Wednesday, March 11, 2009
The 2009 Hotbox Events CAT PAAM Application is planned to go live mid-March.
Hotbox Events CAT Applications will be processed via the new PAAM CAT application which will also be going live mid-March.
Regarding the separation of Hotbox Events CATs and DCSS for those who have applied in previous years -
Your old account with the DCSS PAAM application will be as it was.
We will create a new account in the new Hotbox Events CAT PAAM application for you.
We'll let you know via PAAM when both applications are live.
You can then either:
1. Keep both accounts to apply for positions with CAT and DCSS and (separately).
2. Delete one of the accounts if you only intend to apply to work with CAT or DCSS.
We're separating the Hotbox Events CATs and DCSS as the joint website and application has confused so many in the past - hundreds applying to DCSS when they meant to apply to CAT and vice versa.
Due to third party trading regulations if you wish to work with both CATs and DCSS from 2009 onwards you will be required to pay two deposits - one to Hotbox Events CATs, one to DCSS. Unfortunately there is nothing we can do about this. CATs have always been run by Hotbox Studios Ltd (now by the trading name HotBox Events but still part of Hotbox Studios Ltd), this being a different company to DC Site Services Ltd. Until 2008 all deposits were taken by HotBox (CAT and DCSS), Hotbox then transferred DCSS only deposits to DCSS and held CAT and joint DCSS & CAT deposits. This worked well re some applicants applying to both DCSS and Hotbox CATs. In 2008 we setup a merchant account to replace PayPal - the idea to save both the applicants, DCSS and Hotbox money as the merchant account providers didn't charge as much as PayPal does to process transactions. Although we detailed all on application for the merchant account after a couple of months the merchant account provider realised we were breaking their Terms and Conditions by third party trading (Hotbox taking payments on behalf of DCSS). Although we explained that we had advised this was our intention on application; as only using one merchant account was the logical choice saving both companies money and consolidating transactions; the merchant account providers decided they weren't happy with our setup - this caused a lot of hassle, cost us a lot of money, and resulted in both companies (DCSS and Hotbox) reverting to separate PayPal accounts. As with the merchant account neither company can process transactions via PayPal on behalf of the other company, or hold deposits on behalf of the other company - either action would be third party trading and would break the Terms and Conditions of any payment processing provider. This is why you as an applicant now need to pay two deposits if you wish to work with both DCSS and Hotbox Events CATs in the same year, as you would need to pay a separate deposit if you wanted to work with another music festival staff or volunteer company. Sorry we did all we could to avoid this, save you and us money, although really don't have any choice in the matter.
