Walter Vermeir wrote:
Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote in news:20030821130355.B456 at joey.bomis.com:
donation at 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 $50 of credit card fraud). -- In the US at least, most debit cards work through the credit card system as well. They're treated as debit, but you can use them in a credit card reader just fine.
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This is just the perfect example that customs are different and that some have no awareness of that.
France is the country were credit cards are the most used. Because we worked on the little electronic device for security, and I think our cards are amongst the most secure cards in the world.
Basically every adult has a credit card. Only very young people and people with bank problems do not. I got mine at 16. It is very very common system of paiement. And very very few people use debit card. That is just not customary, unless you are in the situation indicated above. I got a debit card at 14.
This has a price, mind you. About 250 FF a year...that is ... well...say 40 euros a year. I think I pay 7 euros per months for 2 cards and account support.
Not exactly free. I could go to the movie with that.
In the euro-zone you can make a bank transfer from
one account to a other
account in the euro-zone for the same price like a
local transfer. That is
almost always free.
Whit PayPal there are transcation costs and change
from currency costs.
A Wikimedia euro bankaccount in euro-zone state can
be usefull for
donations from Europe. No need for a credit card,
easy to do, no loss of
mony; 1 euro donation = 1 euro for Wikimedia. Not 1
euro - x%
On the other hand, the expenses are all currently in the US, so the currency will have to be converted at some point to US$. 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
I have never heard of paypal in france. I saw it on american web sites. I doubt french would do donations by that way, but who knows ? I think a bank account in euros would not be a uninteresting choice.
Another cultural difference : French have heard a lot that internet paiement are unsure and that they could be cheated. For this reason, electronic sales are still very low. Very. Another reason for which french would probably not easily consider an electronic donation.
But well....
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