Paypal Blocks Soldiers Angels Fund Raising

Note: I am late in getting this posted as I needed to calm down A LOT before writing about this.

As part of this year's Gun Blogger Fund Raising efforts to benefit Project Valour-IT, we are having a section of our fund raising raffle set up so you could buy raffle tickets on line. We included two very nice prizes, a Para GI 1911 pistol, and a $2,000 four day training session at Front Sight Academy. The pistol was purchased and donated by Kevin from The Smallest Minority, and the training was donated by Front sight Academy.

The on line ticket part of the raffle was set up and hosted by Soldiers Angels, the parent organization of Project Valour-IT. In the first three and a half days over a thousand dollars worth of tickets were sold on line. Then someone at Paypal decided to shut it down. They not only shut down the raffle ticket sales, they shut down ALL Paypal on line contributions to all areas of Soldiers Angels. Soldiers Angels had to remove the button to buy raffle tickets before Paypal would turn the account back on. Unfortunately Soldiers Angels was in the middle of a fund raising drive and it's anyone's guess just how much in donations they lost in the twelve hours that Paypal was refusing to accept donations for them.

It appears that they consider buying a raffle ticket where you might win a gun is the same thing as actually going to a FFL and buying a gun. What is actually going on is people are making a donation to Soldiers Angels and Project Valour-IT, and for every $10 they spend they get a raffle ticket that might win them a gun. That's quite a big difference.

From Kevin:

"So where does that leave us? Well, you can call Soldiers' 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."

The bad news is it's a pain to have to do it this way, but the good news is that Paypal doesn't get a percentage of the money spent on tickets.

If you'd like to call Paypal and discuss why inter-species offspring should not be put in policy making decisions, or anything else along those lines, their Customer Service phone number is (402) 935-2050.

For Kevin's full post and a lot more information about this, it's here.

Update Here's the list so far of bloggers that are writing about this:

Maj. Chuck Zeigenfuss at From My Position, On the Way! - Paypal is asshats
Laughingwolf at Blackfive - Step Up for Valour-IT, Especially as PayPal Won't
Blackfive at Blackfive - Anti-gun PayPal Shuts Down Soldiers' Angels Contributions
BillT at Castle Argghhh! - How Innnnnteresting
Alan at Snarkybytes - Paypal: Anti-Gun
Sebastian at Snowflakes in Hell - PayPal's Gun Policies
Kahr40 at From the Barrel of a Gun - Paypal is anti-gun
Kevin S. at Brown Valley Kingdom - Paypal shows their ass
Albert A Rasch at The Rasch Outdoor Chronicles - It's About Time We Pushed Back!
Major C at A Major's Perspective - Important Information You Need to Know
SayUncle - PayPal: Fear of guns overrides helping soldiers
Tam at View from the Porch - Figures
Joe Huffman at The View from North Central Idaho - Quote of the Day--Kevin Baker
Phelps at The Everlasting Phelps - PayPal Hates Soldiers
Jim at The Travis McGee Reader - A current outrage
Morgan at My Two Cents Worth - Outrage via PayPal
Derek at The Packing Rat - Paypal = Bigots
Jennifer at In Jennifer's Head - PayPal and Guns
Pamibe - PayPal vs. Soldier's Angels
Firehand at Irons in the Fire - So PayPal is so anti-gun that they'll screw over Soldier's Angels
Musings of the Geek with a .45 - That's Quite Enough of PayPal
falfenix of Insert witty title here - Sometimes you just can't win
Some Soldier's Mom - PayPal is Anti-Gun
Stephanie's Blog - PayPal is Anti-Gun
Ride Fast and Shoot Straight - PayPal is an evil, eBay anti-gun minion
Caleb at Gun Nuts Media - PayPal cuts off donations to veteran’s charity group
Russell at Solarvoid - Gah, stupid Paypal
Sailorcurt of Captain of a Crew of One - Paypal and the Geek
US Citizen at Traction Control - PayPal is no Pal to Soldiers
Top of the Chain - Paypal = Bovine Fecal Material
Dirtcrashr at Anthroblogogy - Pay-Pooper is Not Your Pal
Linoge of Walls of the City - paypal sucks
Phil at Random Nuclear Strikes - Some People's Children
Hazmat at Thunder River Home - Gotta Love That PayPal
Evyl Robot Soapbox - Paypal is Anti?
The High Road - at least three threads