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Paypal Freezes Wikileaks's Accounts (Scroll down to donate)

wikileaks.org

11–20 of 32 posts

Re: Paypal Freezes Wikileaks's Accounts (Scroll down to donate)

#11
I posted the original "Wikileaks needs engineers"[1] story to HN, and emailed them to offer help. I never heard back, and from the thread other people had the same experience.

I still support their mission, but they seem pretty disorganized, an impression this story reinforces.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1023663

Re: Paypal Freezes Wikileaks's Accounts (Scroll down to donate)

#12
post #6

Duh? This happens every single goddamn time anyone takes a bunch of donations via intermediaries like Paypal and Google Checkout, especially internationally, and extra-especially when you don't use their special no-markup program for registered nonprofits. It looks exactly like you've cashing out stolen consumer accounts. They have every incentive to freeze the account indefinitely, and they never let anyone get away…

With the revenue of WikiLeaks I would think they have a personal account manager — I have one and he has told me that if my account is flagged for “being frozen” it has to pass through his desk first (so effectively it shouldn’t happen).

Not saying that the PayPal behavior is acceptable, just wondering why WikiLeaks doesn’t appear to have any PayPal contact.

Re: Paypal Freezes Wikileaks's Accounts (Scroll down to donate)

#15
post #12
post #6

Duh? This happens every single goddamn time anyone takes a bunch of donations via intermediaries like Paypal and Google Checkout, especially internationally, and extra-especially when you don't use their special no-markup program for registered nonprofits. It looks exactly like you've cashing out stolen consumer accounts. They have every incentive to freeze the account indefinitely, and they never let anyone get away…

With the revenue of WikiLeaks I would think they have a personal account manager — I have one and he has told me that if my account is flagged for “being frozen” it has to pass through his desk first (so effectively it shouldn’t happen). Not saying that the PayPal behavior is acceptable, just wondering why WikiLeaks doesn’t appear to have any PayPal contact.

They are staying anonymous by passing everything through an intermediary overseas nonprofit.

Keeping It Real Shady.

Re: Paypal Freezes Wikileaks's Accounts (Scroll down to donate)

#17

With all the stories out there about similar fiascos, why wouldn't they withdraw funds on a daily basis?

This actually isn't that hard to do if they just request it.

I use Paypal for selling my software product and had my account manager setup "auto sweep" where the funds are automatically withdrawn each night.

Re: Paypal Freezes Wikileaks's Accounts (Scroll down to donate)

#18
post #8

PayPal really needs to establish some sort of transparent, independent , review board for these things.

That would make them more bank-like, with more regulatory oversight. They don't want that, and really neither do you. The Paypal chimera doesn't need any more DNA, it's bad enough as it is. The US should force its banks to implement better EFT with consumer-initiated direct-deposit and direct-debit, marginalizing the whole Credit Card / PayPal ecosystem.

They are regulated by the CSSF.

Re: Paypal Freezes Wikileaks's Accounts (Scroll down to donate)

#19

On a related note, why does it cost $600k / year to run this service?

Hiring lawyers is probably a large cost for them, not to mention that mediawiki as it is isn't exactly the most server-efficient software in the world.

Re: Paypal Freezes Wikileaks's Accounts (Scroll down to donate)

#20
post #6

Duh? This happens every single goddamn time anyone takes a bunch of donations via intermediaries like Paypal and Google Checkout, especially internationally, and extra-especially when you don't use their special no-markup program for registered nonprofits. It looks exactly like you've cashing out stolen consumer accounts. They have every incentive to freeze the account indefinitely, and they never let anyone get away…

So what, we're just supposed to accept that if we use Paypal or Google Checkout we can't have sales, promotions, or donation drives? That we must sell a consistent number of units per day?
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