PayPal freezes $20k in hurricane relief donations

There are no reviewed versions of this page, so it may not have been checked for adherence to standards.

Sunday, September 4, 2005

Online money transfer company PayPal is reportedly blocking over $20,000 in donations from the website Something Awful, donations intended for the American Red Cross hurricane Katrina relief efforts. Rich Kyanka, founder of Something Awful, reports that the account he set up for Red Cross donations has been suspended by the eBay-owned subsidiary due to "suspicious behavior".

According to Kyanka, PayPal is requesting "proof of delivery", even though there is no item being purchased and the account was set up to accept donations. The account remains frozen. Kyanka is attempting to solve the problem by faxing various documents to PayPal in order to prove the legitimacy of the drive.

According to recent updates posted on the Something Awful website, Kyanka was requesting that refunds were issued for all donations that were sent. According to Kyanka, the account was frozen because PayPal has no link with the Red Cross.

A solution proposed by PayPal was to have all donations go to the United Way. While initially accepting offer, Kyanka reconsidered when Something Awful readers objected to having their donation sent to the United Way — partly due to the organizations troubled past. Instead of the PayPal donation setup, Kyanka has requested that readers send any donations directly to the Red Cross.

Something Awful, despite being a humor website, has a history of running donation drives for certain causes, including purchasing ballistic chest plates and body armor for a platoon in the US Army's 25th Infantry Division during the 2003 Iraq War. The Something Awful webservers are located in New Orleans where Hurricane Katrina hit.

Sources

Rich Kyanka. "The Paypal Fiasco: In Summary" — Something Awful, September 06, 2005
Charlie Demerjian. "Paypal freezes Something Awful's relief fund" — The Inquirer, September 04, 2005

Share this:

This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.

Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.

The text of this article has been released into the public domain. In the event that this is not legally possible, this article may be used for any purpose, without any condition, unless such conditions are required by law. This applies worldwide. Copyright terms on images, however, may vary, so please check individual image pages prior to duplication.