When Typhoon Ondoy hit the country, organizations and non-profit groups immediately set donation campaigns for the victims of Ondoy. One of which is a TXTPower, an organization by a friend and also a known blogger Tonyo Cruz, sitting as its president.
The donations they received were handed to the Philippine National Red Cross, amounting to a whopping P1,678,437.63, which came from concern citizens all around the world, mostly from Filipinos working abroad.
But the noble campaign was halted for some time due to the intervention of their chosen donation medium, PayPal. The online money send-and-receive company intervened with the donation campaign by freezing TXTPower's account for grounds that Singapore, the country wherein the PayPal Pte. Ltd. is headquartered, the company's arm that oversees operations in the Asia Pacific, "only permits PayPal Pte Ltd. to process payments for goods and services" and that "PayPal Pte is restricted to [be] used for processing donations."
I don't know what's wrong with PayPal. Why would they put their Asia Pacific headquarters in a country where donations are in question. Didn't they know that Asia Pacific, particularly South East Asia is one of the regions in the world most prone to disasters? And that organizations and non-profits are abundant in the area, looking for donation couriers? It's pretty much unfair, especially that they had to reveal this policy in time of a great disaster, during the time when donations are needed the most.
Although the issue had been resolved by giving TXTPower a "one-time exception", it's still very much disappointing, but a call for a PayPal boycott sure is a little 'overacting'. However, I believe it's time you turn to some other ways of how you do money transactions online. Besides, there are the like of Google Checkout and Xoom, who actually showed sympathy by suspending the charging of fees for donations made for Ondoy victims. Having used Xoom for quite awhile now, I can surely say your money is safe, and needs less effort than using PayPal.
To read more of this issue, visit Tonyo's blog post.
