PayPal freezes SomethingAwful.com's donation account

[Minrott]

$30,000 raised in 9 hours to be donated to the Red Cross, and how does paypal react? Freezes the account and makes Lotax refund all the donations. After this and their fienstein stance on firearms I cancelled my account. Fucking incredible.

http://www.somethingawful.com

[Martrae]

WTF

[Tuggan]

the tom sizemore link on the front page there is fucking great, i suggest you all read it. havent laughed so hard in awhile.

[Captain Insano]

hhahasdhf

Paypal is gonna go down eventually for fucking so many people over.

[leah]

jesus that sucks.

[Gidan]

Is it really that hard to believe?

1. Did he notify PayPal of what he was planning to do to see if it was even possible?
2. Did he give them a heads up that he was going to create and account for this purpose that could possibly see a large flow of money in a very short period of time?

If they had been a normal bank and suddenly they saw an account have $30,000 in deposits over a small period of time, they probably would have also frozen the account. This process would be automated, you want it automated you don’t want some human being to have to sit and watch money transfers or stare at some screen waiting for a warning to pop up about an account that looks suspicious. Think about all the protections that are built into credit cards that automatically suspend when unusual spending is being seen. The automated system also doesn't see that this is some humanitarian cause. The only thing the system can see is an account that has suspicious activity.

Now look at the negative side, let’s say this had been a huge scam and this guy walked away with $30,000 and people start yelling asking for their money back because they were scammed. When they can’t find the guy, who are they going to demand gives them back the money? PayPal that’s who.

I will agree that PayPal didn't handle the situation the best they could have, they should have had a real person that he could have talked to, though its not unusual that these online businesses have very few actual humans to talk to when you have a problem.

The guy's heart was in the right place when he set this up, but he didn't put the planning into it he needed to. I know he wanted to do something for the people who donated, however in this case the best thing to do would have been to just direct people to make donations directly to the Red Cross.

EDIT

came across this a little while ago

The SANS Institute is reporting that there are several e-mails soliciting donations through a Paypal link. According to SANS, it may be difficult to tell whether the e-mail is from a legitimate organization.

"The hurricane is a dreadful natural disaster, and it's sickening to think that hackers are prepared to exploit the horrendous situation in an attempt to break into computers for the purposes of spamming, extortion and theft," added Cluley.

After discovery of the sites yesterday, several have been removed. "There are now about 230 .com domains that contain the strings 'katrina' and 'hurricane'. We will make a list of more domains like this public soon to ask for your help to review them," SANS said on its Web Site.

http://isc.sans.org/

Also might want to check out http://isc.sans.org/katrina.com.txt

Maybe more people should take possible fraud issues a little more serious with regard to this hurricane.

[liquidstayce]

Gidan you made some good points. Paypal sucks in general though despite this issue. They have very poor customer service and they make you jump through hoops of red tape to actually get anything done. Typically the hoops you jump through end up with results that gain them more money. Yes - SA probably should have notified paypal first but you know chances are he would have ended up talking to some idiot anyway or recorded message.

[Captain Insano]

Is it really that hard to believe?

1. Did he notify PayPal of what he was planning to do to see if it was even possible?
2. Did he give them a heads up that he was going to create and account for this purpose that could possibly see a large flow of money in a very short period of time?

If they had been a normal bank and suddenly they saw an account have $30,000 in deposits over a small period of time, they probably would have also frozen the account. This process would be automated, you want it automated you don’t want some human being to have to sit and watch money transfers or stare at some screen waiting for a warning to pop up about an account that looks suspicious. Think about all the protections that are built into credit cards that automatically suspend when unusual spending is being seen. The automated system also doesn't see that this is some humanitarian cause. The only thing the system can see is an account that has suspicious activity.

Now look at the negative side, let’s say this had been a huge scam and this guy walked away with $30,000 and people start yelling asking for their money back because they were scammed. When they can’t find the guy, who are they going to demand gives them back the money? PayPal that’s who.

I will agree that PayPal didn't handle the situation the best they could have, they should have had a real person that he could have talked to, though its not unusual that these online businesses have very few actual humans to talk to when you have a problem.

The guy's heart was in the right place when he set this up, but he didn't put the planning into it he needed to. I know he wanted to do something for the people who donated, however in this case the best thing to do would have been to just direct people to make donations directly to the Red Cross.

EDIT

came across this a little while ago

The SANS Institute is reporting that there are several e-mails soliciting donations through a Paypal link. According to SANS, it may be difficult to tell whether the e-mail is from a legitimate organization.

"The hurricane is a dreadful natural disaster, and it's sickening to think that hackers are prepared to exploit the horrendous situation in an attempt to break into computers for the purposes of spamming, extortion and theft," added Cluley.

After discovery of the sites yesterday, several have been removed. "There are now about 230 .com domains that contain the strings 'katrina' and 'hurricane'. We will make a list of more domains like this public soon to ask for your help to review them," SANS said on its Web Site.

http://isc.sans.org/

Also might want to check out http://isc.sans.org/katrina.com.txt

Maybe more people should take possible fraud issues a little more serious with regard to this hurricane.

You have no idea what you are talking about...

Paypal does this to hang onto cash that isn't theirs, make interest, show profit it doesn't have and to fuck people.

Their intentions are not based upon security, but to profit at the expense of their customers.

Fuck them.

[DangerPaul]

Paypal
Fuck them.

[Minrott]

1. Did he notify PayPal of what he was planning to do to see if it was even possible?
2. Did he give them a heads up that he was going to create and account for this purpose that could possibly see a large flow of money in a very short period of time?

Yes. Yes. And even used their special accounts for donation drives. It's not like he opened up a personal account under his own name.

They're not governed by the FDIC and because of that they can pull stunts like this to do just what ralf said. They have maybe 2 monkey's and a beligerent donkey running their phone systems, and it is absolutely impossible to get in touch with a real person when they pull stunts like this.

I don't care what they do in the name of protection from scammers, if you can't put a real person on the phone to tell somebody why they're not letting them send their $30k to the red cross, you need to be fucked in the ass with a splintering fence post.

[Gidan]

Is it really that hard to believe?

1. Did he notify PayPal of what he was planning to do to see if it was even possible?
2. Did he give them a heads up that he was going to create and account for this purpose that could possibly see a large flow of money in a very short period of time?

If they had been a normal bank and suddenly they saw an account have $30,000 in deposits over a small period of time, they probably would have also frozen the account. This process would be automated, you want it automated you don’t want some human being to have to sit and watch money transfers or stare at some screen waiting for a warning to pop up about an account that looks suspicious. Think about all the protections that are built into credit cards that automatically suspend when unusual spending is being seen. The automated system also doesn't see that this is some humanitarian cause. The only thing the system can see is an account that has suspicious activity.

Now look at the negative side, let’s say this had been a huge scam and this guy walked away with $30,000 and people start yelling asking for their money back because they were scammed. When they can’t find the guy, who are they going to demand gives them back the money? PayPal that’s who.

I will agree that PayPal didn't handle the situation the best they could have, they should have had a real person that he could have talked to, though its not unusual that these online businesses have very few actual humans to talk to when you have a problem.

The guy's heart was in the right place when he set this up, but he didn't put the planning into it he needed to. I know he wanted to do something for the people who donated, however in this case the best thing to do would have been to just direct people to make donations directly to the Red Cross.

EDIT

came across this a little while ago

The SANS Institute is reporting that there are several e-mails soliciting donations through a Paypal link. According to SANS, it may be difficult to tell whether the e-mail is from a legitimate organization.

"The hurricane is a dreadful natural disaster, and it's sickening to think that hackers are prepared to exploit the horrendous situation in an attempt to break into computers for the purposes of spamming, extortion and theft," added Cluley.

After discovery of the sites yesterday, several have been removed. "There are now about 230 .com domains that contain the strings 'katrina' and 'hurricane'. We will make a list of more domains like this public soon to ask for your help to review them," SANS said on its Web Site.

http://isc.sans.org/

Also might want to check out http://isc.sans.org/katrina.com.txt

Maybe more people should take possible fraud issues a little more serious with regard to this hurricane.

You have no idea what you are talking about...

Paypal does this to hang onto cash that isn't theirs, make interest, show profit it doesn't have and to fuck people.

Their intentions are not based upon security, but to profit at the expense of their customers.

Fuck them.

Just because you are angry at them becasuse you personally may have had a bad experience with them doesn't mean they are the scum of the earth.

They do not intentionally attempt to screw people when they get the opertunity as much as you might want to beleive that. Freezing an account that has a huge flow of cash within hours is for security reasons.

If this had been a scam, people would be praising them for what they did to protect the people sending money.

[Gidan]

1. Did he notify PayPal of what he was planning to do to see if it was even possible?
2. Did he give them a heads up that he was going to create and account for this purpose that could possibly see a large flow of money in a very short period of time?

Yes. Yes. And even used their special accounts for donation drives. It's not like he opened up a personal account under his own name.

They're not governed by the FDIC and because of that they can pull stunts like this to do just what ralf said. They have maybe 2 monkey's and a beligerent donkey running their phone systems, and it is absolutely impossible to get in touch with a real person when they pull stunts like this.

I don't care what they do in the name of protection from scammers, if you can't put a real person on the phone to tell somebody why they're not letting them send their $30k to the red cross, you need to be fucked in the ass with a splintering fence post.

Really I didn't seen any mention of a letter or phone call to PayPal about what he intended to do before he actually opened the account. Can you link it for me?

[Minrott]

No, you're right about that and I'm wrong. I guess he never did beforehand. But the fact that they couldn't put someone one the phone with him after the fact is maddening regardless.

[Gidan]

No, you're right about that and I'm wrong. I guess he never did beforehand. But the fact that they couldn't put someone one the phone with him after the fact is maddening regardless.

I will agree with you here. They should be able to get somone on the phone, that is certainly one of their many problems. With a major issue like this, somone should have been pulled out of bed and a phone put in their hands.

[10sun]

He has had donation accounts through Paypal in the past.

-Adam

[kaharthemad]

yup...but stonewalling 30k of money is fucking stupid regardless. Lets say you find a nice SAAB on ebay that I want. and Lets say you buy it. Lets say you transfer 30k worth of Funds to a Paypal account to purchase said car. Lets say paypal decideds to hold your money for oh i dont know...a week? Well are you pissed? Guess not since in your eyes Paypal is godly and Just in their ways of doing things.

And yes this did happen to a relative of mine. On a exsisting account.

And frankly Paypal does stupid shit for that very reason. One of the main reasons I opened a Bank account to get verified, soon as it was I closed it. They have a uncanny knack for screwing up and accidentally taking money out of bank accounts. But I guess you fail to ignore the Joint action lawsuit for stealing money last year to. Face facts the Paypal company is the worse type of company to deal with. How many times on this board have we heard from people bitching about what they did. I guess they were lying to.

[DangerPaul]

I got a good chunk of money out of the paypal settlement, however they won't release my account so I can get the money out. Fuck Paypal, if my lawyer didn't cost me $400 a nanosecond, I would file my own suit against them.

[kaharthemad]

Remember accordingt to other people on the board DP, that is all your fault for going thru improper channels.

[DangerPaul]

Oh yeah ...