It’s pass the hat time [BUMPED UP. Scroll down for today’s posts.]
[ADDENDUM: My current donation appeal will be winding down soon. A preliminary THANK YOU! to all who’ve contributed to helping keep this blog running.]
Now that everyone’s depressed about the elections and strapped for cash with the holidays coming, I thought I’d ask for donatio
Never let it be said that my timing was especially good.
But I do need to pass the hat now and then, and I haven’t done it in a long while. I greatly and deeply appreciate all contributions towards running this blog.
You may have noticed that I still have the Paypal button method of donating on the right sidebar (or towards the bottom of the blog if you use a cellphone). That’s because, although I’ve researched tons of Paypal alternatives for many many hours, I have yet to come up with a substitute that will work for me. They all either have similar issues as Paypal, or different ones that include very major privacy problems that only emerged when I started signing up.
I’ll still be looking for a substitute, But for now the Paypal method of donating still works the best.
I also want to mention that it’s possible to set up recurring donations, such as once a month.
Thanks, thanks, THANKS in advance!
NOTE: I’ll be bumping this up each day for about a week.
At least they haven’t fined you yet for wrongthink.
Authoritarian systems try and isolate the dissenters, tell them you’re alone, no one thinks like you do, you’re crazy. Neo is one way we know we’re not alone. It’s appreciated.
Do you take crypto?
Unicorn crypto. It powers the financial world, or not.
Canceled my PayPal account, but the donation button was able to take my card info and process the donation.
I hope neo finds an alternative to PayPal eventually. Indeed, some wrongthink may be found hereabouts.
ParallelEconomy.com?
Could you just give us a snail mail address to which we can send a check.
Having the request for a place to send a check be turned down last year, but very much wanting to support that way still,
I’ve been trying to come up with a solution to the “preserve anonymity/ not have the bank that has my card have a record of this, so I want to send you a check” plus “I absolutely will not give Pay Pal a cent after what they did to those Canadian truckers” conflict.
Would it be possible for us to send a check to another entity who doesn’t have the anonymity concerns—like your church, perhaps, with the memo line New Neo–and have them turn it over to you.
(I am assuming there would not be a person in your life willing to do that. Maybe I am incorrect. )
Curious–it takes FORVER for a comment to post (relative to internet life elsewhere).
Is it going through some type of AI review?
This site does take longer to load than just about any other one I frequent, but only about half a forever.
Canceled my PayPal account, but the donation button was able to take my card info and process the donation.
I’m pretty sure it still uses your old, supposedly “canceled” PayPal account to do that. And I’m sure PayPal still collects some kind of processing fee for that too. Of course since you’re not actually keeping any money in your PayPal account with this method, they can’t steal money from you for wrongthink, but they’re still making money from you. Whole thing sucks.
Think I tried last year with a pre paid credit card but it would not go thru. I do not do much money related things over the net. On the rare instances that I do, I use a pre paid. I am mostly old school . I write checks and give cash to my church. Seems that I was able to use a prepaid on the Samaritan’s Purse website one time . I do not care about anonymous or not, more concerned with ID theft. I do not trust anything tied directly to my bank account like Pay Pal. Not that I ever have much in there anyway….
I’m pretty sure, Nonapod, that they are NOT using an old PayPal account to process credit card donations. You’d have to log in for that; plus, when I had a PayPal account, it was with a credit card I no longer use. They’re just enabling payment with a credit card and taking a fee for the service from the payee.
I am as paranoid as anyone about identity theft. But sometimes ya gotta live dangerously.
Take a chance, hit the PayPal button, you only live once.
I noticed that Legalnsurrectionhas a donate by mail address. Neo, perhaps you can arrange it so can we use that to mail a check to you? My understanding is that PayPal charges you about a 15% fee. A check would get around that so you would get more money.
I work with a PayPal account for a charity. They don’t charge 15%. It’s about 3%. So if you gave Neo $50, she’d get $48.51
About a snail mail address – for me, there are privacy issues. I am thinking about possibly figuring out some way to supply one, but so far I haven’t come up with something satisfactory.
However, Paypal takes nowhere near 15%. I believe the figure it does take is 2.9% for online transactions.
Neo, Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit has a box at either the post office or the UPS store, something like that, and asks that people send checks in his name to that address. But that would involve using your name. Some blog readers know it, but that would make it more visible. Plus, you’d have to rent the box, which would be an additional recurring expense.
PayPal’s 2.9% is not unreasonable. If donors don’t set up accounts, PayPal doesn’t save their credit card numbers.
Kate:
Yes, but that also exposes where a person lives although not the specific address. I have always tried to keep where I live private. There also are electronic mailboxes that will forward mail to you; I’ve thought of that, but they are relatively pricey and would only be cost-effective if a lot of people contributed that way. I’ve also considered having my mail sent to the mailbox of some trusted blogger friend who has a published mailbox address, and having that person forward my checks to me every month.
Those are the sort of things I’ve been researching and mulling over. In the meantime, Paypal.
Nonapod:
Yes we live in a fallen world, but neo is worth the risk to me. Your situation is not mine. If PayPal chooses to keep old dead accounts there is nothing I can do about that.
You be you.
Tried once, for some reason my card declined. Half an hour later, success! If you DON’T click “save this information for next time,” the application will process your payment and won’t save your card #. I assume it will notify Neo, though.
Dan Bongino and others have launched AlignPay, an alternative to PayPal and Stripe. It looks like it is live. You might take a look. https://alignpay.com. I intend to cancel my PayPal account.
T-Rex; et al:
I have looked at every single one of those in great detail and there are huge issues for me with all of them. For example, many require far more information about you, far more than the basics that one would expect, including a lot of detailed personal information about your business for the past few years. Some require that certain personal information become public on your site, also. All sorts of strange things are required that Paypal doesn’t require.
I just used the credit card option, turned off the saving/creating a paypal account button. Went through without a problem.
I may still have a paypal account, but I can’t remember the password, and don’t use it anyway.
Kate said: I’m pretty sure, Nonapod, that they are NOT using an old PayPal account to process credit card donations.
I’m sure your correct. But either way, it’s stinks that we have to pay PayPal money for donations.
om said: Yes we live in a fallen world, but neo is worth the risk to me. Your situation is not mine. If PayPal chooses to keep old dead accounts there is nothing I can do about that.
You be you.
To be clear, I by no means was suggesting anybody do anything. I myself used PayPal for a donation to Neo. I try to minimize my usage of PayPal whereever possible, but in many cases unfortunately there’s often no other viable alternative.
Nonapod:
We are not paying Paypal for donations; Neo is paying Paypal for privacy.
I very infrequently use Paypal any longer, but did for a Neo donation. Better yet, it is recurring and I don’t have to remember to do it each month.
Awww
OK, I just contributed my pittance. I just wish I had the means to give what you are worth and could put another couple of zeros on the number.
Thank you Neo for all your hard work. You have created and maintain a rare island of civility and sanity on the Internet.
Stop making excuses. Hit the Paypal button or credit card.
Or, leave all your money to kids and grandkids , who will spend it on sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll.
Please stop using paypal. They are evil. Find a better way.
How much do you get from my Amazon purchases? I just ordered a bunch of stuff today.
expat:
Thanks! I get four percent.
Neo, your posts and the ensuing discussions are my main source of entertainment these days (let that sink in…..).
You won’t see our blog nom on the donation, but AesopSpouse hit the PayPal button in your behalf.