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Do not donate to me (2013)

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Re: Do not donate to me (2013)

#21

Post by sturgill »

gpm wrote: post #18
chongli wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your analysis is good but there is one element you're missing: chargebacks. People who accept a lot of donations get hit with chargebacks from time to time and they can be so difficult to deal with that they actually cost the recipient money. This is a common complaint among people who take donations for a living, such as Twitch streamers. If you ask any streamer, they will tell you they prefer Twitch "bits" over any…

Does the streamer get hit by fees or something with chargebacks?

Yes. $15-30 per chargeback independent of whether you win or lose. So even if you “win” a dispute over a $5 charge, you’re $10 in the hole.

Re: Do not donate to me (2013)

#22

Post by endorphone »

doesnt_know wrote: post #20
endorphone wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This particular trend -- not only not asking for contributions, but openly denying them (often in advance, and when none were ever offered) for a better cause -- is a rising tendency across virtually all of Western society. Watch any challenge with a monetary prize and invariably they'll turn the sad music on and demand that the contestants regale a tale about the old grandma in the old country, or the kid's club the…

Accepting money isn't "free", and usually incurs a non-trivial overhead. If it's someones hobby it's easier to just not accept money and focus on the actual hobby . Some kid getting pocket money from a lemonade stand is significantly different to accepting recurring donations as an adult. Dealing with either setting up some sort of non-profit, managing tax in your country, accepting international currencies or suppor…

If someone doesn't want pay, or donations, then don't ask for it. Don't put a donate/buy button and it seems like the problem is solved. I mean this is a bit strange: it's hard enough getting people to pay for great projects when the makers clearly need it and ask for it, so I am surprised by the need to proactively reject it as if unsolicited donations are piling in their bank account.

However there is nothing weird with discussing this, and that claim is exactly the sort of "moral" short circuit that I find so unpleasant about the whole thing. I would wager few if any people have donated to a charity in lieu for this case. But by announcing such a moral standing they've undermined anyone else who does accept or even request compensation for their creations: Do they have an adequately bad situation to justify such a request?

Re: Do not donate to me (2013)

#23

Post by johannes1234321 »

When I look a different Patreon accounts of people I know, where I have a rough understanding of their dayjob and life situation I often wonder about the sums.

The sums listed are often too high to be ignored, but too little to call it a job, even jut part-time. Few hours a month.

Me that would put in a strange situation. I would get the feeling of having to return some work for that, which takes the fun out of some projects, but doesn't pay the bills. (especially if I add time for accounting, declaring axes on it etc.)

Of course my view dosn't transfer to others and I understand that many people have a need for a more diverse income sources and eve low recurring (monthly) Patreon payments are planable, giving some base line, but I understand the author's point.

Re: Do not donate to me (2013)

#24

Post by nulbyte »

colechristensen wrote: post #17
Aeolun wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like any dispute involving a donation should pretty much be lost by default. It’s not as if anyone delivers an inappropriate product for a donation...

What if someone steals my credit card and "donates" $1000 to a nazi political party?

Chargebacks are for disputes, not fraud. Provided the merchant did not incur liability by doing something immensely stupid and insecure, the bank is on the hook. If the perpetrator is caught, they will pay restitution to the bank.

Re: Do not donate to me (2013)

#25

Post by pmoriarty »

doesnt_know wrote: post #20
endorphone wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This particular trend -- not only not asking for contributions, but openly denying them (often in advance, and when none were ever offered) for a better cause -- is a rising tendency across virtually all of Western society. Watch any challenge with a monetary prize and invariably they'll turn the sad music on and demand that the contestants regale a tale about the old grandma in the old country, or the kid's club the…

Accepting money isn't "free", and usually incurs a non-trivial overhead. If it's someones hobby it's easier to just not accept money and focus on the actual hobby . Some kid getting pocket money from a lemonade stand is significantly different to accepting recurring donations as an adult. Dealing with either setting up some sort of non-profit, managing tax in your country, accepting international currencies or suppor…

"Accepting money isn't "free", and usually incurs a non-trivial overhead."

Is that really true? What if I say I only accept checks, or certified checks even.

Wouldn't depositing such checks be trivial?

Yes, you do have to pay taxes on the money (which in countries other than the United States can be very simple), but apart from that the other things you list such as setting up a non-profit, accepting international currencies, or dealing with corporations like Paypal are all optional.

Re: Do not donate to me (2013)

#26

Post by msravi »

L-four wrote: post #19
Aeolun wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like any dispute involving a donation should pretty much be lost by default. It’s not as if anyone delivers an inappropriate product for a donation...

Often donation payments are used to validate stolen credit cards.

But why should the donee pay (in the form of penalties) for that?

Re: Do not donate to me (2013)

#27

Post by necubi »

nulbyte wrote: post #24
colechristensen wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if someone steals my credit card and "donates" $1000 to a nazi political party?

Chargebacks are for disputes, not fraud. Provided the merchant did not incur liability by doing something immensely stupid and insecure, the bank is on the hook. If the perpetrator is caught, they will pay restitution to the bank.

That's completely wrong. Chargebacks are _primarily_ for fraud. And any merchant that accepts credit cards over the phone or Internet ("card not present") is liable for fraud, not the bank.

Re: Do not donate to me (2013)

#28

Post by joecot »

nulbyte wrote: post #24
colechristensen wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if someone steals my credit card and "donates" $1000 to a nazi political party?

Chargebacks are for disputes, not fraud. Provided the merchant did not incur liability by doing something immensely stupid and insecure, the bank is on the hook. If the perpetrator is caught, they will pay restitution to the bank.

> Provided the merchant did not incur liability by doing something immensely stupid and insecure, the bank is on the hook. If the perpetrator is caught, they will pay restitution to the bank.

Source? As someone who helps support an online credit card gateway, in my experience it is the merchant who has to shoulder the cost (plus an extra penalty fee) of the transaction. Perhaps there are different chargeback policies for card present transactions for physical products, but for online (and therefore card not present) transactions for digital products, I have always seen the merchant have to cover the cost of the chargeback (plus fee). There's a process for disputing the chargeback, saying the customer absolutely made the purchase and got what they were asking for, but almost every time the card would side with the customer, because there was no physical product.

This is one of the reasons when card companies pushed for chip cards, merchants pushed back for chip and pin like cards used in Europe -- to cut down on fraud, which they end up paying for. The only system I've seen where the cost of a chargeback is on the bank instead of the merchant is if the merchant has setup 3D-Secure/Verified by Visa with their products, giving the banks and card companies the opportunity to have an extra login for making the purchase. However, those verify pages are made by the bank, not the credit card company, and are widely unreliable. I tried to set it up for our payment gateway, only to find that some of the banks had completely broken systems for it, leaving customers at an error page instead of buying the product.

Re: Do not donate to me (2013)

#29

Post by SyneRyder »

nulbyte wrote: post #24
colechristensen wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if someone steals my credit card and "donates" $1000 to a nazi political party?

Chargebacks are for disputes, not fraud. Provided the merchant did not incur liability by doing something immensely stupid and insecure, the bank is on the hook. If the perpetrator is caught, they will pay restitution to the bank.

Chargebacks also occur for fraud. It's the merchant's responsibility to detect fraud, not the bank (though banks usually do their own screening too). Worth remembering that if your fraud rate goes above 1%, you can be blacklisted for life by Visa & MC. [1] [2]

You can avoid chargebacks by pro-actively refunding any transactions that look suspicious. And if a real customer asks for a refund, you should always give it to them since they can chargeback anyway. But if it's a stolen credit card that got through, the first you'll hear about it is when you get the chargeback from the real cardholder's bank.

Side note: back in the days of shareware, a few of the 'cracking' groups didn't do any cracking at all. They just used stolen credit cards to buy the software and post the licence codes online - no technical talent involved. I'm looking at you, Team OXiDE....

[1] https://www.braintreepayments.com/blog/changes-to-visa-charg...

[2] https://chargeback.com/visa-chargeback-monitoring-program/

Re: Do not donate to me (2013)

#30

Post by SyneRyder »

joecot wrote: post #28
nulbyte wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chargebacks are for disputes, not fraud. Provided the merchant did not incur liability by doing something immensely stupid and insecure, the bank is on the hook. If the perpetrator is caught, they will pay restitution to the bank.

> Provided the merchant did not incur liability by doing something immensely stupid and insecure, the bank is on the hook. If the perpetrator is caught, they will pay restitution to the bank. Source? As someone who helps support an online credit card gateway, in my experience it is the merchant who has to shoulder the cost (plus an extra penalty fee) of the transaction. Perhaps there are different chargeback policies…

> The only system I've seen where the cost of a chargeback is on the bank instead of the merchant is if the merchant has setup 3D-Secure/Verified by Visa...

Verified By Visa is a nightmare, and was killing conversion rates by up to 60%. [1] I'm not sure if it's still the case, but when it first came out Amazon refused to integrate it.

[1] https://econsultancy.com/verified-by-visa-a-conversion-rate-...

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