The site seems to be a bit overloaded; I got through to the entire process including verifying the Mastercard transaction but the order doesn't show up in my account's order history.
I just emailed them and now we'll wait and see. Could very well be just the mad dash of a lot of geeks trying to get these phones right now causing it to topple over some systems; I'll be patient :)
Exact same experience for me. Hit some database errors along the way but I managed to pay and verify the MasterCard transaction. Then nothing on the "My Orders". No email confirmation. Emailed them and fingers crossed a peak will be on its way soon!
CAUTION:
After I had entered my payment details for my credit card (in Safari) the site forwarded to a white page and nothing happened. I checked the console, and realized that a javascript error caused it to not work properly in Safari.
I could finish the process by manually doing a
document.forms[1].submit() in the console. That placed my order, and forwarded me back to their homepage.
HOWEVER:
On the homepage, I got the "User db59706 already has more than 'max_user_connections' active connections" error. I reloaded, and my order history is empty. So I'm afraid that the payment-cleared transaction from their payment processor was lost because their database is overloaded. Thus, I think I just paid for the phone but they have no track record of my order. I'll contact them now.
Word of caution to everybody reading this, their site, store, and payment processing seem to be overwhelmed.
Sigh. My order came to $155, and the site's trying to charge me 155 EUR. That's not really good, given that 155 EUR is about $200.
EDIT: It will charge the correct price if you switch the prices on the site to EUR. Second problem: one of my cards gave an unspecified error, the other was was denied by the bank for whatever reason. :/
Getting the same. One fails with denied by bank, and the other fails with "wrong authentication". Their credit card processing website seems to kinda suck..
This is just a taste of what it's like to be a european buying electronics from US firms - i.e. the US price=1000 USD, UK price=1000 GBP (1526 USD). I'd count yourself lucky the discrepancy is only 45 dollars :)
edit: not to detract from what is indeed an annoying problem, which you appear to have solved anyway
Yes, but in this case the buyer sees $230 in their shopping cart but actually gets charged €230. Which is nearly $300. It's fine if Geeksphone decide to charge the same in dollars and euro, but they're displaying in one currency and charging in another (without conversion) which is obviously wrong. It seems to have been an honest mistake and they've indicated on their forums that they're fixing it.
Hmm, since the website is pretty much hosed, I can't see what it says, but...
Even if it ships worldwide, as somebody mentioned, how can one tell whether it actually works with <random carrier in country X>?
There's no doubt a lot of coarse-grained commonality between different carriers in different countries, but there also seem to be many differences when you get down to the details, and a lot of incentive to add gratuitous minor incompatibilities for the purpose of locking in your customers... I'd be pretty nervous about importing a random phone.
I'm not familiar with the situation in Europe/USA, but I've never had trouble using a GSM phone with any GSM SIM card from any carrier in Asia. I'm not sure about the situation for CDMA or LTE.
I believe the main thing with GSM phones is what frequency it expects to transmit and receive GSM data on. This varies from country to country depending on what frequencies the various telcos could purchase at the time, but these phones support "GSM 850/900/1800/1900" and "UMTS 2100/1900/900" which I believe cover the majority of countries.
They're hosted by MediaTemple and the IP doesn't look to be shared with other customers. Requesting the site without a host sends you to the main GeeksPhone site, so at least they're not on a shared hosting.
I got the same error earlier, that "VAT is empty". Now they've fixed it. VAT is automatically added. For EU customers, including VAT, it comes to 110 EUR (Keon) and 180 EUR (Peak). And yeah, I chose the 18-EUR shipping option. Successfully ordered the PEAK for 200 EUR. Yay!
Yes that's exactly what I'd want to use. Log in to your bank, create a virtual one-use CC, buy something and the CC no longer exists. Well, not exactly, there's still vast room for improvment but it'd be better that how it is now.
Sadly, I could not find any finance instutite here that offers that.
Well I'm from europe, so that's what I ment too. I do not have any master, maestro or visa card. And i refuse to get one, because I think they're a horribly, horribly broken system.
So you've never purchased anything from the internet before, ever? Honest question, not trying to sound snarky. I'm just wondering how else you could pay for something online. Paying directly with a checking account, by entering your routing/account numbers, etc.? There are also pre-paid debit cards out there.... but it sounds like you're opposed to that too.
To be honest i usually use paypal, or similar services. I'm not a paypal fan, but you know i can send them a hundred bucks or so via bank transfer and have that on my account to spend. If paypal decides to disable my account (or I get hacked or something) I lost $100, sucks, but really not the end of the world.
I'd actually probably be fine with pre-paid debit cards, but there's really no difference from paypal. And now it's just a matter of beeing more used to paypal than to some random debit card company, and i don't want to maintain multiple prepaid services, i just want to have a couple hundred dollars prepaid for "internet payment stuff".
Paypal or something else should let me generate a one time token (or one time card number) to pay with.
If you buy a gift CC at a store you run into the problem of the problem that the product costs $101 but the card is only $100.
Well, all in all, internet payment is still horribly broken, but paypal is _in my opinion_ the best service to buy stuff, not necessarily to receive money, I've heard enough horror stories.
Apologies for replying without an answer, but I'd love to know this as well. Additionally, how/where is the hardware produced? I'd gladly pay twice this and more for full openness software/hardware/ethics-wise.
It is "Engineered in SPain, Made in P.R.C"
It's as open source as it can, you can rebuilt from scratch and rebuilt a boot images with a new kernel if you wish (just clone https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/B2G and run ./config.sh keon). I just did that last week to add something we need for Firefox OS.
Darn, Keon is sold out. I wanted a small smartphone. OS aside, I'm hoping Firefox OS (is there an official abbreviation we can use) will rejuvenate the small screen smartphone market.
No Serbia on the list even though official statements said it will be one of the first countries where phones will be available, so I sent them an email regarding that. I was amazed when less than 1 hour later, I got an email reply !!! "Dear Boris,
We took some countries out because of maintenance, but we'll put Serbia back on the list, don't worry, thanks for the remark and sorry for the inconveniences."
Did just the same, 197€ with VAT and shipping isn't too bad.
I guess the first lucky few will have them by the end of the week, the rest of us by next week (I'd imagine they staffed up for deliveries but will still be overwhelmed since all their stock went away in 2 hours).
91 comments
[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 175 ms ] threadEdit: Sign up for an account first at "My Account" at the top. Seems to have less problems compared to signing up at the Checkout page.
Edit2: Bought a Peak!
I just emailed them and now we'll wait and see. Could very well be just the mad dash of a lot of geeks trying to get these phones right now causing it to topple over some systems; I'll be patient :)
Oh well.
HOWEVER: On the homepage, I got the "User db59706 already has more than 'max_user_connections' active connections" error. I reloaded, and my order history is empty. So I'm afraid that the payment-cleared transaction from their payment processor was lost because their database is overloaded. Thus, I think I just paid for the phone but they have no track record of my order. I'll contact them now.
Word of caution to everybody reading this, their site, store, and payment processing seem to be overwhelmed.
- paid but got a db max connections massage, my order was NOT saved
- they charge VAT while it's not allowed when doing intera-european purchases
I really hope they get back to us!
What do you mean it's not allowed?
However, when you dispatch goods to someone in another EU country, who is not registered for VAT in that country, you should normally charge VAT."
[1] https://www.gov.uk/dispatching-your-goods-within-the-eu
Another problem: They charge VAT even if you have a valid non-spanish VAT number.
I guess it's a pretty wild day for a small company :p
EDIT: It will charge the correct price if you switch the prices on the site to EUR. Second problem: one of my cards gave an unspecified error, the other was was denied by the bank for whatever reason. :/
Either way, paying an extra 30 dollars to have a Firefox phone is worth it to me. I'm sick of my iPhone.
edit: not to detract from what is indeed an annoying problem, which you appear to have solved anyway
Even if it ships worldwide, as somebody mentioned, how can one tell whether it actually works with <random carrier in country X>?
There's no doubt a lot of coarse-grained commonality between different carriers in different countries, but there also seem to be many differences when you get down to the details, and a lot of incentive to add gratuitous minor incompatibilities for the purpose of locking in your customers... I'd be pretty nervous about importing a random phone.
http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/phone-sim-card
For anyone else who initially overlooked here is the PC Mag article with the list of relevant cities:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2416666,00.asp
Unfortunately, I'm in none of them.
Maybe on a single VPS, but definitely not shared.
Also, KEONS ARE NOW SOLD OUT!
I got the database error but just keep refreshing and it goes through eventually :)
Couldn't get through with Firefox (haha) and my german VISA, too.
Also note that 55 Euros shipping is NOT the only option.. ;)
I'd actually probably be fine with pre-paid debit cards, but there's really no difference from paypal. And now it's just a matter of beeing more used to paypal than to some random debit card company, and i don't want to maintain multiple prepaid services, i just want to have a couple hundred dollars prepaid for "internet payment stuff".
Paypal or something else should let me generate a one time token (or one time card number) to pay with.
If you buy a gift CC at a store you run into the problem of the problem that the product costs $101 but the card is only $100.
Well, all in all, internet payment is still horribly broken, but paypal is _in my opinion_ the best service to buy stuff, not necessarily to receive money, I've heard enough horror stories.
I managed to get through and bought a Peak, but it's not showing up on the My Orders page, yet.
(though to be honest, gamers will come back with the expected, "WHAT!? Final Fantasy OS???" :P
I guess the first lucky few will have them by the end of the week, the rest of us by next week (I'd imagine they staffed up for deliveries but will still be overwhelmed since all their stock went away in 2 hours).