You can raise money for a sick cat, but not poor people
@polaroidsredwine (509)
United States
December 6, 2011 10:06am CST
The Regretsy community had been trying to buy toys for children in need this Christmas. A giant gift exchange program happened, wherein someone could buy a gift for a kid. They raised so much money that they had enough to donate to families who could use the financial help.
And then Paypal shut the entire operation down. Regretsy used the Donate button, which Paypal proceeded to claim was only for use by non-profit organizations, something that clearly isn't stated in PDF instructions of the Donate button. Now all the donations and purchases have to be refunded to the people by the owner of the account.
When speaking to a representative, the owner said the PDF stated that the button could be used for "a worthy cause," and the rep then said that what she was doing wasn't a worthy cause, but a charity - and when asked what the difference was, the rep responded with "You can use the donate button to raise money for a sick cat, but not poor people."
The entire dialogue can be found on the actual Regretsy website, but now I'm seriously contemplating if I want to ever use Paypal again. It's just ... wow. I don't have words for this. It's ridiculous and shameful that this happened to a good cause.
2 people like this
3 responses
@topffer (42156)
• France
6 Dec 11
PayPal is very weird on the use of a Donate button on a site. I don't understand why you can donate to an author of free software and not to charity in this case
. I suppose they don't want to be involved in a fake charity business, and they forbid to non recognized charity organizations to use this button. The response given here is really shocking and PayPal should be ashamed to employ this person.
. I suppose they don't want to be involved in a fake charity business, and they forbid to non recognized charity organizations to use this button. The response given here is really shocking and PayPal should be ashamed to employ this person.@polaroidsredwine (509)
• United States
6 Dec 11
It's even worse that someone higher up than the representative eventually got to speaking with her about this, and said almost the exact same thing, and even went as far as to say that the highest she would get to speak with was him and no one at his level would ever answer calls - that this was to to help her. She even tried again on the process using a different method by using the Buy Now button but nope, Paypal wouldn't have any of that.
And, oh, they also froze her personal account.
1 person likes this
@topffer (42156)
• France
6 Dec 11
I believe they have frozen her account until she pays back the money received for charity... It was probably not careful to use her own account. I suppose that the right way to do it would have been to give the account of an association legally authorized to receive donations, and that PayPal would have probably not said anything. I can understand PayPal, but there is a too ugly contrast here between the brutality of PayPal employees and the good will of this person wanting to do something for children.
@polaroidsredwine (509)
• United States
6 Dec 11
I'm fairly certain she may have been using a separate account dedicated solely for the purpose of the charity for it and then Paypal froze her personal one.
I would be a bit more forgiving of Paypal if they had gone about this a different way, since I know they don't want the Donate button to be abused, to somehow verify that she was using everything for a good cause and not just to take them for herself.
A statement on behalf of Paypal was released on the official blog, but it sounds half-hearted and, despite saying they're working with the woman from Regretsy, she says they haven't even contacted her yet. Part of why the released the statement, I think, is from all the hounding people have done on the company for doing something like this in the first place.
@enelym001 (8322)
• Philippines
7 Dec 11
This is crazy!
Is this just mistake of the rep? Or that's how it really works?
So if that Donate button we're putting on our websites is useless then I guess we have to start removing it, I've got no sick cat, and will not use my sick dog for it as what they wanted people to do.
@polaroidsredwine (509)
• United States
7 Dec 11
I'm going to place the blame on the fact that the guidelines and rules set out for using the Donate button are completely unspecific. By the way Paypal has worded it, pretty much any reason for using the button, even for the use of a sick cat, you can't use the button for it. They need to update the usage terms for the Donate buttons so incidents like this don't have to happen and smear the company's name.
@polaroidsredwine (509)
• United States
6 Dec 11
I know that Paypal does want to make sure they're not breaching any laws and that the charity is not just a scam, so shutting the entire thing down and doing all of that was pretty extreme. I'm sure they could have found another way to go about verifying the charity.
