Edited to add Verification: CNN & The Consumerist & Wall Street Journal
And Petition: http://www.change.org/petitions/president-paypal-unfreeze-regretsys-account-to-help-children-in-need
This isn't exactly Esport related, but Totalbiscuit retweeted this post. If this is legit, I really want people to send a polite message to Paypal letting them know what you think of this.
A friend of mine passed away earlier this year, leaving a wife and two kids, and Paypal donations for them were stolen & Paypal wouldn't step up then either. So this is the second time this year that I know of, where Paypal doesn't really seem to want to step up and make it right.
Also worth thinking about if you don't like this attitude, or policy of Paypals, as an Esport community we could shift a lot of dollars to another company, or companies, that cared a bit more about Charity. How would the Starcraft 2 community feel if this happened to one of Sheth's or TLO's charity events?
Source and full story at 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
This story seems to be going viral this week. It's great that people want to do "chartible" things - but the only way they can do it legally is with the proper IRS approval. Otherwise, people are illegally deducting the "donations" on their taxes that don't qualify. Many 'Nonprofits' do not even qualify as "charitable" and a lot of organizations and companies are scrutinized with questions on their tax returns to make sure they are not involved in illegal gaming, raffle, or nonapproved charities.
ReplyDeleteStill no excuse for how the people were treated.