I couldn't resist telling anyone out there about a prospect i have for web designing. Well, it started almost a month ago when a person from europe emailed me and ask me how much i would charge for a certain kind of a website (a legal one ok? hehehe)
I gave him my price.. and in the course of our correspondence i came to know the guy and so did he.. in short... we became friends... our problem started when one day, when he was about to send me his downpayment... he suddenly was asking me about scams and so forth and so on... so to make the long story short, he was afraid i would scam him... geeesshh... not that i blame him... i understood him actually...
It took me more effort selling myself and showing him some assurances... like for example... i told him that the address i sent him was my home-office... i don't know of anyone stupid enough like me to give away my home address on the internet.. but.. in the interest of making a living... i do...
For weeks, it was on and off.. until finally he decided to pay 50% downpayment.. when i checked with xoom.com i saw that the transaction was cancelled... anyway i said to myself.. hmm.. this guy must really fear being scammed.. so i gave him some references... and to my knowledge, he did contact them through e-mail...
Since i am really a nice guy, i told him to instead send me 25% downpayment and we could do a progressive type of billing.. and he did.. the problem was that xoom.com cancelled the transaction.. i inquired and was told the following:
Subject
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Inquiry
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Xoom Corporation (Ray Almanza) - 07/24/2007 11:41 AM
Xoom.com has refunded this transaction, as the intended money transfer has been identified as a commercial transaction.
Xoom.com provides a person-to-person remittance service only.
lease contact www.xoom.com with any questions.
Xoom Corporation
to which i replied:
Thanks for the quick reply. But please someone point to me where it says that we cannot accept money for a commercial transaction. And please define commercial transactions. We are at a loss since on your site specifically there is a https://www.xoom.com/static/merchant-services.html or a merchant services portion. Though a website may not be totally tangible, still it consists of tangible, readable, viewable, executable files that we also give our clients as a required part of our serivce.
How can this be when your site specifically says and i quote :"Xoom now offers payment services for merchants selling goods overseas from the Philippines." and "Sell goods from your website or auction listing". We are a legal and non-scamming web design company here in the philippines are you implying that we are illegal and in the business of scamming?
We have been helping you promote your services to the local web development community and this is what we get?
I dont get it... i honestly don't... anyway.. it is for you the reader to judge... the insanity of dealing with people... by the way.. as of the writing of this... the xoom.com people have not replied... maybe they do not know the answer too?
haaayyy.. this is so disappointing... my prospect has not contacted me anymore because of xoom, do you think i can sue them for that? and how?
