Raise money for poor kids? Bah humbug!
So I'm sure some of you are familiar with this story already, but for those of you who aren't, apparently this website Regretsy, which is essentially a Failblog of hand-made crafts mostly from Etsy, raised several thousand dollars through donations via Paypal for kids whose families may not be able to afford to have a holiday. However, because Paypal claims that donations can only be done via confirmed non-profit organizations using their Donate function, they shut the account down. You can of course use the donate button for (what they determine are) worthy causes, like raising money for a sick cat. Just not for poor people. No seriously, that's what they said, and I quote: "You can use the donate button to raise money for a sick cat, but not poor people."
Now don't get me wrong, raising money for your ailing pet is a noble cause! I'm sure many pet owners will agree with me. However, the big issue here is not that they only allow donations for sick cats. The issue is with the fact that these people are raising money for kids who wouldn't have a good holiday without their help, get told well after the fact that they're not allowed to do that, and because of this minor infraction Paypal is refusing to allow them to try again using the correct methods. If they want to do this the correct way, they have to start a new website, create a store inventory to allow the repurchase of these gifts instead of donating the money (and from what I gather most of their gifts are unique, so they have only one of many of their items), and send the item directly to the buyer for the buyer to give to the recipient. Which of course Paypal will track to ensure it reaches the buyer. Basically, they have to not just jump through hoops, but do acrobatic pirouettes through them, while the hoops are on fire, over a bed of spikes. Since, of course, Paypal knows they're trying to work around the problem, Paypal will not allow this to happen anyway. Not only that, they are demanding that Regretsy refund every $2 donation sent to the account prior to having it closed down. Of course Paypal won't be refunding the fixed fee they take from every charitable donation. Basically for every $2 that is sent to Regretsy, Paypal gets 30 cemts. So since this is in the thousands, let's just say $2,000, that's roughly 1,000 donations, or $300 that Paypal walks away from this with. Regretsy gets nothing. All those kids from poor families get nothing.
Not to say the families aren't getting nothing; from what I gather Regretsy will at least still go ahead with this even without the donations they had to refund, since they already bought the gifts. They were hoping to give actual money to these families as well though to perhaps buy a decent dinner, or even pay off a bill.
I've got a credit card with them. Soon as it's paid off I'm closing the account. I'm going to stop using Paypal to send money as well.
EDIT: I forgot to add that apparently they already attempted to do it the proper way, offering their customers a way to donate money by "buying" the gifts to be sent off. So not only did Paypal get money from the donations, but also for the sales, plus whatever they earned through the purchase of said gifts by Regretsy through Paypal. So it's quite possible they made a good $500-$1000+ through this.
EDIT2: ... ok I just learned that it wasn't just a couple thousand dollars that Paypal froze and required refunds on. It goes well into 6 digit numbers. Something like $150k? So unless people made huge donations at a time, it's quite likely Paypal made close to $27k off of everyone's generosity. Of course I'm also hearing that this whole Regretsy-Paypal issue is fake, but even if it were this isn't the first time they've killed legitimate charitable acts of kindness from non-nonprofit organizations. Sure there are a few bad apples out there who have abused the system but that shouldn't mean that everyone suffers as a result. Either allow donations & work with legitimate ones accidentally frozen, or don't allow donations and not have to worry about illegal activity.
Now don't get me wrong, raising money for your ailing pet is a noble cause! I'm sure many pet owners will agree with me. However, the big issue here is not that they only allow donations for sick cats. The issue is with the fact that these people are raising money for kids who wouldn't have a good holiday without their help, get told well after the fact that they're not allowed to do that, and because of this minor infraction Paypal is refusing to allow them to try again using the correct methods. If they want to do this the correct way, they have to start a new website, create a store inventory to allow the repurchase of these gifts instead of donating the money (and from what I gather most of their gifts are unique, so they have only one of many of their items), and send the item directly to the buyer for the buyer to give to the recipient. Which of course Paypal will track to ensure it reaches the buyer. Basically, they have to not just jump through hoops, but do acrobatic pirouettes through them, while the hoops are on fire, over a bed of spikes. Since, of course, Paypal knows they're trying to work around the problem, Paypal will not allow this to happen anyway. Not only that, they are demanding that Regretsy refund every $2 donation sent to the account prior to having it closed down. Of course Paypal won't be refunding the fixed fee they take from every charitable donation. Basically for every $2 that is sent to Regretsy, Paypal gets 30 cemts. So since this is in the thousands, let's just say $2,000, that's roughly 1,000 donations, or $300 that Paypal walks away from this with. Regretsy gets nothing. All those kids from poor families get nothing.
Not to say the families aren't getting nothing; from what I gather Regretsy will at least still go ahead with this even without the donations they had to refund, since they already bought the gifts. They were hoping to give actual money to these families as well though to perhaps buy a decent dinner, or even pay off a bill.
I've got a credit card with them. Soon as it's paid off I'm closing the account. I'm going to stop using Paypal to send money as well.
EDIT: I forgot to add that apparently they already attempted to do it the proper way, offering their customers a way to donate money by "buying" the gifts to be sent off. So not only did Paypal get money from the donations, but also for the sales, plus whatever they earned through the purchase of said gifts by Regretsy through Paypal. So it's quite possible they made a good $500-$1000+ through this.
EDIT2: ... ok I just learned that it wasn't just a couple thousand dollars that Paypal froze and required refunds on. It goes well into 6 digit numbers. Something like $150k? So unless people made huge donations at a time, it's quite likely Paypal made close to $27k off of everyone's generosity. Of course I'm also hearing that this whole Regretsy-Paypal issue is fake, but even if it were this isn't the first time they've killed legitimate charitable acts of kindness from non-nonprofit organizations. Sure there are a few bad apples out there who have abused the system but that shouldn't mean that everyone suffers as a result. Either allow donations & work with legitimate ones accidentally frozen, or don't allow donations and not have to worry about illegal activity.