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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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.