Walter Vermeir wrote:
Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)bomis.com> wrote in
news:20030821130355.B456@joey.bomis.com:
donation(a)wikipedia.org is the correct email
address to use.
PayPal is popular but you need a credit card. Those are not very popular in
Europe. Expensive, unsucre and not very usefull. Most transactions are done
by bank tranfer and a debet card.
A few points:
-- Paypal does not require a credit card. You can make direct bank
transfers as well.
-- Credit cards are not expensive -- they are entirely free. I
certainly don't pay anything at all for any of mine (and you don't pay
interest if you pay your bills on time either). They're essentially the
same as a debit card, but more secure (if there's a dispute with a
dishonest merchant, you don't pay until the dispute is resolved, while
with a debit card they already have your money, and you don't get it
back until the dispute is resolved -- also by law in the US at least,
the consumer is only responsible for up to $50 of credit card fraud).
-- In the US at least, most debit cards work through the credit card
system as well. They're treated as debit, but you can use them in a
credit card reader just fine.
In the euro-zone you can make a bank transfer from one
account to a other
account in the euro-zone for the same price like a local transfer. That is
almost always free.
Whit PayPal there are transcation costs and change from currency costs.
A Wikimedia euro bankaccount in euro-zone state can be usefull for
donations from Europe. No need for a credit card, easy to do, no loss of
mony; 1 euro donation = 1 euro for Wikimedia. Not 1 euro - x%
On the other hand, the expenses are all currently in the US, so the
currency will have to be converted at some point to US$. This would
also require a resident of Europe to handle the bank account and to
periodically mail checks to Jimbo (or bank transfer the funds to a US
account, which probably isn't free).
-Mark