| Thread: Sometimes it takes tragedy to reveal the truth |
Dina
Message Maniac
From: N/A
Messages: 187
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Sometimes it takes tragedy to reveal the truth |
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<Livewire>,Paypal is completly at fault. And here in canada, they could care less if i deposited 50000 in my bank account in one day.
And if they did question it, I think me faxing all my privied info would suffice. They look for accounts to deem suspicious. Quite honestly, the are suspicious!! Why is it so different when people do fundraising at local business, and rake in 50000 or more, later supply the charity OF THEIR CHOICE with a cheque? Just because SA didn't get permission beforehand, doesn't mean he wasn't honest. Just like other websites, many people ask for donations.
There is nothing wrong with what he did, i don't care what the PP bogus user agreement states.
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<Livewire>
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Sometimes it takes tragedy to reveal the truth |
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Quote:
Yes, in situations where someone w/o any history suddenly puts up a site to collect donations, sure. That happens. However, the SA community is well established. It's well known, the people that frequent the site trust the administrator and that really is all that is needed. It's their money, they have a right to entrust it to whomever they like.
I understand that. They entrusted it to the SA admin, and because they entrusted their donations to someone with almost zero knowledge of how charities or financial institutions work, particularly with regard to security, their donations have not reached the people who need it. Had these people donated to the Red Cross, the money could be buying food, clothing, and medicine by now.
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SA was just trying to help. Why did it go thru the SA PayPal account? It's simply: Why do grade schools have fund raisers? So the kids get a sense of accomplishment. There is a community spirit. The users of that site, not unlike the users of this site, simply wanted to help from their respective communities. It's making a statement: "This is what we can do!"
When I was in grade 1, I worked hard with my class to raise money for our school. We raised several thousand dollars, which for 1979 was pretty amazing. The money bag was entrusted to be deposited in the bank by one of the school staff. He or she apparently tried to stick it in the night deposit, and it went missing. It's almost certain that this person stole the money without depositing it, but how can you prove it?
I mention this story to illustrate the risks involved in fundraising, especially for someone who's never done it before.
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And I applaud them. This is no different than me putting up links on this site for Katrina victims and the tsunami victims. I just don't have (or want) a PayPal account, so I send people directly to the charity of their choice. I personally don't need verification that people from this site are helping, I already know they are. But I admit, it would be nice for our ego to be able to say "PayPalSucks.com members sent $xx,xxx for the victims of the hurricane." It'd be nice, but for me personally I don't need it. However, I don't fault anyone else for wanting to do it that way. Additionally the admin of SA was sending out merchandise to the people who donated as a thank you for their help. AGain, I can find nothing wrong with that either.
Did Lowtax make an arrangement with PayPal beforehand to set up this charity fund? Did he give them a phone call to ask if there might be any difficulties? No.
He could have simply linked to Red Cross directly and asked members to direct their donations there. But out of pride, he wanted to have bragging rights to the amount of money his forum raised.
Understand from the point of view of the financial institution. An Internet site they have never heard of, run by a fellow calling himself Lowtax, suddenly acquires a large amount of money in an account. Financial institutions are usually required by law to report suspicious activity in an account.
Your Ace Hardware store did not have $30,000 in the little glass jar on the counter. We're talking about differences of many degrees.
Again I must ask you to compare PayPal to a bank. If First National Fictitious Bank collects $30,000 in deposits overnight in a single account, and someone (not necessarily a donor) calls them up and says, "This sounds suspicious," will the bank do nothing about it?
How did Lowtax plan to get the money to Red Cross? Does he think PayPal has access to the Red Cross' corporate bank accounts? Because they almost certainly don't. He would have had to withdraw the money himself in cash. That's an unacceptable risk.
PayPal was probably not the best choice to collect donations in this way. A bank would certainly have been a better choice, because they are able to send money in a number of other ways, such as wire transfers. A brick-and-mortar bank provides additional security when setting up charity accounts as well. Almost all banks have a procedure for setting up charity accounts.
A "normal, reasonable company" will first and foremost protect the money sent by thousands of its members from falling into the wrong hands, which is precisely what PayPal has done.
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If you don't trust the admin of a site, then that's your call. But don't tell others who they should be trusting or not, because that's a personal choice for each person to make. You know nothing about their community. You know nothing about their history or the relationship that the patrons of that site have with the admin or each other.
Good point. PayPal chooses not to trust the admin of a site at the expense of the security of their members' money. That's their call and you should mind your own business.
Dina, United Way has a PayPal account. If Red Cross had a PayPal account, then I'm certain PayPal would be able to accomodate them. Why don't you go phone up the American Red Cross and ask them to create a PayPal account?
BTW, the American Red Cross used to have a PayPal account, but they apparently don't any more. The Mississippi Red Cross does, as a matter of fact, have a PayPal address for donations. I wonder if Lowtax has tried that avenue. Louisiana Red Cross does not have a PayPal address.
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Dina
Message Maniac
From: N/A
Messages: 187
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Sometimes it takes tragedy to reveal the truth |
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<Livewire>, And further to my posting. Administrator is right. Every place I go into is taking donations for the Katrina fund. Why is that different. I visit websites, (reputable) that you can send a fund using a credit card. Not everyone is out to rip people off. And again, you are missing the whole point here. Why would they not donate the money to Red Cross, but did say they only deal with United Way? NO matter what you say, paypal is at total fault here. And yes, if they are so suspicious, then why not come out and say it. Instead they state thier were some sort of complaints. Point is..paypal are liars, and cheats. Because I believe somewhere down the line, they wouldve taken all the credit for every donation to stream through thier site. As said before, it is shoot now, ask questions later. But even though they ask questions later, they still don't admit thier wrong doings. they are crooked.
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Dina
Message Maniac
From: N/A
Messages: 187
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Sometimes it takes tragedy to reveal the truth |
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<Livewire>, YOu are wrong again, and its not apples and oranges
paypal WOULD NOT donate to red cross, after SA send them all the pertinent information. However, they said they will donate it to United way!!!!!! Why one and not the other????
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PaypalSucks
Administrator
From: N/A
Messages: 2076
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Sometimes it takes tragedy to reveal the truth |
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Quote:
Trusting the administrator of a website is foolish. You don't know his or her real name, never met them, never checked their ID. Enjoying a website is not reason enough to trust the administrator.
But that's none of your (PayPal's) business. You should mind your own business and let other people conduct their lives as they see fit. If you don't trust the admin of a site, then that's your call. But don't tell others who they should be trusting or not, because that's a personal choice for each person to make. You know nothing about their community. You know nothing about their history or the relationship that the patrons of that site have with the admin or each other.
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PaypalSucks
Administrator
From: N/A
Messages: 2076
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Sometimes it takes tragedy to reveal the truth |
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Quote:
To rephrase what was stated above but without the cusswords, PayPal was right to freeze the SomethingAwful account. So many times when funds like this are set up outside the scrutiny of government, the collector of the fund pockets part or all of it.
Yes, in situations where someone w/o any history suddenly puts up a site to collect donations, sure. That happens. However, the SA community is well established. It's well known, the people that frequent the site trust the administrator and that really is all that is needed. It's their money, they have a right to entrust it to whomever they like.
SA was just trying to help. Why did it go thru the SA PayPal account? It's simply: Why do grade schools have fund raisers? So the kids get a sense of accomplishment. There is a community spirit. The users of that site, not unlike the users of this site, simply wanted to help from their respective communities. It's making a statement: "This is what we can do!"
In fact quoting from lowtax:
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You guys were donating nearly $3,500 AN HOUR before Paypal locked the account. Let me repeat that again: $3,500 AN HOUR. You guys were exceedingly awesome. You were going above and beyond being gratuitous. It was amazing, I was wearing socks and they were blown off so hard that they slammed into my sock drawer and all the other socks flew out.
http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=3179
And I applaud them. This is no different than me putting up links on this site for Katrina victims and the tsunami victims. I just don't have (or want) a PayPal account, so I send people directly to the charity of their choice. I personally don't need verification that people from this site are helping, I already know they are. But I admit, it would be nice for our ego to be able to say "PayPalSucks.com members sent $xx,xxx for the victims of the hurricane." It'd be nice, but for me personally I don't need it. However, I don't fault anyone else for wanting to do it that way. Additionally the admin of SA was sending out merchandise to the people who donated as a thank you for their help. AGain, I can find nothing wrong with that either.
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PaypalSucks
Administrator
From: N/A
Messages: 2076
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Sometimes it takes tragedy to reveal the truth |
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<Livewire>,
I was the an Ace Hardware store and they had a box on the counter, "Donate to the Red Cross for Katrina" and people were putting their change in the box. I was a 7-11 and they had a fish bowl with a note on it that all donations would go to the victims of Katrina. I was at a dinner and they had taken their "tip jar" and put a note on it that all tips would go to the hurricane victims.
In all cases that's just real people trying to help. The police didn't come in an arrest them for trying to help. The bank didn't take their money and hold it when they probably went to get a money order or bank check to send to the charity of their choice.
NORMAL, RATIONAL people don't see a problem with this. Now compare to PayPal... they assume everyone trying to help is going to rip people off. They shoot first, ask questions later.
Also, one of the main reasons I posted this was PayPal's canned response: "We have received more than one report of suspicious behavior from your buyers." That right there tells you PayPal is a corporate liar.
No one put in any report, since all the "buyers" were regular users of the SA site. They all know lowtax and no one put in any report of suspicious behavior. This provides proof that PayPal lies when freezes people's accounts. They allege something is wrong when in fact, no one complained. (A frequent criticism here... now we have proof!)
Next look at PayPal's attitude over this: A NORMAL, REASONABLE company would say, "Heck yea we want to help, sure thing, we'll transfer those funds to an account for the Red Cross and we won't even take out our fee." That's how a reputable company would respond. Compare this with how PayPal responds.
That's all anyone needs to know about PayPal.
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<Livewire>
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Sometimes it takes tragedy to reveal the truth |
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Dina, you're talking about apples and oranges. The donations from WalMart and eBay were not "collected". Those are donations directly from the companies.
Trusting the administrator of a website is foolish. You don't know his or her real name, never met them, never checked their ID. Enjoying a website is not reason enough to trust the administrator. I believe ideepthroat.com has an extremely high membership rate, but I wouldn't say that their members "trust" them, per se.
PayPal did not refuse to donate the money to a charity. What PayPal did was refuse to conduct a financial transaction on behalf of an account holder based on a telephone call. Would you be comfortable with a financial institution transferring money out of your account simply because they received a phone call asking them to do so?
For that matter, what if this had been a bank account and not a PayPal account? Do you not think that the bank would freeze an account that received $30,000 overnight, based on a single complaint of suspicious activity? They sure would. And it would be even harder to get at that money than if it were in a PayPal account.
If it were easy to collect huge amounts of money in this fashion and then have it transferred, can you imagine the fraud that would be taking place?
Here's a fun exercise. Go to the Red Cross website and try to make a donation by PayPal. Did you try it? You can't do it. The reason the money can't be transferred to the Red Cross from PayPal is because the Red Cross doesn't have a PayPal account. United Way has a PayPal account. Simple.
So what do they do now, have the money transferred into a SomethingAwful admin's bank account and cut a check? I think not.
If SomethingAwful had done even a shred of research before launching this altruistic plan, they would have spotted this little hitch. They acted without thinking, and now they're stuck.
I think ultimately the money will be refunded to the members who donated, which means PayPal will not charge any fees and the whole matter will be negated. It's a lot of hassle that could have been averted if someone had done a little thinking before they acted.
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Dina
Message Maniac
From: N/A
Messages: 187
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Sometimes it takes tragedy to reveal the truth |
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<Livewire>, Well that would be ignorance on your part. SA isn't the only one that took donations for Katrina. Walmart isn't a registered charity, neither is ebay...these places are collecting on behalf of a registered Charity. there are many sites doing just that.. Paypal isn't a registered charity either, but they collect on behalf of United Way?? get your head out of the sand. There happens to be many people who frequent such websites. and trust the administrators of such. Not everyone is crooked, and furthermore, you missed the whole point. The problem with PP was that they were unwilling to donate to a charity. SA didn't fight to withdraw the money, the fought to get it donated. and paypal refused. they came up with some bogus reason why they were unable to. Sounds to me like you work for them or something. You seem to be doing a whole lot of defending, yet you don't know the whole story. And the whole purpose of this website, isn't just to let the public know about freezing SA donations. There are countless people who have had thier money frozen when they were conducting businesses online.
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<Livewire>
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Sometimes it takes tragedy to reveal the truth |
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Back to the topic at hand, people.
To rephrase what was stated above but without the cusswords, PayPal was right to freeze the SomethingAwful account. So many times when funds like this are set up outside the scrutiny of government, the collector of the fund pockets part or all of it.
If you want to donate to Katrina victims, send your money to the Red Cross, not to JeffK. What kind of fool would trust their donation to a middle man anyway? You can donate on the Red Cross site. Or the Salvation Army. SomethingAwful could have simply linked to these charities from their site.
Anyone who sent money to SomethingAwful is just as ignorant. Never send a donation to anyone but a registered charity. Registered charities can provide documentation.
So now that the damage is done and there's $30,000 in the coffers, they're upset about the PayPal fees deducted from donation amounts. It's not like PayPal is not up front about the fact that they charge a fee. The SomethingAwful admins should stick to categorizing humourous photoshops and leave the fundraising to professionals. I wouldn't trust my money to a person who cannot understand simple accounting. What were they planning to do, ask PayPal to refund the fee that was charged because it's a charity find AFTER the money's been collected? That's like asking for a partial refund on a pair of pants after you've had the legs shortened.
The best that can be said of the SomethingAwful fundraising effort is that they were well-meaning, but incredibly naive and ignorant.
And if you don't think eBay/PayPal cares about the victims of Hurricane Katrina, check this out:
http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200509.shtml#2005-09-09144952
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<ghk>
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Sometimes it takes tragedy to reveal the truth |
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fool, fool .
Dream on about paypal. You wake up when they frooze your account!!!!
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mydolies53
New User
From: N/A
Messages: 1
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Sometimes it takes tragedy to reveal the truth |
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PAYPAL has hurt myself & my sons so much! I am Thank~ful for many things & guess it could be worse, but I think I am going to be forced to sell my house because of them. I made my living on Ebay & now because of some customer claiming he was charged twice & having a non~verified address I am out over $1200.00! The payment was for $646.10. He said he was charged twice so PayPal did a charge~back on my account 2 times. I don't understand that at all. PLUS I had over $ 400.00 in my account to begin with , they debited me his claim & then all the payments I received were also taken from me to pay that. I spent many hours on the phone with a PayPal representative who had no clue...just a phone answerer...call back if you have any more questions was her reply..after giving me NO answers! I was a power seller on Ebay & went out of my way to make ALL of my customers happy! This really is tragic for me as now they have suspended me & I show up as an "UNREGISTERED USER". NO MONEY coming in anymore! WOW! I won't kill myself because it would really hurt my family, but this is very depresssing in a world that does not seem to get any better! PAYPAL IS EVIL!
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<Katie>
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Sometimes it takes tragedy to reveal the truth |
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PAYPAL DOES SUCK! More than the worse pig in the world. I received a CHARGE~BACK a month after the customer got my items! He said his credit card was charged (2) twice by PAYPAL! My PAYPAL account received (1) one payment. Don't ya think I would have noticed TWO!? So after an "investigation" by PAYPAL & a hold on my account...$1292.20 was DEDUCTED from my account leaving me with a negative balance of $588.00. Any payments that my other customers gave me.. were also deducted! Plus I had approximately $400.00 in it when this nightmare began!... PAYPAL representatives told me it could take up to 75 days to resolve & HAVE A GOOD DAY!Now I have been suspended from Ebay (all EBAY fees are paid) & they CANCELLED ALL my listings that I had very good bids on!!!! I have called Ebay,PayPal again.. no answers, except she very politely told me that if I have any more questions...please call back...WHAT? So I listed more items, have VERY GOOD FEED`BACK. Today, 9/15/05 I have received notice that I am suspended from ebay, for fraudulent use! BUT then I find out that I am no longer a REGISTERED MEMBER! Only because one of my fellow ebay members from Canada alerted me! So after hours of trying to call & get results & sending emails I am still sitting here with my thumb up my....nose..pretty hard to do hey? I think a message like this may have helped to do me in...spyware? oh of course not!HAHA! But now I am so angry that I don't even care...sellers BEWARE. Do not use PayPal. THEY REALLY DO SUCK!
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StiG
New User
From: BrOnX, Ny
Messages: 11
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Sometimes it takes tragedy to reveal the truth |
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Quote:
First of all PAYPAL doesn't suck. I've been using them services for the longest time and I can attest their services are fully reliable.
Regarding you little mishap.. I think it was wise of paypal to put their hands on this so called stack of cash. I don't give a **** if its to help Namibia or New Orleans.. if there are doubts of its procedence freeze that shit until good account of it is given.
2.83%??? So what? Are we so used to getting everything laid out in our own ****ing hands that even when it comes to pay a fee we gotta ****? Get the **** out of here... you whinning cry babies.. get a life. Life is a ****, learn to deal with it.. or else.
If you don't like Paypal don't use it but stop ****ing about your little mishap. It's life!
yea look at this guy. I can't wait till paypal messes your life up. You will come back to this forum so fast and be right here with us!!!
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<Shinytek>
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Sometimes it takes tragedy to reveal the truth |
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<Thermoptic>,Actually, this mishap has happened to a lot of people, including me. Its bad business on paypal\'s part. They should investigate matters throughly before basing a final, and all-to-quick decision. This wanton freezing of accounts and pilfering of money has caused I, as well as I gather hundreds of others, to seek alternative methods to paypal and perhaps even take action against paypal. Also, I cannot encourage using paypal as a means of donating money to the Katrina relief effort, only paypal knows where the money really ends up.
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