To quote April Winchell, "Fuck you, Paypal"
I’m sure someone here in LJ-land will say this more eloquently than me, but as a stop-gap measure, here’s an entry about Regretsy, Christmas charity, and Paypal.
For two years the people over at Regretsy.com have been raising money for various charitable causes (mainly helping people in need in the crafting community, or charities that a crafter supports, info here), and they’ve been doing this through Paypal and the power of the “Buy Now” button. This included both selling items to raise money that would then be donated, and accepting straight donations.
This year Regretsy mobilised its army of “fat, jealous, losers” to fund a Secret Santa campaign (details here). They made the mistake of using the “Donate” button despite not being a not-for-profit organisation and Paypal froze the account and is now making Regretsy manually refund all donations that had not already been turned into toys for disadvantaged children. Paypal states nowhere on their site or in relevant .pdfs that it is a requirement that you be not-for-profit in order to use the "Donate" button. In fact, it's fine for you to use the "Donate" button for "worthy causes" if you're not-for-profit. But somehow using it to buy toys for disadvantaged kids isn't a worthy cause. Or maybe that only counts as a worthy cause if you're not-for-profit? IDEK.
Informative links:
More information at The Consumerist
ONTD_Political recap
Regretsy’s posts: Fuck you, Paypal, and Cats: 1, Kids:0
And there are three different Change.org peitions (so far): President Paypal: Unfreeze Regretsy's account to help children in need, PAYPAL: Allow Regretsy's Secret Santa to continue, and PAYPAL: Give back the money they took from Regretsy for the children.
Paypal's Facebook wall
Paypal (and eBay) phone numbers, e-mail addresses, mailing addresses
For two years the people over at Regretsy.com have been raising money for various charitable causes (mainly helping people in need in the crafting community, or charities that a crafter supports, info here), and they’ve been doing this through Paypal and the power of the “Buy Now” button. This included both selling items to raise money that would then be donated, and accepting straight donations.
This year Regretsy mobilised its army of “fat, jealous, losers” to fund a Secret Santa campaign (details here). They made the mistake of using the “Donate” button despite not being a not-for-profit organisation and Paypal froze the account and is now making Regretsy manually refund all donations that had not already been turned into toys for disadvantaged children. Paypal states nowhere on their site or in relevant .pdfs that it is a requirement that you be not-for-profit in order to use the "Donate" button. In fact, it's fine for you to use the "Donate" button for "worthy causes" if you're not-for-profit. But somehow using it to buy toys for disadvantaged kids isn't a worthy cause. Or maybe that only counts as a worthy cause if you're not-for-profit? IDEK.
Informative links:
More information at The Consumerist
ONTD_Political recap
Regretsy’s posts: Fuck you, Paypal, and Cats: 1, Kids:0
And there are three different Change.org peitions (so far): President Paypal: Unfreeze Regretsy's account to help children in need, PAYPAL: Allow Regretsy's Secret Santa to continue, and PAYPAL: Give back the money they took from Regretsy for the children.
Paypal's Facebook wall
Paypal (and eBay) phone numbers, e-mail addresses, mailing addresses