Do You Hear What I Hear? Yes, It’s Paypal Stealing Money From Kids

[beer]

t’s the holiday season, when a webmaster’s mind turns to thoughts of love and charity. Take Regretsy, for example. The site collected a bit of money and began buying and sending gifts to the kids in the Regretsy community whose parents were having financial problems. In this economy, that could be just about anybody and, the Internet being the Internet, there was an outpouring of affection and donations. It warms, as they say, the cockles of the heart.

Unfortunately, Regretsy used Paypal.

As of yesterday, Paypal shut down the account and put a hold on Regretsy founder April Winchell’s account. They also forced her to refund the money she collected, less the fees Paypal took out – twice.

I’ll let you read the post yourself. It’s a gem of horrible customer support. But this part is classic:

PAYPAL: Only a nonprofit can use the Donate button.

ME: That’s false. It says right in the PDF of instructions for the Donate button that it can be used for “worthy causes.”

PAYPAL: I haven’t seen that PDF. And what you’re doing is not a worthy cause, it’s charity.

ME: What’s the difference?

PAYPAL: You can use the donate button to raise money for a sick cat, but not poor people.

A sick cat, eh?

Now April is a repeat offender. She’s raised money for needy people before and I suspect she’ll do it again. Clearly this sort of largesse is far too suspect to be ignored, especially in the cesspool of iniquity and scam-artists that is the dark binary star of Ebay and Paypal.

What’s Paypal’s problem? April used the “Donate” button instead of the “Buy Now” button on Paypal, a mistake that many make when, you know, soliciting donations. Donations, it seems, require pages of documentation citing non-profit status, something not mentioned directly on Paypal’s website. Instead, anyone can make a donate button – heck, I just did it – and then suffer the consequences when the Paypal militia figures it out. Why not lock the “Donate” button down and make the homeless shelter hire a lawyer in order to file for the ability to accept donations? That seems like it would be effective, non?

Paypal is historically histrionic when it comes to fraud. Either you’re getting screwed on a massive scale or your entire account is shut down on spurious charges. I understand that Paypal has to face scammers and fraudsters every day, but seriously? You hear more about folks like Merlin Mann and now Regretsy getting dinged than the scammers who tried to rent us a place in the Catskills that didn’t belong to them last winter. We trusted them, after all, because they took Paypal.

Paypal no longer seems like the service of choice for things like this and I’d recommend companies start looking into alternate ways to collect money including Amazon (Kickstarter uses this quite effectively) and Google Check-Out or, barring that, hosting their own merchant accounts. An envelope full of money passed by hand through a throng of drunken revelers seems like it would get to it intended recipient faster and more effectively than Paypal.

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I heard some bad publicity about paypal before but this is ... wow. Helping poor people's children is not a worthy cause but aiding a sick cat is.

:wtf:

Good thing I closed my paypal account years ago.

[Alanon]

Wow.

Vultures. :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry:

They arent even in my country yet. You'd think I'm in the left armpit of the world, and not in the smack middle of Europe. :wtf:

[LeetPirate]

Paypal is shit. They are a Mafia bank. Consider the $1.95 they stole from me and then multiply that by the other billion customers they scammed. They never reply to my support emails and there is no option for me to spend the money on my account. Please don't anyone come and tell me about how easy it is to click buy and use funding from Paypal balance because what I am saying is that different countries have different options and I got anal raped cuz every time I make a purchase it comes from my credit card and never any option to use the Paypal balance. I vowed to never use Paypal again but the stupid thing is that they have the widest reach and sometimes it's the only way to pay for stuff.

[beer]

PayPal To Regretsy: Sorry About Denying Donations

PayPal, known for making giving as easy as a click of a button, tried to stop a group of donors from adding charity to their online shopping carts this week.

PayPal demanded that Regretsy, an Etsy parody site, return its recent donations garnered to provide Christmas presents for disadvantaged kids. Though Regretsy functions primarily as a humor blog that mocks unfortunate-looking items on the craft site Etsy, it also allows Etsy sellers to donate their products to charity -- and even to other sellers in need.

PayPal froze the fund, saying the money was generated using a "Donate" button and not the "Buy Now" or "Shopping Cart" buttons.

The Internet payment platform requires users accepting donations to provide documentation of nonprofit status and proof that money is going to benefit an actual charity.

But the Internet quickly unleashed its fury, with people posting comments on PayPal's Facebook page stating that they were deleting their account "ASAP."

PayPal released a statement Monday, saying it was working with Regretsy on fixing the issue and would even donate to the kids' Christmas fund:

Though we can’t comment specifically on the account due to our privacy policy, we can confirm that the funds have been released and we are working directly with the account holder on this matter. Just like anyone else, we believe strongly in helping those in need, especially around the holiday season. We are working with Regretsy to make a donation to help their cause, and we’re truly sorry this occurred.

However, April Winchell, who runs Regretsy, said that PayPal hasn't actually contacted her yet:

In the meantime, Paypal has issued a statement saying they have made a donation and they are working with me, but I have not spoken to anyone yet. I will let you know when I do.

And I would also like to say that I did not expect this kind of global outpouring of support, and I truly believe that had you not all made your voices heard, no one from Paypal would have ever felt compelled to make this right. There is no real support or appreciation for the consumer anymore. The customer is always wrong.

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I bet it like: "oh o, we got lot of negative comments on facebook, lets do something."

They should change their name and slogan to:

PayRape: Where customer pay to be wrong.

[LeetPirate]

I was kinda hoping this would be the silver stake driven up their ass to destroy the Mafia Bank Paypal once and for all. :(

[beer]

I was kinda hoping this would be the silver stake driven up their ass to destroy the Mafia Bank Paypal once and for all. :(

Their days are numbered, or at least someone is coming to shake things up.

Visa to Compete Against PayPal, Amazon With 'Digital Wallet'

Visa, Mastercard Finds New Competitor[Dwolla] From Des Moines

?

The only real edge paypal has besides existing infrastructures is eBay. Throw in a few antitrust lawsuits, lets see some competitive prices, and hopefully we will see a better payment system.