PayPal in Social Media Hell After Squashing Charity Project Facebook, Twitter deluged with angry posts
It wouldn't be a festive holiday season without a good old-fashioned corporate social media meltdown. Well, whaddya know—here's one now. This time, the whipping boy is PayPal, which is taking an insane amount of heat on Facebook and Twitter after allegedly squashing a toys-for-tots Christmas initiative by the website Regretsy because the site used the Paypal "Donate" button, which is reserved for nonprofits only. (The exact chain of events is fairly complicated, but the upshot is that PayPal shut down Regretsy's account and put a hold on founder April Winchell's account. April says she'll be able to send the toys but won't be able to make a monetary gift to the families, as she was hoping to do with some of the excess donations.) Check out PayPal's Facebook page. The volume of hate mail coming in is astounding—dozens of angry posts every minute. Some commenters are claiming that their posts are being deleted—never a good idea. If PayPal is deleting comments, they should give up now—they'll never be able to keep up, for one thing. The only question, really, is when PayPal will respond and try to fix this. Trying to let it die down won't be an option. UPDATE: PayPal has apologized in a new status update: "We have released funds back to Regrestsy and will be making a donation. We are very sorry this occurred."
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