Slashdot Mirror
PayPal Freezes the Assets of Wikileaks.org
matsh sends word that PayPal has frozen the assets of wikileaks.org. From their Web site: "Paypal has as of 23rd of January 2010 frozen WikiLeaks assets. This is the second time that this happens. The last time we struggled for more than half a year to resolve this issue. By working with the respected and recognized German foundation Wau Holland Stiftung we tried to avoid this from happening again — apparently without avail." The submitter adds: "Hopefully we can pressure PayPal to resolve this quickly, since this seems like a dangerous political decision."
Paypal's behavious is unacceptable in many ways and it happens to many people.
The most annoying thing is when you couple it to ebay, and anoying buyers file a not-received or not-as-described claim when it's clear they couldn't have received it yet, or you told them it was delayed because you were, say ill. As has happened with me.
The bad thing is that this partly or wholly freezes your business section that depends on that. Unacceptable.
Paypal and Ebay were once pretty good, the former because payments via bank transfer for small amounts internatioanlly were so expensive, but all that is gone now and the fees for large sums are also far too high...
I suggest everyone use bank tranfers in EURO countries. IBAN/BIC payments are free if done with shared-cost.
It seems that there is a image from "alainfishing" on wikileaks main page. Read this interesting article about this:
https://p10.secure.hostingprod.com/@spyblog.org.uk/ssl/wikileak/2010/01/paypal-suspends-donations-to-wikileaksorg-who-then-web-bug-their-own-website.html
Interestingly this is only a problem in US and western countries. Russia and Eastern Bloc almost fully uses WebMoney. There is no problems with locking accounts, transactions fees are really low and you can pay your phone, internet or tv bill with it (along with countless of other services). Cards to put money in to account are sold in every kiosk. Security is better too, if you require they send you one-time auth sms or you can have keyfiles to login.
Paypal is shit.