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PayPal Freezes Hurricane Relief Account
logan5 writes "SomethingAwful's forum denizens, on the call of site admin Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka, raised over $20,000 dollars to be donated to the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. This was done via a PayPal donation link, and PayPal has now frozen the account on a twofold basis: one, that there have been reports of "suspicious behavior" from the "buyers," and two, that no shipping records have been provided for the donations." Since so many users are asking for it, SomethingAwful has provided a link for those wishing to still make donations to the Red Cross in the meantime.
You hate dealing with them the more you have to deal with them. Sadly this is not the first case of paypal outrageousness. They will happily do what they want and often may take money, they do not follow any real guidelines and you are often left out in the cold without them helping you. Sadly there is not a whole lot one can do when you run into bad luck. Unfortunately it can be hard to transfer money with others, and so you are left forced to deal with paypal. For a whole bunch of bad stories just visit one of the many sites like http://www.paypalsucks.com/ .
Now you have a PR nightmare on your hands.
ShortFormBlog: Writing a little. Saying a lot.
While I haven't contributed to the fund in question, paypal's amazing ability to decide when and where to steal money for their own reasons is amazing. I really hope some attorney general takes them to task for this one.
this is fucking bullshit!
Paypal: Where the fuck is my $50 going now? What the fuck is this shit!?
Oh, and the article leaves out that we donated this $22,000 in about seven hours, and lowtax was giving people free shit for doing it out of his own pocket, which was the reason he wasn't just linking the red cross. SA is down from the hurricane (http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/) so there was no option to use their own credit card system.
I am never using paypal again.
they locked my personal account AND My relief account. Got $4,000 in two days to give to a few members on the site who had their houses flooded out. I've been working with Paypal. I took off notice about a percentage going to the redcross - and they want all my tax info. I'd post the site but I dont want to see the site get ./'ed
Just when I thought PayPal might be worth doing business with, this. They must have a world class PR department over there -- "Hey guys. Everyone thinks we're evil." "Oh, I know, let's freeze the donations for the Katrina victims. Everyone will think we're great after that."
/. editors. `Aweful', you could say.
Absolutely amazing. I hope Google uses this as an opportunity to launch GMoney or whatever they're calling it.
BTW, good spelling
My other car is first.
Fuck You Paypal. If there is ever a reason never to use your service again, this is it. May Google open up an online payment system and wipe you off the face of the planet.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
While I can understand some system in place to reactively deal with potential scams, ESPECIALLY given such a huge disaster as the whole gulf coast... I agree that the way PayPal has implimented their automatic system is rather, well, awful.
SomethingAwful has a lot of (crazy) enemies - it's not surprising that they would get a lot of gadflies out there submitting complaints, even at the cost of relief money going to flood victims. And I agree - if there was any sign of a scam going on, someone should have called to verify the events, or had a better way of cutting the account than leaving everyone's money in limbo.
In the meantime, SomethingAwful really should join another site's charity link, and work to resolve this in a way that gets those funds ultimately to that place.
One example: Amazon's Hurricane relief page off of Google
Ryan Fenton
Naah.. the whole 180 thing is a lie to get you to wait 'til they've managed to misappropriate your money somewhere.
Other people have waited the time and magically... no money. Not like that was a surprise.
Do you really believe those "suspicious activity" reports you are getting? They are phishing for your information.
I cancelled both my eBay and PayPal accounts, and put SomethingAwful in the comments field. I suggest other people do the same.
Comment of the year
They'd love this story. Big company stealing from the poor hurricane victims. It's comedically evil, except it's real.
Stasis is death. Embrace change.
You guys sound like good nerds, but I'm sorry, I still don't get it. Pay Pal fees are horrendous.
Look at it from the outside (my perspective.) The website is soliciting donations for the Red Cross. 7% of all those donations go down the drain -- all so that the webmaster can verify that the donation was actually made and give people "free merchendise"?
It's definitely not standard practice, and I'm sure not the way the Red Cross would want it done.
Again, imagine it from the outside: "WalMart Red Cross donation button! Donate to the Red Cross here! 93% of your donation will go DIRECTLY TO THE RED CROSS! Donations over $10 will recieve free Wal Mart goodies!"
I have nothing against people running their own clever, innovative charitable projects via Pay Pal, but this complicated and lossy system of passing the buck is foolish.
Protect your liberties. Donate to the ACLU
That's what I don't understand. Why aren't they legally considered a bank? They handle money transfers like a bank, there are PayPal credit cards.
If they want to play at being a bank then they should have to follow the same rules as the rest.
- Apple Computer......proudly going out of business for over twenty years.
You're not kidding? I think you've been had my friend. If I were you, I'd close that account like right now.
Seriously, it costs pay pal money to actually talk to people and read letters. Everything is automatic. They don't tell you anything because they simply don't care.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Didn't a bunch of fake donation sites pop up after the tsunami last year? Paypal may be attempting to verify the authenticity of the cause, we don't want the donations to end up in the pockets of scammers. For the technicality of nothing sold, they could sell shirts with the money going to the relief effort, but I don't know how that will effect its status as a charitable donation for tax purposes.
Or as you said, some scammers used the donate info to get his paypal account name and are going phishing for account access worth over $20,000. Either way I'd use Paypal's "Contact Us" link. One of the screen caps says contact appeals@paypal so it should be legit if he's seeing that while logged into paypal.
F7 doesn't work, ignore spelling and grammar
Yes, raising fund for forces stationed in Iraq and for sick children are horrible deeds indeed.
Oh, and just for kicks, here's some basic information about the site: The forums, which contain nothing of interest, ask you to register before you can browse. Registration costs $10. To add search capabilities, which are standard on pretty much every single other forum, you have to pay extra. Want to browse old posts? Pay extra! Want to change your avatar or custom title? Pay extra!First, you can browse most of the forums before registering.
Second, the forums are the among the best, largest, and most literate, communities on the web. Hence, the registration cost is has two reasons
1) People tend to be less jackasses if they know it will cost them at least $10.
2) It actually costs money running forums with tens of thousands of users that require seven dedicated servers.
As for the extra features cost, once again, two reasons:
1) It still costs money to run the servers
2) With the sheer number of users on the forums (at least three thousand online at any given time), the servers just can't handle if everyone would search/browse archived posts all the time. Thus, either they limit it to those who find it worth extra money, or disable it for everyone
"I think typing "I, for one" is redundant and annoying. Stop it."
BTW: when someone says "for one" after "I" he is typically implying that there are other people who he is referring to, and he is just one of them. So while it may be redundant in that it repeats the implicit singular noun, its implications run much deeper and the true meaning of the sentence would not be the same without the "for one" part.
Your ignorance is infinitely greater than you realize.
Whenever an account gets too big, they freeze it and pocket the money. They don't have to explain their reasons. They don't have to let you prove your innocence. They don't have to give anything back if you can prove it. And you agree not to sue them over it (probably not enforceable). It's all in their terms of service, and demonstrated in the thousands of horror stories you can find on the internet. I know people who have been hurt by them. I never have and never will trust PayPal with more money than I could afford to lose.
Of course no one seems to have thought about WHY paypal canceled the account. I mean, they're an "evil corporation" cause SA says so thus they must have done it for kicks.
If this was a real donation scam account and paypal left it open I'm sure half of the posters would be screaming at paypal for NOT closing down the account.
Maybe you should consider how many donation scams must have been setup by now. Also, you may wish to consider how unusual this method of donation is and that more likely than not it is used to scam people. Most websites simple have a giant link to Red Cross and tell people to donate, because it's easier and they don't lose 3% in fees. You know, the concept of all the money going to relief efforts and not corporate pockets. Of course it seems SA decided it needed credit or some such for the effort of its members. Also, Paypal really has no idea who SA is or how trustworthy they are so they can only look at the current actions which look mighty close to a scam site.
I dont usually advocate this, but don't you think someone should SUE THE EVERLIVING SHIT out of paypal for pulling this crap.
Hundreds of people clicked "give money to hurrican e victims via lowtax" I dont care if I click "give money to potato farmers for space baby" paypal shouldn't have the ability of lock accounts. They have no right to touch that money.
Im sorry if I just blew a bunch of positive karma, this needed to be said, and with A VERY LOUD VOICE!
PayPal provides a service of transfering funds. PayPal is responsible for the money stored in their accounts. If someone starts accepting money for any purpose and PayPal deems it a suspicious activity it is in the interest of the account holders that PayPal investigate the situation. In this case an account growing at the rate of $3500 per hour is suspicious. If the owner of the account decides to run with the money PayPal is the only one left responsible. All the payers have every right to sue PayPal for not investigating unusual activity. Don't even get me started on PayPal charging fees for services rendered. They've already provided a fee-free method for donating to relief. Full disclosure: I have been a SomethingAwful fan for quite some time and believe that they were going to do the right thing. That still doesn't make PayPal a bad guy for being cautious.
First, read the fucking article. Where did you get 7% from?
Next, realize that the percentage that goes down the drain is likely made up for by the people who wouldn't otherwise have donated but were convinced by the lure of free merchandise.
All the payments he gets via paypal are taxable income. That income, minus paypal fees, is then donated.
Therefore, the amount donated is less than the amount of extra (taxable) income recieved, so he pays more taxes.
PayPal sure gets slammed a lot around here, but they are a business really inbetween a rock and a hard place. PayPal has hordes of people trying to scam them with stolen CC numbers, and I am also glad they err on the side of caution even if from time to time what they do is inconvienient.
It doesn't help that when it comes to moeny, people get a lot more worked up at the drop of a hat.
Hopefully they sort out this issue soon and free up the money to go to where it's supposed to.
If you think PayPal is bad however, just try and look at the alternatives. Have you look at Western Union for sending money? Now THAT is a scam and a half.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Your a fucking idiot. The people left behind didn't have money to rent a hotel, cars to drive themselves away, or the good health to just walk. Remember, New Orleans is one of the poorest towns in the poorest state in the United States of America. There are a LOT of fucking poor people, and there was NO evac plan, other than "drive yourselves out of the area." No busses, no choppers, nothing but "you're on your own."
Think it's so easy to evac on a tip of a hat? Ok. Put yourself in their shoes, the poor and elderly left behind -- first, get rid of your car keys and wallet. These people don't have cars to drive or spare cash to rent a motel, they're POOR. Second, twist your ankle. A good chunk of the people left behind were elderly and ill, so having a bum leg will be a pretty good stand in. Now, grab your entire family, as much of your property that you want to keep -- should be funny seeing you walking with a bum leg and your PC case strapped to your bag. Remember, it's a hurricane, anything you leave behind is gone. Now go walk for 48 hours straight, see how far you get.
Ok, done? Good. Now take a look around. Ask yourself "Did I just walk far enough to get the hell out of the way of a hurricane?" I'd wager you couldn't even make 50 miles. And remember, this was only a Category 1 hurricane until it hit the warm "global-warming doesn't exist!!!" gulf waters, where it balooned, rapidly.
As for the looting -- oh good, they stole a bunch of ruined TVs. You racist moron. You know why there's so many "black looters" down there? Because the media calls "white looting" "finding food". Oh, and the 60% black population might have something to do with it, too. Ya think?
They went 5 days without any federal relief, all so Bush could set up Photo Ops. Think it's easy to go 5 days without food or water? After day two you have to think to yourself "Ok, so the 7/11 has bottled water and bread, and it's already torn to shit because of the wind, fuck this, I'm going to grab some."
It's so fucking easy to sit back behind your computer monitor in some comfortable computer room on a cushy computer chair and blame the victims of this disaster and subsiquent leadership clusterfuck. But in reality these people were in desperate need of help from their city, state, and federal government and that help didn't arrive until it was 7 days too late.
Why is this such a big deal? Just because there's a natural disaster does not mean everyone can drop the guards on their businesses and for example assume no-one will be abusing paypal (just look at the looters). Why does he even need to set-up a paypal donation account when there are countless charities already set-up and waiting to take your donation? Why did he not just link to the Red Cross in the first place, they would get money faster and more people would trust them rather than an unknown web-master. Oh boo fucking whoo paypal are being careful, lets boycott them!
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
So, some random internet website jockey sets up an account and begins to accept tens of thousands of dollars. Presumably, this money is going to be donated to the Red Cross on behalf of the users of a website and for the victims of a horrible disaster. However, some users begin filing charge-backs and... oh, maybe it's not completly legit...
Remember, Paypal doesn't have trained monkeys, sitting behind keyboards, waiting for the next sucker to come along and open an account. Like many other companies who deal with money, they have computer systems that scan transactions and hunt down fraud proactively.
Let's pretend we're the computer and imagine what we see:
Now, does the system just happily let the money go through? Possibly to Lowtax's bank account where, if the chargebacks are true, Paypal is out the money? And what is this hurricane thing? I doubt Paypal programmed in a check for natural disaster donation possibilities (although it might not be a bad idea, it is something that doesn't -- hopefully -- happen frequent enough to justify an entire process to analyze).
Also, Lowtax is running this donation thing from the same website that he runs his regular business. Hmmm.. Maybe the IRS will be interested in hearing of his handling over $20,000 in "donations"... especially since, I don't think, he doesn't run a not-for-profit. Oh well.
MAYBE, just maybe, it's all true. There's some evil exec at paypal who saw the transactions and lit up a big fat cigar with a $100 bill. Then he closed the account and withdrew the money to his petty cash drawer. Because, you know, they're evil like that.
But, in reality, the money is still there. Lowtax, and lowtax alone, needs to contact paypal via phone. Or maybe he can just continue to rant about it on the Internet and hope it all goes magically away.
Next time, folks, donate to a real charity. Something Awful, good intentions aside, isn't a charity. Something about the best laid plans of mice... men have got nothing to do with it... none at all.
Price, Quality, Time. Pick none. What, you thought you had a choice?
1-866-648-5843
I was only offered this number when I made it clear I was closing my account.
The anti-virus/anti-spam stuff tries to stop spam. They can't catch everything. Furthermore, the whole point of phishing e-mail is that it looks legit enough that careless people believe them. Automated spam traps can't catch stuff that looks really legitimate. "Oops, looks like this important security warning was miscategorised by my two-penny spam filter. Better tell it not to do that again."
Here's a hint: Never trust any instructions you get from email unless you are absolutely certain who you're dealing with - be they requests to reset passwords or check information (log on to the REAL site, don't follow the links in email!) or other kinds of instructions (send money, check out this attached security patch that surely seems to be scanned by some anti-virus proggie you don't even have, etc...)
Conmen ruined email as a communication medium, now they're slowly ruining Internet banking.