What's with the Paypal?

n8evv · Post by **n8evv** » February 24th, 2010, 12:48 pm

I tried to give Librivox a healthy donation for the fundraising drive, and all Paypal will do is say I can't use my debit card. ZERO explanation.

One effect of this is that not only am I not able to give money, but I can't recommend that any friends donate either--after all, I haven't given anything; why should they?

e.v.v.

Post by **hugh** » February 24th, 2010, 12:52 pm

n8evv - i'm afraid we have little control over paypal - but i *think* paypal requires a credit card, unless debit is linked to a paypal account.

n8evv · Post by **n8evv** » February 24th, 2010, 12:57 pm

I just give money... or in this case, wait for an alternative. The good news is, LibriVox is asking for far less than they could raise.

Post by **hugh** » February 24th, 2010, 1:58 pm

Our contraint was not what we could raise, but rather what was the lowest amount with the least headache, so that we won't have to worry about money for a while

Lucy_k_p · Post by **Lucy_k_p** » February 24th, 2010, 4:43 pm

I have a Paypal account and my debit card works fine. It's useful for e-bay/other online buying, doesn't cost anything to keep up and they don't send you spam, so it might be worth you getting an account to donate.

icyjumbo · Post by **icyjumbo** » February 25th, 2010, 2:53 am

hugh wrote:n8evv - i'm afraid we have little control over paypal - but i *think* paypal requires a credit card, unless debit is linked to a paypal account.

I agree. I think PayPal uses the offer to pay with a credit card but without a PayPal account as a way to showcase their services and draw you in. "The first one's free," if you like. The assumption must be that you would rather give up the details of your credit card than your bank account. That seems a reasonable assumption to me.

<rant>The thing I really dislike is that when you do have a PayPal account linked to a bank account, then PayPal always defaults to paying from the bank account. There is no way to turn this off, so you have to switch to the credit card option for every single transaction. Hmph!</rant>

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » February 25th, 2010, 4:15 am

icyjumbo wrote:<rant>The thing I really dislike is that when you do have a PayPal account linked to a bank account, then PayPal always defaults to paying from the bank account. There is no way to turn this off, so you have to switch to the credit card option for every single transaction. Hmph!</rant>

Lower fees for them on bank accounts than on credit cards, I imagine. Some credit card companies really hammer the merchant.

Nicholas19 · Post by **Nicholas19** » February 25th, 2010, 7:31 am

So the funding message was genuine? :O I thought it might be spam when I initially received it yesterday.

If it costs that much to run LibriVox, who has been paying for it so far?

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » February 25th, 2010, 7:58 am

We have on occasion received some help from partner organisations, but at other times, and at present, it is being funded by a few generous individuals. This fund-raising drive is intended to make our next 4-5 years secure for the expected increase in use and to improve the site's usability and accessibility for readers, listeners and admins.

Ruth

Nicholas19 · Post by **Nicholas19** » February 25th, 2010, 8:00 am

It's certainly a worthy cause.