Trying to pay my Star Member fee.. Ive been a member since 2006.. I am not going to open a PayPal account

[solara]

Do I have to leave DU also? Ive been trying to find a place to send this to the Admin.. not sure why you are freezing me out.. All I want to do is re-up my membership and you have made it so difficult.. Do you just not want your old members anymore? What gives?

[XanaDUer2]

1. I won't use pay pal

In the past, I remember buying membership was easy.

Maybe mail a money order

[solara]

2. Nope

If they are just going to shill for PayPal I am going to re-think my devotion to this site. It's too bad because I always look forward to coming here. Shame on all of them. I will not be forced to join something like PayPal. I am really upset and ashamed of this site.

[XanaDUer2]

3. Our one experience with PP

Resultes in us being ripped off.

No

[Nittersing]

4. When you go to PayPal

You are offered the choice to check out as guest... and use your credit/debit card. You don't have to create an account.

[Arne]

5. PayPal is an easy and safe way to pay a pal.

Much better than card or bank, although it's linked to both.
I cannot imagine someone without this secure service.
If I can't pay with that one click, I back out.

[Easterncedar]

7. Shill seems a little harsh

The admin works hard to provide this creative, interesting and useful space for us, with minimal resources; I hope you don’t really feel they are acting in bad faith.

[solara]

16. Yes I know this

Last edited Sun Jun 9, 2024, 04:08 PM - Edit history (1)

That's why I have been a member here for so long. Right now, I am very frustrated and have never had a problem with DU in over 15 years of membership.

So, really, you don't need to school me, but thanks for your concern.

[solara]

18. I apologize

to Earl G and to DU. This is probably the most supportive site on the internet.. I shouldn't have taken my frustration out on anyone here.

mea culpa.. I will try to re-up again soon. I'm sorry I can't give more money this time.. fixed income and all that

[EarlG]

8. Hello

I'm not entirely sure what the problem is here, but nothing has changed -- our payment system has not changed in over 20 years, and for that entire time we have used PayPal's service to process credit card payments to DU. When you made your previous Star Membership payments, you went through this exact process. The system is no different now than it was before.

You do not need to be a member of PayPal to make a payment to DU. You can select the "One-time online payment" option on this page:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=star&select=1

Once you have entered the amount that you would like to pay, you will be taken to a PayPal page. On the PayPal page, you can click the "Pay with Credit or Debit Card" button, and that will allow you to make a standard card payment without having to sign in to PayPal.

Other than that, the only way to pay without a PayPal account is by mail. To reiterate, this is the exact same system we have been using for over 20 years.

BTW for future reference, there is a DU Community Help forum here if you have questions about DU:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1256

And the Admin contact page is here, if you need it in future:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=contact

[Easterncedar]

14. Earl, you are great.

Thanks for all you DU!

[solara]

19. I tried to re-up my membership

For some reason I also got a recurring membership ( which I cannot afford) and it says it's on PayPal also. I do not want to use PayPal; I just want a yearly membership..like I've had for years.. and now its become very confusing once again.. So I would like to cancel my membership and start over. I really need some help I had to change my password..maybe Im just too stupid to handle this any longer.

[usonian]

6. I paid as a guest.

And I used Apple Pay, so that PayPal (whose pals include Peter Thiel and Elon Musk) never see my credit card number.
Just some digits from Apple.

Wasn't there a mailing address?

[EarlG]

11. I assume you used Apple Pay to pay on the PayPal page?

I wasn't aware that you could do that, but if so, that's cool.

I must admit I don't really understand people's dislike of DU using PayPal to process payments. Elon Musk left PayPal in 2000, before DU was even conceived of, and Peter Thiel left in October 2002 when PayPal was sold to eBay. At that time DU was less than two years old and wasn't even taking payments yet.

In other words, Musk and Thiel were both gone from PayPal before DU started using it. For the entire time we've been using it to process card payments, it's been owned by eBay.

[usonian]

15. I used the phone, so it was easy. Don't recall if it popped up on other devices.

I *did* set up safari not to tell sites that Apple Pay is available.
If Apple Pay is an option, sites usually prompt that it is.

I do minimize my accounts. Each one is a potential data breach.
I got a notice from ATT that their data was breached and don't recall ever having an account with them.
I read Hacker News and the horror stories about Google, PayPal and Stripe and the like giving people grief drive me to as much digital minimalism as I can manage.

Thanks for the reply!

[Raven123]

9. Could send a check.

[hibbing]

10. I accidently set up recurring payment

I could not for the life of me figure out how to cancel it. I looked and looked and could not find DU or anything on my paypal, I ended up deleting my paypal account.

Peace

[EarlG]

12. I sent you an email about this about 20 minutes ago

I cancelled the automatic payment per your request.

[hibbing]

13. Thanks EarlG, on a Sunday too! Appreciate it!

[Deuxcents]

17. I don't use Pay Pay, Apple Pay or anything like that for my DU memberships and fundraisers. Or anything else

I use USPS and send my check directly to the DU mailbox and never had a problem. It’s easier for me and here’s the info

Democratic Underground
P O Box 342453
Bethesda, MD 20827