- [Continuation of my initial message.] Archived Message
Posted by Twirlip
on April 18, 2019, 7:03 pm, in reply to "An apparently trivial but confusing technical difficulty in donating to Defend WikiLeaks"
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One of the side-issues that has confused me today, causing me to almost give up again, is that it is not easy to see (unless I've made some silly mistake - which of course is always possible!) how to get to the Defend WikiLeaks home page from the WikiLeaks home page. I originally did a Google search - yes, I'm naive, I still use Google (I tried Duck Duck Go for a while, but it failed to find too many sites I needed) - for "Julian Assange support fund" (with no quotation marks). The first and second hits were both for Defend WikiLeaks. The most obvious link to try from the WikiLeaks home page, of course, is Donate to WikiLeaks: "Donors can make direct bank transfers, including international transfers, to our accounts in Germany, Australia, Iceland and France." There is no mention of Defend WikiLeaks, or the bank account into which 'gpcus' and I have both unsuccessfully tried to transfer some money. I'm not suggesting that there is anything sinister in this (or indeed, about any aspect of this business), but it all adds to my confusion - and surely not only my confusion. As I said in one of my comments on Craig's blog, it appears to be a cock-up rather than a conspiracy. (If it's only my cock-up, please let me apologise profusely in advance!) I still don't know the reason for this lack of connection. (If I'm just being stupid, I plead exhaustion - I'd already spent hours trying to get to the root of the bank transfer problem.) Assume, then, that you have somehow found your way to the Defend WikiLeaks website. Here, at least, clicking on the obvious link does take you to the right page (N.B. there are other links from the home page that are evidently also highly relevant and well worth exploring - but I just haven't had the time or the energy to do so, largely thanks to this apparent cock-up): ... ... Oh no, wait, I am forced to deal with another side-issue first! (I think this was where I came the closest to giving up altogether.) The problem is that although you might - with luck, and a following wind - have "somehow" ended up at the Defend Wikileaks home page (although even from here it is far from plain sailing, as I shall try to recount!), you might equally have ended up at the home page of the Courage Foundation (as mentioned in my initial post in this thread). And yes - you've guessed it - from here, too, there is an obvious link to follow (captioned "Donate Now!", so you can't miss it): Donate to the Courage Foundation Fortunately, this page does have a further link for specific donations for the defence of WikiLeaks: "If you’d like to make a donation to the WikiLeaks official Legal Defence Fund, please follow this link." OK, so now we really have arrived, one way or another, at the Defend WikiLeaks official donation page. (Sorry about the detour.) But now the misery really begins! (Hah! You thought I had done with describing the problem? I hadn't even started!)  "The various ways to donate are given below Your contribution to the WikiLeaks Defence Fund helps to support a dedicated campaign team which advocates across the world, especially in global media, to build support for WikiLeaks and the public’s right to know. We thank you for your support If you have a question about donating, please contact: courage.contact@couragefound.org Donate: You can donate using various methods. Please select the one you'd like to use below: [...] Bank transfer You can donate by bank transfer (not tax eductible) from all over the world using the following details: Bank: Lloyds TSB Bank Name of Account: “Courage - WikiLeaks/Assange” Account number: 24345160 Sort code: 30-94-57 BIC/Swift code LOYDGB21158 IBAN: GB76 LOYD 309457 24345160 Subject / Reference: “Courage - WikiLeaks/Assange” Bank Address: Lloyds TSB, 19-20 Upper Street, London, N1 0PJ, United Kingdom Recipient address: Derek Rothera & Company, Chartered Accountants, Units 15 & 16, 7 Wenlock Road, London N1 7SL, United Kingdom" Perhaps the best thing I can do now is to give the text of the e-mail I sent to courage.contact@couragefound.org, yesterday. (I'd already worn myself out making thorough enquiries of every other possible source of help or information. This morning, having received no reply or acknowledgement, I forwarded the e-mail again, using a different address, in case the first one had ended up in a Spam folder. I've still had no reply or acknowledgement, but perhaps they're inundated with work.) [e-mail begins] Yesterday afternoon, I tried to make a direct payment from my HSBC current account into the account listed under the heading "Bank transfer" at the web page Bank: Lloyds TSB Bank Name of Account: “Courage - WikiLeaks/Assange” Account number: 24345160 Sort code: 30-94-57 I received the following message from HSBC: "Sorry, the payee’s bank has advised they are unable to accept this payment as the sort code/account number is incorrect. Please contact the payee to confirm their account details." I Googled for the bank's address, and made a complaint at this page: https://www2.tsb.co.uk/help/complaint-form/?site=public&d=Any TSB replied today, and explained that the sort code in question (30-94-57) in fact belongs to a separate entity, Lloyds Bank plc. I spoke on the telephone just now to someone in the business banking section of Lloyds, and he informed me that the account in question (24345160) has a name with no apparent connection to either Wikileaks or Julian Assange. He suggested that this discrepancy in the name of the account might explain why my attempted transfer was rejected. This reminded me that I seem to have read something in the news quite recently that banking regulations have recently changed - for reasons of security - to make the account name, as well as the sort code and account number, significant. Can you confirm that the sort code and account number are correct? If they aren't, then of course they should be corrected. On the other hand, if those details *are* correct, then: (1) assuming I haven't been misinformed by Lloyds, the account name “Courage - WikiLeaks/Assange” on your website - or else the name of the account itself - needs to be corrected; (2) in any case, the bank name "Lloyds TSB Bank" also seems to be in need of correction (or at least, clarification). because my mistake is a natural one to have made (and other people attempting to donate may very well be put off in the same way). Looking at the other details you give: Bank Address: Lloyds TSB, 19-20 Upper Street, London, N1 0PJ Recipient address: Derek Rothera & Company, Chartered Accountants - the address agrees with the one obtained by typing the source code into http://www.fasterpayments.org.uk/consumers/sort-code-checker; and the name "Derek Rothera" was part of the name of the account, as told to be by the man at Lloyds. (It meant nothing to me at the time). So, at least some things make sense!  Finally: After failing to make a payment by bank transfer, I think I managed to make a payment using my credit card. (I haven't yet had confirmation from HSBC that the payment has gone through, but your website gave the response: "Thank you for your support to I am WikiLeaks. Your donation was successfully processed.") Even this was a little tricky, though, because I selected "£" rather than "$" from a drop-down menu, but the website did not confirm the currency in which the payment was being made, only the numerical value. I expect it's OK, but the website could be made a bit more user-friendly in this respect. [e-mail ends] Can anyone here at The Lifeboat News shed any light on the problem, or suggest any other practical way to communicate to WikiLeaks (or their associates) that something surely quite urgently needs to be corrected at the Defend WikiLeaks website? |