I guess people outside of Europe can "use" others in Europe as paypal->bank gateway.
Not me though, I refuse to have anything to do with paypal.

Not me either. UK->EU bank transfers are just as bad as endso postulated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single..._Area#Coverage

[edit] re next post: Oh, I see the sneaky catch in that: in UK they usually do not do transactions in EUROs, so they are free to charge astronomical fees for any € transaction, no matter if inner-UK or to the continent. Nasty

https://talk.maemo.org/showthread.ph...09#post1475209

EDIT:
Also, you did not need to scroll too far from your link to find that...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single...s_Area#Charges

Re the PP issue:
the problem is that - despite we at Neo900 UG did (e.g. by converting all original donations only backed by my personal word into formal vouchers, sth we were not required to do) and constantly do our best to warrant to our customers that we will do all we can to produce and ship a device they will love - we still consider this project as based on the principles of crowdfunding, which is why we asked for down payments so we have funds to source material (N900 and risk components) for you. And we never wrapped in secrecy those facts and the risks immanent in the project (see https://my.neo900.org/index.php?id_c...content_only=1 for example, as well as this whole thread here).
However now PP turns this against us and considers/classifies our project an ordinary pre-sales of arbitrary ready made industry products, rather than the crowdfunded project aiming at producing custom made devices to your order which the project actually is. Thus they installed a USD 200,000 (!!!) "security deposit" on our account and refuse to hand out your payments to us, which pretty much defeats the purpose of those down payments as being used for paying the material we want to source for you. While PP claims they do that to protect you, actually they damage your and the project's interests by doing so.
We need to (and do) ponder now what are our options to make PP reconsider this classification and let them know about and act accordingly to your intention which (so we hope) was that you want us to use your payments right away to purchase material for you. Right now we think that you, our customers, are the only persons who can tell PP about what you want your payment to get done with, and that you never thought that in - say - 6 months you could roll back your decision to support this project and could (successfully) ask PP to transfer the money back to you. Since the latter is exactly why PP refuses to hand the money to us and rather keeps it frozen on our account to satisfy such requests from it. I hope they will re-consider when our customers tell them that they explicitly waive any such hypothetical option of roll back and want the money to get used rather than sit at PP and generate interest for PP.

I'll keep you updated. For now we're in a pretty tough situation thanks to PP.

jOERG

Should we start contacting PayPal as "customers" immediately, or await further information/instructions?

For now we at Neo900 UG are still discussing if asking our customers to contact PP would be conceived by PP as an unfriendly act, or in contrary it is a mandatory (by law) step we must do to minimize consequential damage and possibly eventually claim compensation for any damage from this issue.
Anyway I for sure will not ask customers to wait with contacting PP. Actually one customer already did. While his email
did not receive the promised answer during 24h, he gave phone hotline a call and was told that there was nothing he could do since there allegedly was a problem with our account. That's incorrect! The only "problem with Neo900 account" is PP's classification of this project as pre-sales instead of crowdfunding.
Probably when our customers contact PP it will be helpful when they explicitly state that In any case, if you could do us the favor, we'd like to ask you to place contact AT neo900.org into such email's CC: so we know what's going on and can refer to it in our own correspondence with PP.

Many thanks and sorry for this whole annoyance
cheers
jOERG

Yes, wire transfers work almost everywhere. You may know them as "SWIFT".

In the old days, you needed to specify the destination by providing the bank's SWIFT code (aka BIC, Bank Identifier Code) and the account number.

Nowadays, the IBAN (International Bank Account Number) which includes the BIC in the account number is more common, but some banks may still prefer the old system. In any case, either should work for sending money.

SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) is the European payment processing system. If sending money within Europe, you'd want to use SEPA (if given a choice), which has low or no fees.

In the USA, there is a local system (ABA, American Bankers Association) that uses a "bank routing number", which is different from SWIFT/BIC/IBAN, but many US banks subscribe to SWIFT as well.

Banks usually require additional information, like name and address of the recipient. In any case, you should receive all the necessary information in the shop. Or you can look it up on the donation page:
http://neo900.org/donate-iban.html

And yes, banks can charge transaction fees, especially for overseas transfers, and some are greedier than others. But at least it's a fairly bad-surprise-free service.

- Werner

Addendum: for wire transfers, you may be given the option of choosing which side pays the transfer fees (i.e., sender, recipient, or a 50/50 split).

We need the full amount to arrive on our account, so you need to select that all fees be charged to the sender.

- Werner

I hate to sound like a spammer (mods feel free to delete this post if it's inappropriate) but I've had success sending money overseas using Azimo. You can use SWIFT or send the money direct to bank accounts for very low fees compared to most banks outside the Euro zone.

Just a quick question :

Does PayPal hold all the money or only the last donations?
I first donated before the shop existed and afterwards I added an amount for a complete device at the beginning of June (through PayPal) and wanted to know if that money got to you or is still at PayPal.
If still at PayPal I could send an mail too just to let them know I want the money transferred to you.