[Wikipedia-l] Re: PayPal is set up

[Delirium]

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.

>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