Bridging the Digital Divide In Uganda, By Freight

jtrust27 writes "Slow or non-existent Internet connections have meant that the people of Uganda have not been able to harness the many advantages of the online economy. This social and economic exclusion of the poorest of the poor was further accentuated by the impossibility for a Ugandan to obtain a credit card or make PayPal payments — a simple requirement to be able to pay for goods and services online. Most merchants and payment gateway providers automatically block all credit cards from Africa, and it is not possible to get a verified PayPal account in many African nations." Now, a Ugandan company called EasyPayUganda is helping people sidestep these restrictions, by allowing customers to make online payments by proxy in order to pay for services and goods. EasyPayUganda is also providing a logistics solution, forwarding customers' shipments to Uganda, as most online merchants will not ship to Africa.

Shipping to Africa is as safe as wiring your money

[zelik]

Anyone who complains about foreign companies not "helping Uganda" or Africa in general by denying sales transactions with them has obviously never seriously ran an online business. I ran a moderate ecommerce site (google PR6 at the time) and during the 5 years I had it I received about 10 fake or bad orders from Africa daily. Of course, they were all from Nigeria and wanted ridiculous shipping requests (mail to lagarda bus stop (or something like that)) and for exorbitant amounts (40 DVD players) with insane shipping charges (international UPS expedited!). You can't blame a merchant for not wanting to take the risks of dealing with Africa. One bad experience can cost you quite a bit and credit card companies will never side with the merchant. If you want to blame somebody, blame the credit card companies who place most of the blame on merchants for any fraud that occurs.

Re:Africa

[Jyms]

It's interesting that people complain how Africa is a third world country and how we should help them, but interestingly everyone sets artificial restrictions on them and restricts them from the other world.

Another thing that hurts Africa is that even an intelligent audience like Slashdot thinks of Africa as a third world COUNTRY, when in fact it is a continent with a billion people spread over 61 territories (53 countries), covering about one fifth of the world's landmass.

Re:The truth is somewhere in the middle - been the

[Anonymous Coward]

The good news, though, is that thanks to some development aid partners (like Norway), it's being given development options other than "get as much oil as possible and build your economy around it" (a.k.a. the US-China model).

The bad news, though, is they're intent on pissing away all that foreign aid by passing legislation to kill all homosexuals at the behest of American evangelist fucktards..