They have contacted April now.
They’ve given an apology and unfrozen her account. The donation mentioned in the president’s letter has not happened yet, but is being discussed.
They are still asshole fuckfaces. That donation better be sizable!
Ugh. Why do they get to act like a bank, with none of the (still inadequate) legal oversight? Congress needs to deal with shit like this, instead of crap like ending overtime for IT workers. Both are dumb, but at least one is “for the people”.
That donation should be at least twice the amount of the FIVE DIFFERENT fees that they took from her.
For me, the largest turd in this bowl full of turds is that they also froze her PERSONAL account, as well as the Regretsy account.
The best comment on the Facebook post is someone suggesting that Paypal is probably going to take 20% of the donation as fees.
This is a shame. I’ve been super busy lately so I haven’t been keeping up with Regretsy at all…
At my job I administer a Paypal account taking donations, and in our case it’s gone really well, but I think it’s because we’re a 501©3 so we get to use the special “nonprofit” program they’ve set up. Lower fees than normal purchases and various support built in. It would be nice if they could expand that to worthy causes like this one that aren’t 501©3 but are still charities. As mentioned, we do pay fees on the donations but IMO it’s worth it for the support they give.
And yeah, Paypal has a ton of different published guidelines that often self-contradict. I usually contact our account rep directly - part of the benefit of going with “Paypal Nonprofit” is that we get an account rep who’s knowledgeable about donation issues as distinct from normal transaction stuff. It would be super awesome if the outcome of this isn’t the ceremonial disemboweling of the CSR who jerked April around, but rather that Paypal gets it’s shit together in terms of guidelines for donations whether to 501©3s using “Paypal Nonprofit” or to other types of orgs/charities.
Ah… Thanks.
Very interesting story. Thanks for sharing Diosa.
Could someone explain to me what Regresty is – I googled but didn’t find an explanation, only pictures.
Regretsy is a snark site that mocks things from the Etsy site. Not everything, just atrocious things that should never see the light of day.
Paypal still has not made the donation they claim that they are making. And other vendors are coming out of the woodwork to talk about how Paypal did the same thing to them. Unfortunately, those vendors don’t have the power of the fat, jealous loser Regretsy fans behind them.
One of my online communities just intersected with another one. It makes me feel a little weird, like my wife and mistress just met each other.
For the record, I do not have a wife or mistress.
CF4L
To know what Regretsy is, you have to know what Etsy is. Etsy.com is a website where people predominantly sell hand made crafts. You can buy many beautiful things on Etsy. Unfortunately, “handmade” is not synonymous with “attractive,” a fact that escapes a certain percentage of sellers. Hence, Regretsy, which exists to mock Etsy listings are are hilariously ugly or just plain odd. I think their slogan “Where DIY Meet WTF” pretty much says it all.
Paypal previously did the same thing to Diaspora. http://blog.diasporafoundation.org/page/2
If the affected site has enough Internet pull, Paypal will apologize profusely and promise not to do it again. I imagine smaller sites just get screwed.
Yup. As the poster for Regretsy said:
After all, PayPal locked both the business and personal accounts over this, but (for example) a gone-viral little soap shop that got a flood of orders for Christmas over being featured somewhere fabulous could be royally screwed by having their business account locked for months because someone at PayPal shrugged.
Very interesting stuff. I made my very first Etsy purchase this past weekend – for a garment bag made out of a pillowcase, with nicely surged seams and a covered zipper . (I’ll use it to wash sweaters in the handwash cycle. I couldn’t find one in any store that wasn’t mesh and therefore inherently “not delicate”.)
I like their slogan too 
If you read the original absurd exchanges, they have all the hallmarks of someone who has made a decision based on emotion or a gut feeling, then is trying to manufacture a logical explanation for it on the spot. There obviously aren’t any actual rules or guidelines being universally applied, just grasping at rationalization straws.
Yep. We know you’re a bad guy, so we’re going to come up with some kind of rule to stop you.