To make a long story short, the infamous “Lowtax” decided to collect donations via PayPal on behalf of SA. They collected as much as $20,000 to send to disaster victims, and in return, Lowtax was going to send donors some free merchandise to thank them.
Well, PayPal decided otherwise, and shut down the account, and froze all the money collected, which is basically in limbo. Which means that anyone who donated won’t get to see their contributions go towards helping those in need.
What the fuck?
Damn, SA is blocked for me. What was the stated reason from PayPal? PayPal collects money from SA members all the time. I cannot see a reason why this would be stopped.
Some jerks decided it would be hilarious to accuse Lowtax of stealing the money. Paypal then decided to freeze the account.
I see, that totally blows. If it’s true, then yeah… but I can’t see Lowtax stealing the money in such a public forum. Especially using PayPal, no way he’d ever get away with it.
Yes, I once got the bright idea to collect money for friend who I knew from a newsgroup. She was in dire straits, so I emailed everyone on the group privately and had them donate via Paypal. I then withdrew the Paypal money via transfer to my bank account. Since I used to eBay a lot I had done that dozens of times, and it always took three days to get my money in my account, which jived with their published schedule.
However, for some reason that PayPal could not figure out (I guess - because every time I called I got a different story) it took them TEN DAYS to transfer the money. I had to call my friend and tell her she couldn’t deposit the generous donation check I had mailed to her right away. Unfortunately, she already had. I then had to wire money from my son’s account to mine (because my bank was out of town) to keep my check from bouncing.
Between the outrageous Paypal fees and the wire transfer fees, I almost made the entire donation myself, and I was the poorest person in the group next to the woman I was collecting for.
I only use Paypal now when I have absolutely no other choice.
Actually, SA stopped using Paypal several months ago because either they decided SA was a pornography site (it isn’t) or because of SA losing money to Paypal’s commission and the ease of pretending to pay for something via Paypal and then taking the money back. I remember both being issues, I don’t remember what the final straw was and I can’t check since SA is only the temporary donation page right now.
While it’s possible that someone with an Internet grudge filed a fake complaint in order to screw SA by screwing hurricane victims, it’s equally possible that Paypal saw an opportunity to steal thousands of dollars from hurricane victims on their own. Anyone who has dealt with how Ebay/Paypal really work knows that they are not above such things.
Is that just speculation, or did you hear that from someone in the know?
When my mother and I were trying to figure out how to send money from the US to Canada with minimal hassle, she suggested that we could use PayPal. My response was something like, “Oh, god, NO!” Not because I wanted to make a statement or anything, either - just because I was extremely worried they’d screw it up with their usual brand of pervasive evil.
I don’t know anything about Something Awful - why was he collecting the donations himself instead of just directing his users to the Red Cross? I’m not defending PayPal’s actions (which seem at the very least to be terribly slow) - I’m just curious.
I believe he wanted to be able to send them a gift for their contribution.
Ah, ok. Fair enough.
Lowtax posted a screenshot of Paypal shutting down his account because they “received more than one report of suspicious behavior.” Maybe PayPal is full of shit, but it sounds like someone who has a grudge against Lowtax decided to screw everyone over.
Yup, PayPal did the same thing to an imageboard site I visit.
Somebody decided to be a fucktard and informed Paypal they were a porno site(the site’s like SomethingAwful; some nude stuff for humor but not dedicated to pornography in the least) and in breach of the paypal contract thingy. They siezed about 1600 dollars worth of donations we made to keep the servers running, and the dude running the site went into debt to keep it up. He still, almost 8 months later, hasn’t gotten the money from PayPal.
In conclusion: Fuck Paypal with a cactus up their puckered, flabby assholes.
Just an update, PayPal has unfrozen the account, and hopefully the money is on its way to help people who need it.
Strike that…I apparently spoke too soon. Thought I read earlier that paypal had unfrozen it…apparently he just got ahold of Paypal, but they still haven’t unfrozen it, so he’s refunding. That sucks.
I’ve found PayPal pretty reliable with small sums, but it seems anything over $1,000 crops up problems somehow or other. Careful communication with buyers helps, but communication with a big impersonal moneyhandling outfit doesn’t, always.
Would you please elaborate on this? I’m totally ignorant, but I’d like to learn.
I once got screwed on an Ebay purchase (the guy took my money and sent no goods) The person’s account was revoked from Ebay. Ebay told me to contact paypal to get my money back. Paypal’s reply was basically “Yes we know you got screwed too bad contact your credit card company”
So I did. When my credit card company disputed the charges Pay Pal froze my account. I emailed them asking them why they would for just following their own instructions they replied “No biggie just fax us a copy of your DL and we’ll get your account back in order”
So I did. I got a reply “We got your fax sorry about everything etc etc” then another one “We’re not turning your account back on” I emailed them again asking why and they sent me a totally nonsensical response that had NOTHING to do with what I was asking. I emailed them again and got another “Fax us your DL and everything will be ok” So I did. Same thing only this time when I emailed them the bizzaro response had even less to do with what I was talking about. I finally just gave up. I don’t know if their staff just doesn’t speak English or if they have some automated system that just randomly replies to direct questions but whatever it was it wasn’t worth it.
I only use Paypal for ebay and other small online payments.
I would never trust them with large sums of money, or let any of cash sit in my ebay account for any period of time. Basically their customer service is none existent, so if anything unusual happens their standard and immediate response is to freeze everything and then worry about it later. A long time later, when they can be bothered. After all, as long as they are left holding the money, what do they care? In the meantime; get use to irrelevant, useless, automated replies that make it clear no-one is actually reading your emails.
This is just another reason why paypal doesn’t get to debit my real bank account. At least if it goes through my credit card I have some protection from them. Anything that comes out my bank account directly is gone. (I posted about my other reason here.)
I speak as some-one who has had no major problems with them. Just little irritations that give clear warning of how anything major would be handled.
Paypal, when it finally decided to respond (ir)rationally (again), decided that the funds couldn’t go to the Red Cross, but rather to the United Way. Since the United Way is suspect to a lot of folks, the whole thing augured into the earth and smoldered pathetically. Unless info comes to light very much to the contrary of what’s been posted, I’m never using PayPal again.
:eek: This is just so… so… fundamentally wrong! Where in the hell does Paypal get the idea that they have any say, whatsoever, in who account holders donate their money to? And if so, why stop there?? Do they have a say in what companies you spend your money with too? “I’m sorry, we cannot release your funds to buy your new car, as we have an agreement with Ford. Buy from them or you’re not getting your money.”
Are you sure that what was said here wasn’t “If you want us to drop our usual 2.35% charge, you need to donate to our charity. If you donate to someone else, we’ll take our usual fee.” That still sucks, but makes a bit more sense.
Reading the above report, the guy does seem to have been a bit naive about the whole thing. Basically he was accepting donations through a personal account, which can open up a whole can of worms about taxation and charity status. But Paypal’s behaviour, as ever, seems bizarre. If they had a problem with this their only legitimate course of action is to return the money. You simply don’t get the option of giving it to someone else.