“Miked” wrote:
“I would be pleased to make a donation to a blog I read every day.
But, cannot navigate the interface...where is the United States?”
The reason “Miked” got worried was because the PayPal-page one sees after clicking the “Donation” button is in the Spanish language.
That is too puzzling for too many people.
There is a story behind this.
It starts with the unfortunate fact that a non-American cannot open and have a bank account in the USA.
Not anymore: the Homeland Security and the possible threat of terrorism forces potential banking customers to have a Social Security number and a legal address in the USA.
PayPal is a worldwide company through which anybody can handle the flow of money.
It operates in a simple way.
One opens a PayPal account on the PayPal website and connects this to the existing bank account one has.
Now money can come in and go out from the bank account using PayPal.
It is a very convenient system especially for globetrotters and persons doing business internationally.
Because a bank account in the USA is not allowed, the PayPal account of this blog is connected to a bank in Spain.
A legacy from the years Cadaques in Spain was home.
Hence, PayPal Spain is in charge of all transactions.
This makes the so called “Payment Page”, what one sees after clicking the “Donation” button, in the Spanish language.
There are many aspects of the PayPal account that can be changed.
But not the language of the “Payment Page”.
If the PayPal account is operated from Spain, it is in Spanish.
If it is from France, it is in French.
Etc.
This is of course disastrous for people doing serious international business.
An American PayPal holder selling Coca Cola in France, faces his customer with a “Payment Page” in English.
Or a French PayPal holder selling Cabernet Sauvignon wine in Australia confronts the vinologist with a “Payment Page” in the French language.
The customer is unable to understand the “Payment Page”: so how can he/she pay?
He/she won’t.
With donations it has the same disastrous effect.
As we can learn from “Miked”-’s response.
If the “Payment Page” is in a language impossible to understand, it is “goodbye” and “forget it” to the donation.
One must know that the help centre of PayPal is absolutely sh*t.
A PayPal client, paying a hefty 3 % to PayPal on the money coming in, is left hopeless and stranded when facing a problem like described here.
There simply are no PayPal-answers.
Fortunately there is the Internet where people find each other when stuck in a calamitous complication.
And where eventually some ingenious minds come up with a solution.
This was found and with the help of digital mastermind Peter Bouwmeester the “Donations” button on this blog has been fixed in a way that now fervent, loyal and generous blog readers land on the PayPal “Payment Page” in the English language.
All in all a problem like this, takes hours to solve.
Going in all kinds of directions to look for the solution.
While it should have been PayPal to offer a multi language option.
Thank you.
Danke schön.
Merci beaucoup.
Muchas gracias.
Dank U beleefd.
.
1 comment:
I also attempted a donation "twice" last night, but as a result of the language problem I was not sure if I donated at all or twice,,, I will attempt in the future if my donation was not successful.
Robert
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