Aral Balkan
Be careful ordering the new #StarLite #Linux #tablet from #StarLabs Systems.
If their system declines your credit card, it still places a pre-authorisation for the full amount into your bank account – thereby reducing the balance of your account for the full amount. The authorisation is for a whole month and so you cannot touch that money for a month.
I called and spoke with them and they told me there’s nothing they can do on their end and bank won’t investigate unless they take the money.
Aral Balkan
(Actually, it’s even worse because after the first time, I called them up and they said to try again. So now I have two pre-authorisations reducing the balance of our bank account by roughly €1,200. Not fun.
It looks like they’re using Stripe on the back-end. We use Stripe too for Small Technology Foundation and I just can’t understand how they can’t just refund the amount/remove the pre-authorisation.
Very odd.
Aral Balkan
Funny thing is, I know these folks. Been promoting their stuff for ages and bought one of their Star LabTops myself. Heck, even suggested a new name for it (the StarBook), which they ended up using.
Really would have expected more than just ‘computer says no’ and having to file disputes with my bank.
*sigh*
Aral Balkan
@IsomorphicDude Yeah, that’s what it feels like to me too.
λ Francesco Serra λ
@aral this looks like a misconfiguration to me
James Drinkwater
@aral That is odd, they should be able to cancel the payment intent in the dashboard if its still in the requires_capture state
Aral Balkan
@drinky Yeah, that‘s what I don’t understand.
Aral Balkan
@donw I especially see no reason to issue a preauthorisation *after* declining a transaction. Makes no sense. I don’t see any version of a checkout flow where that makes sense.
Don Whiteside
@aral I only ever wrote code against authorize.net not stripe but it absolutely had a way to cancel a pre authorization. Coincidentally I never had a need to IMPLEMENT it because of the purpose we were using it but I guess someone could just decide not to bother to implement it because f—- you.
Even then, this is almost certainly something they could choose to do via a management portal if they just, again, GAF.
ScaredyCat
Aral Balkan
I’ve just written to them again asking them to look into why their system is placing pre-authorisations on cards for failed transactions. Once/if they get back to me that they’ve fixed whatever their configuration issue is and that it’s working as it should, I’ll update you all here. Until then, I would hold off on trying your luck.
Aral Balkan
Update: Looks like one of the pre-authorisations has now been cancelled. One to go.
Aral Balkan
Update #2: Both preauthorisations have now been cancelled.
Will update once/if there’s some confirmation of what the core was/is and when/if it’s fixed.
In the meanwhile, they also accept payment via (spit) PayPal and invoice. The last of those is likely the safest option until this is properly sorted.
I’m going to try that now.
Aral Balkan
Right, so I just put in an order, selected their invoice option at checkout and was able to transfer them the money via IBAN in seconds. Wish I’d done that from the start.
*Phew!* That was way harder than it needed to be.
(Again, I’ll update you all if/when they get back to me let me know the issue with failed transactions resulting in preauthorisations is fixed. Until then, if you’re going to pre-order the #StarLabs #StarLite #Linux #tablet, I’d highly recommend you pay by invoice.)
Curtis McHale
@aral I was looking at this tablet today. It does look nice but I don't have time/money to kill on payment issues.
Aral Balkan
@curtismchale If you’re in Europe, just select the invoice option at checkout and do a bank transfer using IBAN. With Wise, it was in their hands in seconds (I really do love Wise. It just works.)
Hopefully they’ll figure out/fix whatever the other issue is because I really want to be able to recommend this without reservations to folks :)
Aral Balkan
So, after all that, I’m back to being very excited about my early(ish) birthday present (it doesn’t ship for another two months).
I have some very neat plans for this little tablet… hehehe!
:awesome:
Aral Balkan
@Longplay_Games On paper, it sounds great. Can’t wait to have it in my hands and have a play :)
Longplay Games :pc_color: 🎮
@aral I hope it turns out! We need some decent linux tablets to come out.
Aral Balkan
@benda I ordered it with Ubuntu but just so I can see it working when it arrives. I’ll likely end up installing Fedora Silverblue on it as I have on all my machines. I enjoy the vanilla GNOME experience, not to mention the transactional updates :)
benda
@aral @Longplay_Games which os does it come pre-loaded with? they have various ones listed on their site. I'm curious how mobile Linux is doing these days, as I would like to get away from Android.
🐙 Compañero Allende 🇵🇸
@aral
oof. shame about the apparent lack of stylus.
Aral Balkan
@morpheo I don’t really plan on drawing with it so I’d much rather it was optimised for my fingers :)
Aral Balkan
@benda @Longplay_Games Will do :)
benda
@aral @Longplay_Games keep us posted on how it goes. if you have good experience, I think I'll finally try to get Ubuntu touch on an old pixel I have lying around.
Aral Balkan
@ErictheCerise Haha, they’re a tiny little company and doing some great work; I’m more than happy to support them.
Eric the Cerise
Today, you were their financial Beta tester.
I think they owe you a free sample.
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