Re: Donate money
On Mon, 2024-01-08 at 14:35 -0500, gene heskett wrote:
> On 1/8/24 13:09, debian-user@howorth.org.uk wrote:
> > noah poulton <noahpoulton2@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Hi guys!
> > >
> > >
> > > I was wondering, is there a way to donate to Debian via direct
> > > debit?
> > > I want to to donate but I don't have a paypal account (and I
> > > don't
> > > really want to create one).
> > >
> > > I live in the UK (if that makes a difference).
> >
> > Clicking on the paypal link doesn't mean you need to create a
> > paypal
> > account. It's just a payment service and you can use your regular
> > credit card details. I agree it would be better for Debian to use
> > some
> > other payment service though!
> >
> I agree 200%, as a broadcast engineer working for an outfit that had
> several b-cast properties all over the country, and good at putting
> out
> tech fires, I was flown halfway across the country to put out the
> fires
> caused by an incompetent EE that was on the missing list, he found a
> woman and had basically abandoned his duties. So I got shipped to
> western Colorado, with instructions to see if I could fix the
> commercial
> player for a 4 channel one control room complex. Which I had
> diagnosed
> as a dead scsi card 30 minutes after getting off the airplane.
>
> So I go to the CE's office and using his windows xp computer which it
> turns out was setup by the local ISP with a pretty tight lockdown.
> But I
> eventually get to ebay and buy a card for about $50. I had all the
> data
> I needed to prove it was me accessing my account to pay the guy, but
> I
> was a hacker and the transaction was blocked because I wasn't coming
> in
> from my home computer 1700 miles east. This failure was costing us
> about
> $50k a day in lost revenue so speed was prime, but it took me calling
> Seattle after figuring out what the problem was, threatening a
> lawsuit
> at $100k/day in damages to finally get paypal to pay the guy a measly
> $50. They turned a next day fix into 6 days.
>
> I have a very long memory for such, and have not used paypal since.
> If
> my card isn't any good, no sale. 30 years later I run into the paypal
> only thing on the debian donate page and back out. Debian has been
> good
> to me, and I have enough machines running it or some variation that
> since I'm a firm believer in TANSTAAFL, me putting a kilo in the
> kitty,
> no strings attached, is not out of line. But it won't come thru
> paypal.
> If that paypal only policy ever changes, please advise this list. I
> am
> subbed.
>
> Thanks for reading another of my war stories. Take care, stay warm
> and
> well all.
Agreed!
It has been a substantial number of years since I have cancelled my
Paypal account, now.
The way they would withhold payments as not going to approved entities
by the powers that be has forced me into believing they are more of an
information gathering utility disguised as a financial one.
If you undertake to act as a medium in a financial transaction, that's
what you do.
You don't put through some transactions and not others, simply because
they are heading to an Assange fund or some other entity not currently
approved of by American foreign policy preference.
Cheers!
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