UPDATE Tuesday 11 December: I have just received some very good news from PayPal – they have lifted the reserve and 100% of my PayPal account is now available to me. I have transferred all of the money into the relative safety of the FOUND bank account.

The only reason PayPal responded at all was due to me blogging about the problem and gaining the support of FOUND’s friends and fans. I’m truly grateful for your help. Thank you all so much. It is shocking though that a PayPal customer who has paid hundreds of pounds in transaction fees needs to go to these lengths in order to get access to their own money.

I am not happy to have to post this kind of thing on the FOUND website but unfortunate circumstances have forced me to do so. PayPal are withholding all of the ticket sales money for the recent FOUND & King Creosote tour and all of my attempts to make a formal complaint through PayPal’s online form have failed. So I have decided I have to post my complaint here in the hope that people will share the link and eventually it will get to someone in PayPal who will deal with it. Thanks very much for your help and support. – Tommy / FOUND (tommy@foundtheband.com)

“I would like to make a complaint against PayPal for unfair treatment. I sold tickets for a 4 date music tour across Scotland for my band FOUND & the notable Scottish music artist King Creosote through my PayPal account. Full details of the tour here http://foundtheband.com/news/bits-of-strange-homecomings-tour/

I sold the tickets via the FOUND website for £25 a ticket and £50 for a season ticket. I sold 213 tickets through PayPal and paid £284.45 in transaction fees. I do not understand how PayPal can justify these fees in light of the way they have treated me. PayPal’s customer service is abysmal.

In October PayPal limited my account and requested incredibly detailed information about the tour. I don’t see why PayPal need to know all of this information but I reluctantly provided it uploading the relevant documents to my account. After several phone calls to PayPal I managed to get the limitation lifted. However only days after this PayPal decided to put a reserve on my account meaning that I can’t access the ticket sales money.

I put so much hard work into this tour: organising the shows; designing the promotion & merchandise; setting up the tickets links & managing sales; promoting the tickets online; learning & rehearsing an entire set of new music & then performing the tour itself. The fact that I can’t get access to the hard-earned ticket money is extremely painful.

I need this money now to pay the 5 musicians who played on the tour (including me).

The four gigs all went extremely well and we had very enthusiastic audiences. I have let them know via our Facebook & Twitter accounts that their ticket money has been withheld from the bands they paid to go and see. They are also angry. I am going to ask our fans to complain to PayPal. I fully intend to give PayPal as much bad publicity as I can.

I am extremely angry at the lack of respect PayPal have shown me. I have had to phone up to deal with the reserve issue 3 times and I phoned up about the account limitation twice. I am wasting so much valuable time just trying to access money that legally belongs to me. Each time I phone up I don’t manage to move the situation on any further as the department who deal with reserved accounts ‘aren’t customer facing’. How convenient!

I want PayPal to remove the reserve and give me back my money immediately. I want a formal apology for the way I have been treated and the amount of time I have had to spend dealing with this problem.

Yours sincerely,

Tommy Perman (PayPal account: info@foundtheband.com)

King Creosote & FOUND present “The Bits of Strange Homecomings Tour”
Tickets will go on sale from this website from Monday 17 September!

This unique tour will see Mercury Music Award nominated King Creosote and BAFTA Award winning FOUND come together to perform King Creosote’s “My Nth Bit of Strange in Umpteen Years” live album.

The live album was launched in 2009 as a reaction to downward spiralling sales and the ever decreasing value of a recorded album, whilst attempting to make the live show an absolute “must see”. The album has already been performed over a dozen times with various members of the KC band, the fence collective & guests, and most recently with Lancastrian super group The Earlies in 2011.

For these, the 15th-18th Bits of Strange, audience members are asked to arrive with a portable recording device to record this unique version of a continually evolving live album, and to share it with whoever they like. As KC explains:

“Recording these shows on portable battery powered equipment is optional, but highly recommended. We doubt there’ll be a studio version anytime soon, and you never know, over the tour we might pull four very different versions out of the bag.”

The 4-date tour will bring the ensemble to each member’s hometown:

Tuesday 27 November:
Aberdeen, The Blue Lamp (Capacity 100)

Wednesday 28 November:
St. Andrews, The Barron Theatre (Capacity 66)

Thursday 29 November
Edinburgh, The Scottish Story Telling Centre (Capacity 99)

Friday 30 November
Hawick, Heart of Hawick (Capacity 108)

Saturday 1 December
Homecoming End of Tour Party, venue TBA

Tickets are priced at £25 each and for that buyers will receive all exclusive tour merchandise:

• A limited edition whisky glass etched with a different logo for each location designed by KC & FOUND to represent their home towns
• A “Bits of Strange Homecoming Tour” tea towel
• A pot luck King Creosote album from his back catalogue
• Free entry to the Homecoming End of Tour Party with special guest djs

Tickets will go on sale from this website from Monday 17 September!

Each show will commence with a tasting of a limited edition single cask whisky being produced by Dewar’s specifically for the Homecoming tour. There will also be a different support set for each venue from the various members of the King Creosote band and FOUND.

#UNRAVEL Live at The Queen’s Hall is now less than a month away (Wednesday 15 August). Advance tickets are selling really well but if you haven’t bought yours yet you might be interested in this competition . . .

Our friends at the Aberfeldy Distillery have produced a beautiful single cask, single malt whisky to commemorate #UNRAVEL. It’s extremely limited, but we’re offering you the chance to win one of these delicious whiskies and two tickets to the #UNRAVEL Live gig. All you have to do is Tweet your best compliment or insult including “#UNRAVEL bit.ly/unravellive” in your Tweet. FOUND and Aidan Moffat will choose our favourite and announce the winner on Friday 10 August.

If you need some inspiration watch this wee teaser animation I produced: http://vimeo.com/45073964

Terms and Conditions:

1. Tweets must include “#UNRAVEL” and “bit.ly/unravellive” to qualify and must be posted before the end of Thursday 9 August.
2. Entrants MUST be over 18 years of age and be able to attend the gig at The Queen’s Hall on Wednesday 15 August.