Thread: BlackCats Games Paypal Troubles

Mar-21-11 - Paypal Problems, prize draw, and we need your help - (stoi) long version and comments Blackcats 2.2

general gist of this.

1: Paypal email, as we accept donations, to provide proof we are a charity, tax returns, bank statements etc, but as we are not a charity, impossible to do, if we dont within 7 days, the account could be restricted/closed.

2. Moment of panic, after receieving email, sent the hosts cash for 2 months server fees, up until June 1st (so at least the site should be safe till then) but this did mean paying it with what I had planned for the prize raw amount, luckily i never put an amount on the prize draw yet, but as you can imagine thats back down to 0 (it will still get drawn, and we didnt have enough in to draw it anyway, and now i have 0 in paypal with paying 2 months server fees)

3. It would be advisable if you didnt donate for a week or 2, you still can if you wish (or donate on the blog, more of this in a minute) but you wont get the benefits on the blog (and there isnt a donate link yet anyway, but there will be), its just incase they do close the account, which is a worst case scenario.

4: the blog can be found Blackcats-games It is integrated to the tracker, but you do need to to logout of the tracker, log back into the tracker, go to the blog and log in to that as well, but it should remember your pass from the tracker, we need lots of entries as it needs to look like its been up for 7 years (and we have about 4 days to make it look like that.

5. Blog entries and comments do not need to be essays, but also they need to be a bit more than 1000 entries by the same member of +1, so try to get creative.

6. No mention at all of P2P, Filesharing, Bittorrent, Trackers, Modded consoles, etc etc, try to keep the blogs as legit as you can please, if paypal do go snooping in them deeper, i dont want them to find something they can close our account down for.

7. The blog is a dummy site which we will lead paypal to, they wont see the tracker and the forum at all, we obviously will not be opening up for a bit either because of this. (but it wont be closed forever).

Thanks in advance to everyone that helps out with this, it is quite a big task, but with 38,000 tracker members, I am sure we can do it.

PS: this probably turned out to be a longer read than the forum thread.

Taken from BlackCats Games
Happened on 3/21/2011

This may not be as bad as we first envisioned, but i did panic yesterday when i received the email from them. (quoted at the bottom of this thread)

Instead of clearing out the account into my personal bank account, which i wouldnt like to do anyway, but it may have caused suspicion, I payed for April and May server costs (it was either that or loose it all if they did put restrictions on it) and we didnt have enough to draw the prize draw (which now will have to be put on hold for a week or 2, as i have nothing in paypal).

Now for the help bit, we really need a dummy site just incase paypal want to come and have a look at the site where we get donations from, we have just put a blog on, and you should have an account if you are a member of BCG.

What you need to do is, logout of the tracker, log back into the tracker. This will re-hash your tracker password for use with the blog and will also set the correct cookies for tracker/forum/blog and you should be in and can add blogs etc.

We need it to look like its been going for 7 years, and its worth donating too, so this is where you come in (I know getting ppl posting in the forums is hard enough, but this is for the good of the site, so i hope you can spare 10 minutes of your time to write something)

We have also just put this on, so if you find any bugs or whatever, please just post in this thread about them and we will have a look at it.

http://www.blackcats-games.net/blog/

thats the blog site which we will show paypal in about 6 days time (so we need those blogs up sharpish)

Please, no mention of P2P, Trackers, Bittorrent or anything illegal at all, no talk of modding consoles or pirating games/apps/movies. also no mention of modded consoles, if you talk abotu a game, pretend you bought it.
Thankyou in advance to all those that will help out.

OK now for the email.

QUOTE
We are writing to you in regards to your PayPal account. PayPal
appreciates that you have chosen us to accept payments for your
organization. As part of PayPal's compliance program, we request that
entities wishing to accept donations on behalf of a charity or other
non-profit organization provide evidence of their legitimacy. Please
provide the following information:

1. Charity Name:

2. A letter stating the account holder is an authorized agent/correspondent
of the Charity/Non-Profit organisation (NPO) signed by a trustee/authorized
agent of the organisation.

3. Charity Commission Number or evidence of tax-exempt status and/or
registration with another applicable regulatory body governing your
jurisdiction.

4. Information about the nature of your organization and the type of
payments you intend to process with PayPal.

5. A copy of a bank statement issued within the last 12 months with the
organization name and organization address pre-printed on it from each bank
account that you intend to attach to this PayPal Account. Each bank
account that you attach to this PayPal Account must be under the ownership
of the Charity/Non-Profit Organization (NPO) and cannot be a personal bank
account.
6. Mission Statement:

7. Email address registered with your PayPal account:

Your assistance and expediency in this matter is appreciated. You may also
access these instructions at https://www.paypal.com/uk/charity

If you are not required to register through the Charity Commission for
England and Wales or another applicable regulatory body governing your
jurisdiction, please fax a letter on organisation letterhead declaring that
your organisation is subject to Voluntary Registration. The letter should
contain your Inland Revenue Tax Reference Number and state the reason why
your organisation is subject to Voluntary Registration. The letter should
also declare that you are an approved representative of the organisation.



All requested information must be submitted within 7 days to continue the
review process.

You can upload the information requested or fax it to us. To begin, visit
the Resolution Center and click "Resolve" under "Steps to Remove
Limitation".

If you are faxing the information, please provide the requested information
to 0870 7307 194 ATTN: Compliance ��‚��€œ Due Diligence. You must use the cover
page provided by PayPal. The cover page contains information specific to
you and using it ensures that your documents are routed and handled in a
timely manner. To print the cover page, log into your account and click on
the fax documents link on the "We Require Additional Information About Your
Account" page.

Please remember to include your email address as registered on your PayPal
account on any correspondence or faxed items. Once we have received and
reviewed the aforementioned material, we reserve the right to ask
additional questions on your policies and procedures. Failure to provide
the information may result in the closing of your account.

Send any questions to compliancedd@paypal.co.uk.
Your assistance and expediency in this matter is appreciated.


Sincerely,

PayPal Compliance Department
PayPal, an eBay Company

The forum post.

I didn't understand a thing about paypal thing. Could someone please clarify, whats the case?

I added the forum post to it.

I really really love BCG and I will them a hand.

A general Gist for people who are finding it a li'l bit tough to understand Stoi's announcement

Basically BCG has been accepting donations from people using Paypal
Now the account they have created at Paypal specifies that BlackCatsGames is a not for profit Charitable site where people donate time and by again
so there's been no issues till date

Recently Paypal was forced to change it business model and it stopped people from accumulating or depositing more than 500$ in their accounts
(This is only to stop the misuse of electronic transfer of funds by miscreants like terrorists and such)

Paypal has now asked BCG to prove that they really are a Charitable site where nothing illegal has happened for the last 7 years
and gave them a time frame of 6-7 days to do so
now Stoi is in a fix as he cannot withdraw his entire amount and use an alternative to PayPal
so as not to arouse any suspicion

so the administrators have decided to play it cool and create a dummy game review site as a front to show Penpal
all the way giving the impression that it exists for the last 7 years not 6 days
so he is urging the users to pool in with their homemade game reviews and fill the pages
and no mention of piracy, strictly mum about that
and not to worry as user accounts wont be compromised

p.s.
if you are finding it hard to understand the original announcement,
you are not alone,
it requires a rocket scientist to understand that announcement in one read
it also serves as evidence how much stressed the BCG owner must have been at the time of writing this no head-or tails announcement
Support BCG i say!!

It seems to me that their mistake was to open a non-profit account. If it was just a regular papal account then this this probably wouldn't have happened.

some others have been having touble with Paypal as well

Ah bad news, paypal causing lot of trouble for trackers with donations recently.