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Twitch Donation Drama: Donator takes back $11,000 in donations

Cipherr

Member
And those big boys pay taxes/IRS?

I mean it seems there are people making a living for this.

Umm, yes? Not sure if that was sarcasm or not but yeah, they do unless they want to break the law I guess. But I have heard more than a few streamers answer questions from viewers about how and how much they report as income yearly etc.

Who the hell would donate to watch someone play games? 2014 is a weird place.

Im probably going to hurt some feelings with this one but whatever.....

Men have spent decades going to fucking strip clubs to LITERALLY pay for a fucking erection. Something you get for free every morning whether you like it or not, and in youth you often get for no fucking reason at all. I find it absolutely stupid and the largest waste of money I can think of, so surely we can forgive a person for throwing 2 bucks at a streamer they found entertaining... Lets not turn into our parents here and start shouting down everything new that comes along, damn.... we ain't that old yet.
 

ZeroX03

Banned
Freelancers don't have guaranteed jobs.

But it's still a real job/work, that's my point. Your implication was that a job was strictly a place where you work chores and get paid biweekly (poor folks who get paid weekly, they don't qualify under your definition either).

Streaming requires skill, time and equipment. That's an entertainment service some people are willing to pay for. Chargebacks (as pointed out by the poster beneath me) are in no way limited to streamers, most forms of goods and services transactions have to deal with them.
 
lol real job talk. Way to derail the thread.

It has nothing to do with getting scammed. You can get scammed selling stuff on ebay. Is having an ebay shop not a job?

Also legit streamers do pay taxes. Are they suddenly not jobs?
 
Fraudulent donations were refunded. I can't see how anyone can really blame paypal in this instance. It seems more like a bunch of people didn't realize the possibility of chargebacks. It seems like the best practice for streamers would be to hold the funds in "escrow" until the chargeback window is past.

Don't you get charged a fee if you get charged back?
 

trixx

Member
Getting refunded when he donated 3 months before is complete bs. Can't trust the internet man.

On topic of having a job at 14, I had a job at 12 delivering papers. In fact that year i bought my own christmas present a nintendo ds. My parents gift was paying for the tax.
 

Zukuu

Banned
Getting refunded when he donated 3 months before is complete bs. Can't trust the internet man.

On topic of having a job at 14, I had a job at 12 delivering papers. In fact that year i bought my own christmas present a nintendo ds. My parents gift was paying for the tax.
lol


@Topic
What a piece of shit. He bathed in "fame" and had contact with his favorite streamers and now pulls this dick move.
 

Crossing Eden

Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
But while it helps, unless you're on the front-page of a specific game, those people get passed over. See now I can't understand the douchey part. While we all rage at some point in our lives, watching someone do it constantly would get quite boring.
Depends on the person. OT this is really effed up and if I didn't have to spend money on art school supplies and getting my HDD in my macbook replaced i'd donate.
 

Arken2121

Member
Depends on the person. OT this is really effed up and if I didn't have to spend money on art school supplies and getting my HDD in my macbook replaced i'd donate.

On that note, I was actually thinking of a way to help but i'd have no idea how to put it together. I'd match donations from others up to the amount these people were owed(500 donated, I'd put 500 of my own money into it). Tried contacting the OP but nothing yet.
 
while i like charge backs to keep people safe it should really be 10-15 days max, think its like 30 days

i had someone try to do a charge back two times when i sold sneakers through ebay, she wanted to keep the sneakers for free


damn, in addition to swats this would have me shook to try to stream full time on there :/

bummer to those that are effected
 

Sn4ke_911

If I ever post something in Japanese which I don't understand, please BAN me.
I hope this whole subscription/donation thing ends soon on twitch.

For example Sodapoppin made alone with his 24h stream 13k. I repeat 13000$ in just 1 day.

People getting paid for playing vidyagaems... stahp.

Yeah i'm jelly.
 

TSM

Member
while i like charge backs to keep people safe it should really be 10-15 days max, think its like 30 days

People only get credit card statements once a month. The least amount of time I would consider reasonable would be 45 days. Assuming the fraudulent transaction took place the day after the last statement, this would give someone 2 weeks to get it taken care of. 60 days is definitely not unreasonable.
 

Miletius

Member
I feel bad for the streamers, since that's a really scummy thing to do. But I also feel like a 15 year old (assuming he is a 15 year old) should be protected from some of the dumb ass things he does when he's a 15 year old.

As for the streamers, I think it goes without saying that if you are using twitch as a business and your primary form of income you've gotta behave like a business. That includes having a responsible amount of money set aside for incidents like these.
 
A kid probably messed up. I can understand if his parents want to get the money back. Its not really fun for the streamers, especially those who have already used the money to buy hardware, but they can always give it back to get a refund.

Chills, people. Its not as important as if someone had ben killed.
Its not pleasant for those involved but its just bad luck, no need to look absolutely for a guilty party you can blame.
 

Skeyser

Member
while i like charge backs to keep people safe it should really be 10-15 days max, think its like 30 days

i had someone try to do a charge back two times when i sold sneakers through ebay, she wanted to keep the sneakers for free


damn, in addition to swats this would have me shook to try to stream full time on there :/

bummer to those that are effected

lmao 10-15 days, the fraud would be at an all time high
 

trixx

Member
Working for donations is a dangerous line of work for this exact reason, but it sucks for a 14 yr old kid who didn't understand how it works.

What I don't understand how he had a PayPal account in the first place tho. Good luck collecting the funds PayPal.

This is another thing that was weird to me. How do you have a paypal at 14? I'm not too sure about the sign-up guidelines but that seems like a lot of consent for a 14 year old.

edit: oh student account but still that would require parents consent, parents would likely be liable then?

Still feel very bad for him
 

Einbroch

Banned
Sucks for the kid, seeing as he's young and didn't know better.

But it's a good lesson to learn. Don't spend what you don't 100% own.
 

TheContact

Member
This is another thing that was weird to me. How do you have a paypal at 14? I'm not too sure about the sign-up guidelines but that seems like a lot of consent for a 14 year old.

edit: oh student account but still that would require parents consent, parents would likely be liable then?

Still feel very bad for him

I had paypal at 16. Just need a savings account. Anyone can open one.

I feel a little bad for the 14 year old. Apparently he spent the money and then it was charged back? PayPal is really shady in regards to "sellers".
 

Weevilone

Member
I'm more curious how you can do a charge-back past 30 days.

You put something on a credit card, and stuff accumulates until the bill gets issued. The customer is just paying for the previous stuff as that bill goes out, so that bill's due 30 days later.

It can be pushing 60 days before someone reads a bill with checkbook in hand and says "holy shit, what's that".
 

Xenus

Member
Added an update, posting here as well:

Someone has provided me with a Facebook page that matches the e-mail that was used to donate. It appears that the case is this is indeed a case of a minor using someone's credit card. A question still stands though: Why did PayPal accept up to $11,000 in donations if they knew this person had done the same thing to the tune of $5,000 in the past?

If he had done the same thing with $5000 in the past Paypal should have shut down his account. The fact they didn't puts me on the side that Paypal should be forced to eat the 11k.
 

RiccochetJ

Gold Member
It feels really weird that Paypal is siding with the donator in this instance seeing as they should be able to clearly see a pattern here of buyer's remorse.

Unless of course it wasn't the kid's money to begin with and he isn't actually the one making these claims to paypal.

I feel bad for the streamers though. I have no idea how it's ok for Paypal to go into your account and just remove money like that especially after that long. It's just another horror story to add to the list of things I've heard about that service.

Edit:
Added an update, posting here as well:

Someone has provided me with a Facebook page that matches the e-mail that was used to donate. It appears that the case is this is indeed a case of a minor using someone's credit card. A question still stands though: Why did PayPal accept up to $11,000 in donations if they knew this person had done the same thing to the tune of $5,000 in the past?

Ahh, I missed this post. Wonder if the credit card owner was never notified of these large charges? I always get a call from my bank to confirm if I in fact made a particular purchase if it's quite large dollar amount.
 

Servbot #42

Unconfirmed Member
Its a bad situation but they fucked up by using paypal, paypal can and will fuck you over period and from what i hear you cant do shit about it because they dont have the same protections that you would have when using a bank or something like that. I feel bad about those streamers nonetheless.
 
If someone was donating those kind of amounts, just to watch me play games...i'd be investigating those payments.

$1000 spread out between a hundred people, ok.
$1000 from one donor? Nope. Suspicious.
 

Lucent

Member
Umm, yes? Not sure if that was sarcasm or not but yeah, they do unless they want to break the law I guess. But I have heard more than a few streamers answer questions from viewers about how and how much they report as income yearly etc.



Im probably going to hurt some feelings with this one but whatever.....

Men have spent decades going to fucking strip clubs to LITERALLY pay for a fucking erection. Something you get for free every morning whether you like it or not, and in youth you often get for no fucking reason at all. I find it absolutely stupid and the largest waste of money I can think of, so surely we can forgive a person for throwing 2 bucks at a streamer they found entertaining... Lets not turn into our parents here and start shouting down everything new that comes along, damn.... we ain't that old yet.

lol I love this post. I agree with it so much.
 

DMiz

Member
Sounds like a really terrible situation.

I'm impressed with how eloquent JaccaMacca sounds, and like others have voiced, it doesn't seem like he spent the money on anything other than to improve the channel. All things considered, imagine how you would have felt if you were fourteen, received charity for your work, and suddenly were told that you were in debt and had no way of clearing said debt because you were never in the process of 'earning money' through your hobby.

I'd imagine it'd be a pretty horrible day, hell, week, to wake up to.
 
The credit card that was used to provide these donations is possibly fraudulent or was stolen. A dispute was most likely made with the credit card issuer as they have 90 days to do so and turned to Paypal to get that money back.

Right. I knew this months ago when people were talking about this guy making these huge donations on twitch.

Has credit fraud written all over it. The charge backs were guaranteed. They never should have spent that money.
 
This is shitty, but man, OP's twitch page is completely shameless. Amazon wishlist link on a twitch page. Yikes.

It has an Amazon wishlist because those things go to me directly, if you donate then Streamtip gets a percentage, PayPal gets a percentage, and then shit like this can happen.

Judge me if you want.
 
Working for donations is a dangerous line of work for this exact reason, but it sucks for a 14 yr old kid who didn't understand how it works.

What I don't understand how he had a PayPal account in the first place tho. Good luck collecting the funds PayPal.

From what I understand his PayPal account is now closed and I think PayPal may just have to eat those funds. I'll check with him though.
 

RiccochetJ

Gold Member
From what I understand his PayPal account is now closed and I think PayPal may just have to eat those funds. I'll check with him though.

How does Twitch handle subscribers and ad revenue? Do you get money directly from them?

That might be a safer route for him than going with Paypal and donations going forward.
 

trixx

Member
I had paypal at 16. Just need a savings account. Anyone can open one.

I feel a little bad for the 14 year old. Apparently he spent the money and then it was charged back? PayPal is really shady in regards to "sellers".

But under the terms and conditions you have to be 18+ to have an adult account. If your under the age you should have a student account which I believe has to be connected with the parents bank account. This is so parents can monitor the transactions made on behalf of their child and if something like this happens they are partially liable.

Similarly, you can't open a bank account unless you have parents consent if you're under the age of 18, 16 in some places. I think...
 

ttech10

Member
Umm, yes? Not sure if that was sarcasm or not but yeah, they do unless they want to break the law I guess. But I have heard more than a few streamers answer questions from viewers about how and how much they report as income yearly etc.



Im probably going to hurt some feelings with this one but whatever.....

Men have spent decades going to fucking strip clubs to LITERALLY pay for a fucking erection. Something you get for free every morning whether you like it or not, and in youth you often get for no fucking reason at all. I find it absolutely stupid and the largest waste of money I can think of, so surely we can forgive a person for throwing 2 bucks at a streamer they found entertaining... Lets not turn into our parents here and start shouting down everything new that comes along, damn.... we ain't that old yet.

Why can't they both be equally mind-boggling wastes of money? Don't get me wrong, I feel bad for those streamers who lost money, but at least at strip clubs those men can get physical interaction with the thing they're spending money on.

I have to ask, is there not a better method for streamers to accept money? Why not simply receive donations through something like online gift cards? That sounds like it would be safer than using PayPal, which appears to be well known for taking money back.
 

x3sphere

Member
Why can't they both be equally mind-boggling wastes of money? Don't get me wrong, I feel bad for those streamers who lost money, but at least at strip clubs those men can get physical interaction with the thing they're spending money on.

I have to ask, is there not a better method for streamers to accept money? Why not simply receive donations through something like online gift cards? That sounds like it would be safer than using PayPal, which appears to be well known for taking money back.

As mentioned before, Bitcoin. Coinbase basically makes it as easy as accepting a Paypal payment.
 
Bolded and quoted again. If these are fraudulent donations, the victims of credit card/identity theft take priority over any streamer.

Both should take priority over the payment processor. The only way for incentives to align correctly here is if the processor company is the one who loses out as a result of fraudulent activity.

what's the tax on donations anyway? counts as self-employment, right?

Yep. Full income tax, minus expenses, but double Social Security.
 

old

Member
The chargeback limit for most credit cards is 6 months afaik, so in the future you should probably not touch the donations lying in your paypal until 6 months have passed.

I don't know. Hypothetically if I was doing this this stuff I would create a separate bank account to move donations to immediately so that those funds can't be frozen by pay pal. But keep those funds in that separate bank account for 6 months in case I ever do need to send them back to my pay pal account to cover charge backs.
 

wildfire

Banned
That sucks. Nevermind the assholeness of charging back donations, but 3 months down the line is just retarded.

If you had your credit cards misused stolen you will appreciate financial institutions working in your favor.

Ever consider it was the kid's parents initiating the charge back?

Your only option to avoid this are bitcoins and similar digital currency.
 
Some streamers found a way around this by using a different site instead of paypal. I exactly forgot the name but basiclally once you donate, you can't take it back. Some big streamers use it. I don't know what it's called.
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
Why can't they both be equally mind-boggling wastes of money? Don't get me wrong, I feel bad for those streamers who lost money, but at least at strip clubs those men can get physical interaction with the thing they're spending money on.

I have to ask, is there not a better method for streamers to accept money? Why not simply receive donations through something like online gift cards? That sounds like it would be safer than using PayPal, which appears to be well known for taking money back.
The Let's Play guys I donate to use Patreon, which let's you use Amazon payments I'm pretty sure. Of course that requires that you already have a base willing to pay you monthly
 

Zafir

Member
Some streamers found a way around this by using a different site instead of paypal. I exactly forgot the name but basiclally once you donate, you can't take it back. Some big streamers use it. I don't know what it's called.
What happens when they go through the bank to cancel the charge though? I can't see how any site can protect against this kind of thing unless they take the hit themselves, which would make them unprofitable as a company I'd imagine.
 

nelchaar

Member
Yeah, although it sucks for the streamers, I don't see why the parents of the brat kid who donated $11,000 without their knowledge and permission should suffer for this. And to be honest, it sounded like some of these streamers knew this donor to be 15. How do alarm bells not to off right then and there? I'm 27 and I don't have $11,000 to donate, let alone $10.
 

Velcro Fly

Member
You have to be pretty much asleep or really don't care as a parent to let this happen again. Paypal is always going to side with the buyer almost no matter what. I think it's ridiculous this little shit is going to get away with it again and probably nothing is going to happen to him. His parents certainly don't seem to care much if this is the second go around.

And yeah streamers get all kinds of donations ranging from a few cents that paypal eats to hundreds of dollars. I've seen guys like Sodahpoppin get like 25k legit from someone before. It almost goes with the territory that if someone is donating you expect them to be decent people and not charge it back months later after you've spent the money. Most streamers have a paypal link or something and at this point I'd rather toss a few dollars to a streamer instead of subscribe and have to pay Twitch. I equate donating to a streamer with throwing a guy playing music on the street a few dollars if you liked his sound enough.
 

Jay Sosa

Member
People donate money to people playing VG? Why?

I mean obviously it's their money.. but still. Wouldn't you rather donate it to some charity? Or give it to your family? Homeless people?

This is seriously blowing my mind.
 
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