A win for the good guys

The outrage today reached some seriously epic proportions as Paypal scrambled to release a statement that they were working with Regretsy to fix things even before April Winchell got the call from them. They threw their phone rep under the bus for the whole thing and are doing as little as possible but the main thing is that they've released the funds and the Santa drive can go on as intended. If you helped spread the word, thank you. Not even eBay/Paypal can ignore it when the spotlight is turned on and thousands of people point their fingers at them. The fact that local, national, and even international news services picked up the story didn't hurt. :-)  

As I said earlier, whether you love or hate April doesn't matter.   A big corporation did something to hurt people in need and April and her followers stood up and said that we aren't going to stand for it......and it worked.  Will it stop paypal from screwing over other people?  Of course not.   No one is going to believe that their hearts have grown three sizes bigger today.  But there are 200 families who are going to have a bit of Christmas cheer because enough people had the back bone to stand up and point their finger when they saw an injustice taking place.

Help save Regretsy's Secret Santa from Paypal

Whether you love or hate Regretsy, there's no denying that April Winchell and her followers do some seriously wonderful things when they set their mind to helping someone in need. This year they adopted 200 children in a Secret Santa gift giving drive that not only reached the goal of $3000 in just a few hours, but actually generated enough donations to provide a little extra to their parents so they could put a Christmas dinner on the table. I mean, we're talking about kids who are so sick that their parents can't afford gifts because every penny goes to doctor bills.....parents who are unemployed.......even one child whose father is dying of cancer and might not even be around on Christmas morning. April may be snarky, but that woman has a heart of pure gold when she sees someone in need.

This is a genuine "I see something I can do to help so I'm going to do it" kind of caring about fellow human beings. I get so sick of seeing huge charity organizations spending 90% of the donations they receive on fancy luncheons and motivational weekends for big contributors, that the kind of love Regretsy dishes up is refreshingly sweet, direct, honest, and above all, genuine.

And then Paypal had to go and screw it all up by saying that April was wrong to use the donate button because she's not a non-profit. Said the PP rep, "You can raise money for a sick cat but not for poor people". Really? I think that's a new low for a big corporation. April tried to fix it and they made her undo it again. So far Paypal has taken their share of transaction fees *FOUR* times but Regretsy is no closer to getting the toys to the kids. In addition to all that, they've frozen April's account which includes the bank account anchored to it and all the proceeds from her recent book and will not remove the freeze for 6 months. So yeah, she's paying a pretty high price for trying to make sure 200 needy kids got something nice for Christmas and their parents didn't have to figure out how to sculpt a turkey out of Spam and split a package of Ramen six ways.

You can read about it here http://www.regretsy.com/2011/12/05/cats-1-kids-0/#comments (strong language warning) or you can just google "regretsy, paypal" and read all the news stories that are popping up this morning after the outrage started last night. It's also trending on Twitter (#paypalhatesxmas). 

Right now the goal is to get Paypal to fix this mess so the toys and dinner funds can get to the 200 families in time. As it is, shipping time is going to be cutting it pretty short. You can do some things to help if you'd like to.......there are email addresses listed for Paypal executives in the link above so drop them a note and tell them how you feel about it. Most of you reading this have business accounts with Paypal and we're the ones who put the caviar on their toast points at those motivational weekends so they might listen to us if enough of us speak up. You can sign a petition at petition.org that will be going to the CEOhttp://www.change.org/petitions/president-paypal-unfreeze-regretsys-account-to-help-children-in-need . If you have a blog you can give them a shout-out to raise awareness or you can share this post on your Facebook page or write one of your own. Whatever you can do will make a difference.


Y'all know that for me to write this much right now is an effort but I can't sit back and watch another huge corporation cheat 200 little kids out of what may be their only Christmas gift and dinner. Most of all, we can't stand by and let another cold corporation dictate how and where we give our charity.