PayPal Blocks Hurricane Relief Funds

6 Sep, 2005 at 3:34pm ET Article published in Tech

The widespread destruction of Hurricane Katrina was exacerbated by delayed relief efforts, but the latest victims of bureaucracy are those individuals simply trying to help out. Humor site Something Awful raised almost $28,000 in less than 9 hours, right up until PayPal froze the funds.

Unable to take credit card payments directly due to his site being down, Kyanka set up a PayPal account specifically to handle the effort. Donations poured in at a rate of almost $3,900 per hour – an astounding number from any perspective.

That is, until PayPal shut down Something Awful’s donation account late Saturday evening. Because PayPal’s customer support was closed for the night, Kyanka was unable to discover why $27,695.41 in Red Cross relief funds were locked. PayPal’s automated system explained that it had received “more than one report of suspicious behavior from your buyers.”

In the interim, Something Awful directed visitors to donate directly to the Red Cross. Kyanka said he originally setup Something Awful’s own fund so he could send free merchandise such as hats and t-shirts to those who donated.

Source: BetaNews

Comments

6 Sep 2005 ~ 4:25pm profdlp This move is not likely to enhance their reputation. It will be interesting to hear their side of the story.
6 Sep 2005 ~ 4:29pm GHoosdum They cut a backdoor deal with the United Way, so Kyanka's donation to the Red Cross was not looked at in a positive light by the beast known as Paypal.

//edit: Upon re-reading my post, I have realized that the mild sarcasm that I intended was not apparent. So here's one of these for good measure:
6 Sep 2005 ~ 4:36pm celcho paypal became self-aware at approximately 9:46 PM EDT, with its first act being to disrupt the funding of pathetic humans attempts to rebuild a fallen city.
6 Sep 2005 ~ 4:56pm Spinner

celcho wrote:

paypal became self-aware at approximately 9:46 PM EDT, with its first act being to disrupt the funding of pathetic humans attempts to rebuild a fallen city.

Sorry, I shouldn't laugh.
6 Sep 2005 ~ 4:58pm GHoosdum Oh yes you should - it's hilarious!
6 Sep 2005 ~ 5:55pm yagga Paypal sux! end of story.
6 Sep 2005 ~ 6:00pm Enverex Thats curious that this should come up because this morning I read this on the Penny Arcade site (refering to their own fund raiser):

tycho wrote:

The art auction appears to have reached some ridiculous apex now at eight thousand, seven hundred dollars. We don't ever see it, the transfer goes direct to the charity in question, which is a good thing. A check like that, you know, a man could just snuggle with it for awhile. Get to know it.

People cautioned us about doing "business," such as it is, with PayPal for the charitable donations. PayPal sucks, and I have heard it suggested that Paypal may be operated by Al-Qaeda. Over the year and a half we ran the site on donations, the only time money wasn't accessible is when someone tried to brute force our password. Child's Play 2003 and 2004 both leveraged the service without incident, and we're talking about sums in excess of thirty thousand each time. If we should run into trouble with Paypal, please believe that our lawyer is on speed dial. I attended a case litigated by the man just over a year ago, and I won't keep you in suspense: his strong jaws closed around the defendant's neck, and after a few moments of violent shaking to ensure compliance he dragged the ****er into a tree like a savannah cat.
6 Sep 2005 ~ 8:04pm danball1976 What idiot believes that PayPal is run by Al Queada?

Anyway, is this for real, or something cooked up by SomethingAwful to make PayPal look bad?
7 Sep 2005 ~ 12:08pm saintuk Paypal strikes again, my company had its account frozen because we did a lot of business.

idiots.
7 Sep 2005 ~ 12:32pm jared yeah and then paypal took the $28,000 and gave it to united way instead of red cross. Im glad I didnt donate through SA because I am not a fan of united way...
7 Sep 2005 ~ 11:27pm airbornflght Thats bs..If paypal was next to me, I would beat them to a bloody pulp, (literally, and then tell them to clean up there mess.)