Hacker News Reader

Comment by qpleple | Hacker News Reader

> Do you accept donations?

> Sure, you can make donation to louis@pentesterlab.com using Paypal. If you don't like Paypal just send a donation to any charity and email me so I will feel good about it ;)

I like this state of mind.

View on HN

Don't say you accept donations over Paypal unless you are a registered non-profit organization. This is one of the most common reasons why accounts get frozen.

(EDIT: I re-checked, and it seems plenty of people receive donations with Paypal without a hitch... until they reach a certain threshold and get locked out.)

You would be surprised at how many people claim to be accepting "donations" but then are really selling things (while carefully avoiding the word "sell" for whatever reason, such as to not have to collect and file sales tax or not claim income): "donate $5 and I'll send you a copy of my software / give you access to my website / send you a free gift", for example. This is the real reason so many accounts get frozen with relation to donations, not quantity.

(That said, you should make it clear to your contributors that their "donation" is not a charitable contribution from a tax perspective, which many people might fail to realize if you use the word "donate"; but, in my direct experience from getting my account temporarily limited, if you get dinged on this one it is easy enough to talk to PayPal, find out what happened, and get everything up again in a couple hours after working out better wording with them.)

Thanks :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com