A wonderful charity project, as famous people share their thoughts on Doctor Who, has been blocked by PayPal.
Here’s a lovely project. Put together by a fine man by the name of Steve Berry, Behind The Sofa is a limited edition publication, running to 200 pages, which is packed with famous names, and their memories and thoughts surrounding Doctor Who.
The book is strictly a charity publication, with the profits raised from its sale going to Alzheimer’s Research UK. Preorders were being taken for the standard £19.99 version of the book, as well as several limited editions, and the cash from those was set to be used to pay for the printing.
Berry opted to use PayPal to allow people to pay up front for Behind The Sofa, and sadly, that’s where the problem began. Yesterday, he revealed that PayPal has frozen his account, and the funds within it, and that he couldn’t get a representative from PayPal to explain their decision properly on the phone. In fact, as many who have had problems with PayPal can testify, just getting to talk to someone at the organisation can be a challenge.
Fuelled by articles such as this excellent piece at the Radio Times, a furore was stirred up, as Behind The Sofa began trending on Twitter in the UK. And, as a consequence, PayPal has since been in touch with Berry. However, at best, he can only get hold of half of the money currently being held in quarantine by PayPal. PayPal, of course, gets its usual fees, and presumably the interest on the cash that its holding.
To be clear: nobody’s money has been lost. But Berry is now set to fund the printing and production of the book himself, vowing to publish Behind The Sofa with or without help from PayPal.
What’s particularly hurt PayPal here is its apparent unwillingness to engage in sufficient dialogue. That it took a shitstorm on Twitter for it to properly return Berry’s calls, and bother to explain itself. It would be fair to say that it has not come out of this very well at all.
On the upside, the publicity for Behind The Sofa is welcome, and we congratulate Berry on putting such a fascinating project together. You can read his blog on PayPal’s actions here. Appreciating that the firm has policies in place for good reason, the way that PayPal has handled this beggars belief.
Your best way to support the project? To head over here and order a copy. And PayPal? We think the Internet pretty unanimously concluded yesterday that you’ve not behaved very well at all. Might it be an idea to quickly apologise, donate heavily to the cause, and move on?
