Trouble in Paradise
ESDReturns
member
"Evolutionary game theorists...ignoring beebees on the nest since 2005"
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Wow have you seen this?
"Evolutionary game theorists...ignoring beebees on the nest since 2005"
Re: Wow have you seen this?
Paypal also pulled something similar when SomethingAwful raised almost 30K in 9 hours for Katrina victims. And of course, kept all the transaction fees.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Something_Awful#Hurricane_Katrina_charity
The gist of the Regretsy thing is that they decided to do a 'secret santa' for less fortunate kids, and put up a link for people to donate via a 'donate' link. They've done similar things before, but with 'buy now' links. Apparently the 'donation' link was some horrible breach and Paypal has shut down both the Regretsy account and frozen April Winchell's personal paypal account. So 200 kids don't get Christmas gifts and paypal gets to pocket transaction fees. Again.
http://www.regretsy.com/2011/12/05/cats-1-kids-0/
It's a story about paypal and donations and locking accounts. Basically how much paypal sucks.
http://www.regretsy.com/2011/12/05/cats-1-kids-0/
As you know, we have been trying to buy Christmas presents for kids in the Regretsy community.
We took many applications, vetted them carefully and set about creating a giant gift exchange program, where you could buy a gift for the over 200 children we?re helping.
We raised so much money that we found ourselves in a position of not just being able to send toys, but to send a monetary gift to the families as well. We hoped it might help them make their holiday dinners more special, or maybe pay a pressing bill.
PAYPAL SHUT IT DOWN
Apparently we made the mistake of using the ?Donate? button, which Paypal is now claiming is only for nonprofit organizations to use. They froze the account, which also includes Zazzle money that we use to make emergency gifts. That money isn?t in issue, but what the hell! Might as well keep everything!
So last night, I decided to go about this a different way. Since these toys are already purchased, I decided to offer them up for sale on this site, just like any other retailer would. You could buy them according to what you wanted to spend, and we would send them on to the recipient of your gift, just like any other retailer.
PAYPAL SHUT IT DOWN
After a very long and jaw-dropping conversation with an incredibly condescending representative, they have decided that I must refund all the donations and purchases that have not been processed. If you don?t get a refund, it?s because we got your money before they got smart and kept us from helping children at Christmas, which is really the best move any corporation can make.
Here are a few highlights from our conversation:
ME: The problem is I?ve already bought all of these toys, so now I?m really in a position like any other merchant ? which is to say, I have inventory I need to sell. Why can?t I sell them as gifts, like any other retailer?
PAYPAL: Don?t you think it would look suspicious if the same people bought them again?
ME: Why? These are my customers!
PAYPAL: If you wanted to do that, you?d have to start a new website.
ME: What? Why would I start a new website?
PAYPAL: I?m not going to argue with you.
PAYPAL: You say you?re selling these as gifts but there is no information as to what the gift is.
ME: People sell mystery gifts and grab bags all the time. What about sites where they say, let us choose for you??
PAYPAL: It doesn?t say that on your site.
ME: Is that the problem? If I say it?s a mystery gift would that be sufficient?
PAYPAL: You aren?t going to be able to get around this. It?s too late, we know what you?re trying to do and we?re not going to let you do it.
ME: But there are hundreds of toys! Do you think it?s reasonable to create a drop down menu for hundreds of gifts, all of them different, and create an inventory for each as ?one?? So that every time one sells, it?s sold out, and the customer has to keep choosng options and going through check out to see if they can find a gift that?s still available?
PAYPAL: Yes, I think it?s reasonable.
Then my brain exploded.
At this point, I asked to speak to a supervisor and was told that ?No one above me will talk to you. No one at my level ever makes phone calls. We?re only doing this to help you.?
When I asked how to close my account, he said I had to ?refund everything, write a letter saying you understood what you did WAS WRONG AND YOU WILL NEVER DO IT AGAIN, and then request permission to close your account.?
Then, for good measure, they froze my personal account, which has revenue from my book sales, e-books and all the other Finnish Folktales Swag. They?ll be holding that money for 6 months.
So to recap:
$ They allowed me to use a donate button, and got a portion of the donations
$ Then made me return the donations, and kept a portion of the fees on the donations
$ They allowed me to use a Buy Now button to sell gifts individually, and got a portion of those sales
$ Then made me return the sales, and kept a portion of the fees on the sales
$ They processed the toy purchases, and made fees on that
They have made a fortune for not doing anything but making me manually return thousands of $2 sales and contributions.
I have been able to guarantee purchase and shipment of the toys, so that part is happening, as are the letters from Santa (most have already been delivered).
However, I am very sorry to say that at this point, I am not able to make a monetary gift to the families. They have frozen everything that was not already spent or donated, and I have no more funds to make a gift of that size.
MERRY CHRISTMAS
Wanna tell Paypal how you feel? Here?s a list of every administrative Paypal email address and phone number The Consumerist was able to find.
UPDATE: Really well-researched piece about all of this crap on The Green Geeks blog
Sorry, I was lurking and read this and through the regretsy comments went to the FB page and saw their latest posting 2 hours ago...
http://www.facebook.com/paypal#!/paypal?sk=wall
They "will be making a donation" but haven't said when, or how much, or actually ya know made a donation.
They should start contacting news stations about this. Maybe even national news outlets.
Nothing like a little peer pressure to make them do the right thing.
There's an update. http://www.regretsy.com/
Her accounts have been unfrozen and they are refunding $77? I haven't read the whole thing yet. It's long.