1. OT: Back from the Wilderness and Downtime
- Posted by euphoric (admin) Sep 05, 2016
- 3908 views
Howdy, y'all! OK, so I'm back from the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. Did a few days of backcountry camping. It was pretty amazing. Slept under the stars on the first night on a huge boulder because we got there too late to make it to the tent site and couldn't proceed in the darkness. It was pretty fun and exciting.
I don't know if our website experienced any downtime, as there has been a problem paying for the hosting. We're getting that resolved. Our hosting company, HostWinds, has given as a gracious extension until September 9 to get the Paypal stuff worked out. I apologize if there was any downtime of the site while I was away.
Anyway, looks like you guys had some fun without me. I hope we can go forward from here without too many issues. X)
2. Re: OT: Back from the Wilderness and Downtime
- Posted by jimcbrown (admin) Sep 06, 2016
- 3879 views
Howdy, y'all! OK, so I'm back from the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. Did a few days of backcountry camping. It was pretty amazing. Slept under the stars on the first night on a huge boulder because we got there too late to make it to the tent site and couldn't proceed in the darkness. It was pretty fun and exciting.
Sounds like fun! (And maybe just a little scary ... ;)
I don't know if our website experienced any downtime, as there has been a problem paying for the hosting.
I think we went down between 10:31am and 11:00am EST on Sunday.
We're getting that resolved. Our hosting company, HostWinds, has given as a gracious extension until September 9 to get the Paypal stuff worked out. I apologize if there was any downtime of the site while I was away.
That's a bit disturbing. What's wrong with paypal?
Anyway, looks like you guys had some fun without me. I hope we can go forward from here without too many issues. X)
Agreed.
3. Re: OT: Back from the Wilderness and Downtime
- Posted by euphoric (admin) Sep 06, 2016
- 3862 views
We're getting that resolved. Our hosting company, HostWinds, has given as a gracious extension until September 9 to get the Paypal stuff worked out. I apologize if there was any downtime of the site while I was away.
That's a bit disturbing. What's wrong with paypal?
Basically, they're asking for a credit card before I can proceed to pay our host with the funds we have in the account. They haven't asked for this before, and adding a personal credit card to a shared account doesn't seem prudent to me. Not that I don't trust you guys. 
4. Re: OT: Back from the Wilderness and Downtime
- Posted by ne1uno Sep 06, 2016
- 3871 views
We're getting that resolved. Our hosting company, HostWinds, has given as a gracious extension until September 9 to get the Paypal stuff worked out. I apologize if there was any downtime of the site while I was away.
That's a bit disturbing. What's wrong with paypal?
Basically, they're asking for a credit card before I can proceed to pay our host with the funds we have in the account. They haven't asked for this before, and adding a personal credit card to a shared account doesn't seem prudent to me. Not that I don't trust you guys.
would they accept a prepaid visa? or something like Bluebird? some other prepaid cards would be a little more difficult to maintain without incurring fees. many waive the fees if there is a monthly automatic deposit?
they accepted a debit card from me years ago and never demanded a credit card,
5. Re: OT: Back from the Wilderness and Downtime
- Posted by jimcbrown (admin) Sep 06, 2016
- 3857 views
We're getting that resolved. Our hosting company, HostWinds, has given as a gracious extension until September 9 to get the Paypal stuff worked out. I apologize if there was any downtime of the site while I was away.
That's a bit disturbing. What's wrong with paypal?
Basically, they're asking for a credit card before I can proceed to pay our host with the funds we have in the account. They haven't asked for this before, and adding a personal credit card to a shared account doesn't seem prudent to me. Not that I don't trust you guys.
Hmm. What method were you using previously? I'm wondering if maybe when it was first set up if Jeremy had added a prepaid card of some kind which now has finally expired...
6. Re: OT: Back from the Wilderness and Downtime
- Posted by euphoric (admin) Sep 06, 2016
- 3824 views
Hmm. What method were you using previously? I'm wondering if maybe when it was first set up if Jeremy had added a prepaid card of some kind which now has finally expired...
Paying from donations. We still have over $100 in the account, and it's only $7.50 or so per month, so we should be good for at least another year or so. Might need to do some fundraising soon.
I did have a credit card on there at some point in the distant past, but removed it way back when. Everything has been going smoothly since then, until this month, where they're asking for a CC again. We could convert to bitcoin and pay that way? Don't know, but it was suggested on the dev list.
7. Re: OT: Back from the Wilderness and Downtime
- Posted by jimcbrown (admin) Sep 06, 2016
- 4159 views
Paying from donations. We still have over $100 in the account, and it's only $7.50 or so per month, so we should be good for at least another year or so. Might need to do some fundraising soon.
So, I guess we're just paying straight from PayPal Credit? The funds sit in a paypal specific account, rather than on a CC or in a bank account?
We could convert to bitcoin and pay that way? Don't know, but it was suggested on the dev list.
Not sure if that would work.
From HostWind's TOS, https://www.hostwinds.com/terms.php , and from their blog, https://www.hostwinds.com/blog/news/hostwinds-now-accepts-skrillmoneybookers-bitcoin-payments/ , they do indeed accept bitcoins as payment.
However, it appears that converting the existing funds from the PayPal account into bitcoints might be tricky: https://99bitcoins.com/the-problem-of-bitcoins-and-paypal/ http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2F99bitcoins.com%2Fthe-problem-of-bitcoins-and-paypal%2F
And that ignores the CC problem - even if you find a way to buy BitCoins using PayPal, PayPal may require you to add a CC before they'll let you make any purchases from that account.
(Though, if we are really going to do this, you might as well change the password and lock down the PayPal account so only you have access to it. That way, you can add your own CC or whatever with peace-of-mind (since it's no longer a shared account) and withdraw the funds somehow, and then shut down the PayPal account permanently.)
Furthermore, even if we can get past all the remaining hurdles, it appears that we may not have enough funds to buy even a single bitcoin:
1 Bitcoin = 611.9900 US dollars
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=cost+of+one+bitcoin
http://www.coindesk.com/price/
I did have a credit card on there at some point in the distant past, but removed it way back when. Everything has been going smoothly since then, until this month, where they're asking for a CC again.
Will they accept non-renewable/non-reloadable gift cards? More importantly, will they accept gift cards or prepaid credit cards with $0.00 remaining dollars? If so, then the solution is simple - buy yourself a $5 gift card as an early (or extra) x-mas present, spend it at the local dollar store, and once every cent is used up add it as the 'CC' for the shared paypal account.
It looks like you can do this, but with a caveat:
Can prepaid gift cards used for all services and products through PayPal?
Prepaid gift cards can be used to make payments for any product or service except for recurring payments or reference transactions.
This is because due to the nature of prepaid gift cards, they can become low in balance over time to cover the recurring amount. In order to protect our members from unintended service interruption, prepaid gift cards cannot be used for payments automatically pulled from PayPal accounts.
https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/template-management/prepaid-gift-cards
Though, since you've been paying it from PayPal credit, and not the CC, perhaps that's not an issue for us...
8. Re: OT: Back from the Wilderness and Downtime
- Posted by jimcbrown (admin) Sep 06, 2016
- 3882 views
Will they accept non-renewable/non-reloadable gift cards? More importantly, will they accept gift cards or prepaid credit cards with $0.00 remaining dollars? If so, then the solution is simple - buy yourself a $5 gift card as an early (or extra) x-mas present, spend it at the local dollar store, and once every cent is used up add it as the 'CC' for the shared paypal account.
Nevermind, it looks like this won't work as a long term solution (unless you are willing to buy and install a new gift card every few months^1) - they 'expire' as soon as they hit a $0.00 balance, and even if you leave say $5 on a gift card and never use it, eventually it'll get eaten up by fees from the CC issuer.
http://www.chrisinch.com/blog/articles/show/5-reasons-avoid-pre-paid-credit-cards/
^1. Even if you were willing to do this, the cost of buying a prepaid credit card might be high enough to make this impractical - $5.75 to activate a card with only $5 on it! Outrageous! And you'd have to do this every couple of months.
9. Re: OT: Back from the Wilderness and Downtime
- Posted by euphoric (admin) Sep 06, 2016
- 3813 views
So, I guess we're just paying straight from PayPal Credit? The funds sit in a paypal specific account, rather than on a CC or in a bank account?
Technically, Paypal Credit is a separate thing. We have actual cash funds in the account, so it's not "credit" per se. Debit, I guess, would be more accurate.
No, I assumed Paypal would then be out of the equation, and we just pay with a Bitcoin wallet.
(Though, if we are really going to do this, you might as well change the password and lock down the PayPal account so only you have access to it. That way, you can add your own CC or whatever with peace-of-mind (since it's no longer a shared account) and withdraw the funds somehow, and then shut down the PayPal account permanently.)
I might as well, for now.
1 Bitcoin = 611.9900 US dollars
You can buy increments, I think...
10. Re: OT: Back from the Wilderness and Downtime
- Posted by jimcbrown (admin) Sep 07, 2016
- 3813 views
So, I guess we're just paying straight from PayPal Credit? The funds sit in a paypal specific account, rather than on a CC or in a bank account?
Technically, Paypal Credit is a separate thing. We have actual cash funds in the account, so it's not "credit" per se. Debit, I guess, would be more accurate.
Ah, got it.
Right, but we still have donated funds in Paypal right now that would need to be moved out. (Though this is a step that would only have to be done once, I suppose.)
1 Bitcoin = 611.9900 US dollars
You can buy increments, I think...
Ah, didn't think of that. You're right. At www.247exchange.com/buy one can buy a minimum of 0.02 bitcoins - which works out to under $12.24 USD.
This is starting to look like a workable solution.
