PayPal Freezes Hurricane Relief Account 635
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.
PayPal Is Like The Mob (Score:5, Insightful)
Great job, PayPal. (Score:5, Insightful)
As a something awful member, this disappoints me. (Score:5, Insightful)
i hate paypal (Score:5, Insightful)
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/ [slashdot.org]) so there was no option to use their own credit card system.
I am never using paypal again.
THEY DID IT TO ME TOO!!!!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
What a surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolutely amazing. I hope Google uses this as an opportunity to launch GMoney or whatever they're calling it.
BTW, good spelling
I think I speak for many of us when I say.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Post-disaster scams... (Score:3, Insightful)
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 [amazon.com]
Ryan Fenton
Re:Aaaay relax, guy! (Score:3, Insightful)
Other people have waited the time and magically... no money. Not like that was a surprise.
Re:PayPal isn't a bank, so it's not perfectly safe (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Paypal Strikes Again (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Conventional media (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:foolish and self-promotional (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:??? revealed (Score:2, Insightful)
If they want to play at being a bank then they should have to follow the same rules as the rest.
Re:Great job, PayPal. (Score:4, Insightful)
As always, don't keep money at paypal that you can't afford to lose.
Re:PayPal isn't a bank, so it's not perfectly safe (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:PayPal Is Like The Mob (Score:1, Insightful)
I mean, come on people. You all know that paypal is big, and that it relies on a certain level of automation to protect itself, and consumers, and sellers. And you also, all know that there are a ton of people out there raking in what are, well intentioned peoples "Donations". So this guy opens up a site (new, cause he used to use his own credit card processors) and, if the article is telling the truth, in 6 hours had gotten $20k.
You are all telling me that you DONT want paypal to suspend that until they have time to investigate?
I mean, I am all for donations, and helping. But, doesnt paypal have an obligation to protect people (from things like phishing blah blah blah)? How does paypal know this guy is legit (I, for instance, dont. Maybe you do. But does your knowledge neccessarily translate into paypal's knowledge?).
So you bitch when it doesnt do enough to protect people. And THEN you bitch when, in trying to protect people, it steps on somone's toes.
secrecy through lazyness. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:PayPal isn't a bank, so it's not perfectly safe (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:Past history of SomethingAwful (Score:2, Insightful)
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
Re:Paypal Strikes Again (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
It's their business plan (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah the mindless mob... (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Usually (Score:5, Insightful)
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!
Re:PayPal Is Like The Mob (Score:5, Insightful)
That might actually work, if they were willing to do the whole "further investigation" part. They firmly refuse to do anything. Perhaps they could actually try contacting a couple random buyers to verify their payments, and compare buyers' ip addresses to the ones they registered with. That'd tell them in 5 minutes whether the seller is scamming or if those are real donations.
Re:PayPal Is Like The Mob (Score:2, Insightful)
PayPal errs on the side of caution (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:foolish and self-promotional (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
It's apparent you don't know how taxes work (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Totally agree (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
You're a fucking idiot. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
WTF? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:i hate paypal (Score:3, Insightful)
Even if they did release the funds, their initial action and the profit they gained from collecting for charity - yes, their computer may not know but the person reviewing the file sure as hell ought to - will be an absolute PR disaster that will drive us all to their largest credible competitor.
As soon as one materialises.
Oh no, not the evil Paypal!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
call them and tell them how you feel (Score:2, Insightful)
I was only offered this number when I made it clear I was closing my account.
Re:You're a fucking idiot. (Score:1, Insightful)
Not that I like Bush personally, but...
They went 5 days without federal relief because luisianna has a state law that says they won't accept federal aid unless a disaster lasts at least that long. It's A crybaby law left from the civil-war bitterness. Pure beurracratic bullshit, and now millions are suffering for it.
Otherwise, I completely agree with you.
Re:PayPal isn't a bank, so it's not perfectly safe (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:PayPal Is Like The Mob (Score:4, Insightful)
The waiters / waitresses are often the only people to deal directly with the customers. Therefore, it would make sense to pay them generously. Better wages for the employees means happier employees and better service for the customers which directly translates into better business.
I'm not in the restaurant business so I might be missing something very important
Re:Great job, PayPal. (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah. After hearing all the stories about people who got screwed, who in their right mind would treat PayPal like a bank account? As soon as you receive the money, withdraw it to a real bank account. Then, if you're paranoid, transfer it to your savings account that PayPal doesn't know about.
Re:PayPal Is Like The Mob (Score:2, Insightful)
If the overpaid wait staff become fat and happy and lazy, what's to stop you, the employer, from hiring someone else? If you pay well and treat your employees well, then your job should be in-demand, relative to other jobs of a similar nature.
So, if your staff is fat and happy it would be just as easy to let them go- it's not as though these jobs have low turnover to begin with- and hire people who are willing to work harder. If they're lean and happy, though, they're going to be more willing to work hard to make sure they can keep that well-paying, competitive job.
Viola! you've just created an Efficiency Wage [wikipedia.org]!