr 17, 08 - 06:35 pm Comment from: Spark

@ Joe
"I explicitly said this could be a scam to get peoples credit card info or to sell other products to people from the attention of this with the short term goal of getting shut down."

Having a pay processor like Powerpay is like having an Escrow company. Psystar would not obtain any of the customer's credit card info. Companies use pay processors to shield themselves from the liability of having credit card info. Psystar is up to something that won't go far, but scamming credit card info isn't one of them.

Apr 17, 08 - 06:58 pm Comment from: Joe

@QuadCore

they are using paypal NOW, they were not yesterday.
And if you read my entire post as i stated, there are different ways that this could be a scam. Even Paypal is scamable.

Apr 17, 08 - 07:14 pm Comment from: nekogami13

Apple is a Hardware company.
They make no money off of OS sales(or very little).

Let's say Apple sells you a Macbook for $1099. $400 of that is profit.
They sell you a copy of OS X, they make $40 of profit.
So to make the same amount of money from OS sales, they would have to increase the number of sales by 10 times the current numbers.

Not going to happen.
Apple would lose 100's of million of dollars licensing OS X for sale on cheap generic boxes.

Those of you who want this-why do you hate Apple and want them to go under?

Apr 17, 08 - 07:30 pm Comment from: nekogami13

Everyone needs to look at this: http://gizmodo.com/380488/psystar-exposed-looks-like-a-hoax

Apr 17, 08 - 07:59 pm Comment from: Dave

@nekogami13

Just because someone wants a tower computer running Mac OS X that doesn't cost $2300, doesn't mean they want Apple to go under.

Apr 17, 08 - 08:43 pm Comment from: HMCIV

MDN: Ballmer's sane. And that's the really really scary part.
Someone that evil & that dumb is actually sane.

D'oh!

Apr 17, 08 - 08:57 pm Comment from: Hint Hammer

A 'Mac mini' costs $800 for the 2Ghz one.

Would you be willing to pay Apple $1000-1200 for a Mac minitower?

Basically an iMac, in a minitower case — w/ 2 HD bays. Plus you have to get a good monitor.
-



SteveJ, Cube2? [8x8x10]

Apr 17, 08 - 09:18 pm Comment from: MacSheikh

Has anyone even once thought that Stevie could be playing us all? Maybe he just wants to see how much interest there is for there "new" configs. That's why Apple legal is being unusually quiet. grin

Apr 17, 08 - 10:15 pm Comment from: Stan

This may be the longest investigation ever into a shady South Florida company where there is no sign of an Israeli being involved....

Apr 17, 08 - 10:22 pm Comment from: DogGone

Anyone know of anyone who has placed an order for this?

Anyone know of anyone who has received a unit?

Until they ship and someone gets one of these machines I don't believe it's for real.

Apr 17, 08 - 10:59 pm Comment from: shen

DogGone: basically you are asking "any of you have idiots for friends?" wink

Apr 17, 08 - 11:02 pm Comment from: nekogami13

This keeps getting better and better, see this: http://www.macnn.com/articles/08/04/17/psystar.violates.v8.eula/

Apr 17, 08 - 11:51 pm Comment from: John

One big scam if you ask me. To many address changes, no detailed info on there product. Merchants dropping there support, and no one in the area even knows who they are. You people are in for a BIG disappointment! $400.00 wasted on a cheap PC box with no firewire, no iLife software, no keyboard, no mouse. Unsupported hardware which Apple stores will not support at the Genius Bar so you have no technical support what so ever.

This to me is no deal at all. Just a lot of trouble period.

Apr 18, 08 - 01:39 am Comment from: HotinPlaya

@Spark
"Having a pay processor like Powerpay is like having an Escrow company. Psystar would not obtain any of the customer's credit card info. Companies use pay processors to shield themselves from the liability of having credit card info. Psystar is up to something that won't go far, but scamming credit card info isn't one of them."

You do not know what you are talking about! with a pay processor, you have access to all the credit card info, you can go into your account, refund charges, charge more ect. that is why they want to know they are working with a reputable company, and have the assets to do business.

You re correct if you are talking about someone like PayPal, who any one can get an account to collect CC chargers

Apr 18, 08 - 02:34 am Comment from: nekogami13

At reality check and others who feel entitled to use Apple software without paying for it:
There is plenty of competition out there for your computing buck.
No one demands you use Apple products-go buy a Sony, HP, Dell, Acer, Asus, BenQ, etc. Install any flavor of windows, Linux, BSD you want on it.
Just because you want Apple products without paying for them, doesn't entitle you to have them.

I may feel entitled to drive a Mercedes, but It's not ok for me to go take one from a dealership and leave them $400 because I do not feel like paying the $40k+ they want.

Apr 18, 08 - 03:06 am Comment from: clunker

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

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.

Um, does anyone see a pattern here?

Apr 18, 08 - 08:02 am Comment from: DLMeyer

nekogami13, While what you say is true - $400 vs $40 - I've paid that $40 several times for each of my more recent Macs. Even so, just because the total is 1/10th the amount, it's still the same profit ratio. Hmm ... maybe more? I buy the Family Packs. Same "product", but distributed to up to five different computers (usually just four). It costs Apple about the same to create it but they market it for so much more.

Apr 18, 08 - 08:35 am Comment from: RE: MacSheikh

That's what I thought when it wasn't shut down immediately.

Letting it continue for days is not consistent with Apple's past legal policy.

Unless......the body slam is coming.

Apr 18, 08 - 09:40 am Comment from: Houdini's Shade

Everyone's watching Psystar's right-hand misdirection. What's going on with it's left?

Apr 18, 08 - 10:09 am Comment from: jtc

@MDN

I think it's going to take a lot more than buying the OpenComputer to make Ballmer look the least bit sane.

Apr 19, 08 - 10:03 pm Comment from: Hint Hammer

Houdini's Shade,

Exactly.

Apr 21, 08 - 06:49 pm Comment from: HolyMackerel

Why do these guys even want to sell hardware? Their value is in the booting code which they could be licensing to DELL, et al for $10 a machine and make a fortune without having to lift a finger.

If this code is real and works, the ramifications are enormous for the non-western world where wages are low and the cost of Apple computers and support is exorbitant. PCs will pop-up everywhere with a choice of MacOS.

To combat this Apple needs to drop the cost of the Mac Mini in half, it's size in half, make the DVD drive a USB external option, keep it limited in graphics/RAM/drive and make it an impulse purchase.

Reader feedback page 1 of 1 pages:

Always -- Free ground shipping with orders over $50 at the Apple Store.

Add Your Feedback:

Register or Login

Name:

Email: (optional)

Emoticons | Allowed HTML Tags

Remember my info   Notify me of follow-up comments?

Please enter the "MDN Magic Word" you see in the image below: