PayPal: Anti-Gun

Kevin Baker has arranged through Soldier’s Angels to raffle off a .45 pistol.

Unfortunately PayPal had other ideas:

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

OK, I’m livid.

As most of you know, the fourth annual Gun Blogger’s Rendezvous is fast approaching (43 days away as I write this), and this year I planned to make a special contribution to support Project Valour-IT – a gun giveaway that would be for even those unable to attend. But I’m not a 501(c)(3) organization, or any other kind of tax-free charity, so I couldn’t actually run a charity raffle. Besides, I’m not really set up for it and wouldn’t know how. So, with the aid of Rendezvous organizer Mr. Completely, arrangements were made with Soldier’s Angels to provide on-line ticket sales. Tickets went on sale Saturday, July 18. We were ON!

Soldier’s Angels uses PayPal for their on-line donations. PayPal even has a “Case Study” of Soldier’s Angels’ success (PDF) using PayPal, bragging:

Today Soldiers’ Angels’ biggest online contributions go through PayPal. “It’s trustworthy to people and so they donate,” says (Founder Patty) Patton-Bader. “There’s a confidence that donors feel – that it’s a safe way to make a donation. There are not many companies that inspire that kind of trust.”

Trust.

Coincident with the Gun Blogger Rendezvous Raffle, Soldier’s Angels had also started a fund drive for other projects that same weekend. PayPal put a stop to that. Here’s Patty Patton-Bader’s official statement:

Online donations through PayPal are a huge part of our fundraising. They shut down our entire account-not just the raffle button—for twelve hours right in the middle of an email fundraising push. Looking at the Terms of Use, we couldn’t understand where we’d gone wrong, but we had to immediately remove the raffle so we could get back online ASAP. This just breaks our hearts because we were so excited about the tremendous fundraising impact the Gun Blogger Rendezvous raffle was already having.

(My emphasis). The “tremendous fundraising impact”? In the short time (3.5 days) the PayPal button was live, they had 42 participants and 109 tickets sold.

As noted above, we’re still 43 days out from the Rendezvous. I just found out about this today.

And not only did the contributions for the raffle stop coming in, ALL contributions to Soldier’s Angels via PayPal were cut off for twelve hours.

Because PayPal is anti-gun.

So where does that leave us? Well, you can call Soldier’s Angels and do a transaction over the phone. During normal business hours (PST) you can call (626) 529-5114, or you can call their voicemail service any time at (615) 676-0239, leave them a callback number and they’ll get back to you – probably the less expensive option, timewise. It’s not as convenient as a mouse click, but it beats snail-mailing a check.

You can also contact PayPal. Their Customer Service phone number is (402) 935-2050.

I’ve never asked this before, but I would appreciate it if every gun- and mil-blogger on the web and every gun board picked this up and spread it far and wide. I’m tired of gun-bigots. PayPal needs to hear from US – the law-abiding gun owners of this country – that we’re no longer willing to just roll over when we’re abused by the companies we “trust” just because we believe in and practice the rights guaranteed to us under the Second Amendment.

This post will remain at the top of the blog for the next couple of days.

Well, that’s the end of my PayPal account.

And tomorrow I’m gonna call and buy a raffle ticket over the phone.

PayPal, you suck, and we hate you.