I might lose all my money

[Dark.Revenant]

I got this in the morning today:

Greetings from Amazon Payments.

Thank you for registering with Amazon Flexible Payments Service. We're excited to have you as our customer. In order for us to process your application and activate access to Amazon FPS, we need some additional information about your organization:

1. Please provide us with the written procedures your organization follows in order to qualify charities to be listed on your website and to receive donations
2. Please provide evidence of your organization's status as a tax exempt charity with the Internal Revenue Service (if applicable)
3. Please provide information regarding the timing and amount of membership dues (if applicable)

Please fax this information to 001-206-765-3424 (outside the US) or 1-206-765-3424 (within the US). To ensure that your fax is processed in a timely manner, please be sure your fax includes the email address associated with your Amazon Payments account. We will process your application as soon as we hear from you.

Thank you for your interest in Amazon Payments.

Sincerely,

Account Specialist
Amazon Payments
https://payments.amazon.com
===========================

According to the site, apparently I must be an US-based, IRS-certified 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization to collect donations. Unfortunately, I am not an organization.

I'm seriously worried about the tax-exempt part; me taking donations will be treated as money-laundering by the IRS and it could land me some serious fines (I didn't make enough to put me in court, at least).

[fred]

This is where the Terms of Agreement are handy to read...

[Dark.Revenant]

Oh, I definitely read it, but I still had to lie in order to be allowed to take donations. I can't take regular payments because then Blizzard can demand a C&D and ban my account for directly monetizing a map.

[fred]

Sorry to hear that. IF I knew anything about law I'd help you..but my knowledge of law only pertains to the work place, and food safety regulations

[philie]

im pretty sure i saw other free game developers accept donations through amazon before...
so what could happen?
your donors knew who they are donating money to, and amazon got 5% of it, right? maybe theres a problem with law, but nobody actually got hurt.

[Rumpel1408]

im pretty sure i saw other free game developers accept donations through amazon before...
so what could happen?
your donors knew who they are donating money to, and amazon got 5% of it, right? maybe theres a problem with law, but nobody actually got hurt.

I bet they give a shit about this

[McJesus]

maybe just try calling it a money transfer instead of labeling it as a donation

[philie]

maybe just try calling it a money transfer instead of labeling it as a donation

that would make blizzard sew him instead....

[Dark.Revenant]

Woah, what the fuck is this:

Thank you for registering with Amazon Flexible Payments Service. We're excited to have you as our customer. In order for us to process your application and activate access to Amazon FPS, we need some additional information about your organization:

I never signed up for FPS, only Simple Pay. What the dick.

[NorthStar]

Oh, I definitely read it, but I still had to lie in order to be allowed to take donations. I can't take regular payments because then Blizzard can demand a C&D and ban my account for directly monetizing a map.

It's YOUR map, and isn't Blizzard going to try to monger money off of Custom maps (yours included) in the future anyways?

[TheJackofSpades]

Yeah well... there's a reason most people take donations over paypal in the first place.

[Dark.Revenant]

This ain't Amazon's fault; it's mine.

I can probably get this to blow over but I might lose my ability to do take donations. Hopefully the IRS won't audit me.

[Goonswarm]

PayPal never loses, never.

[Dark.Revenant]

Anyway since I apparently lied about being non-profit on my thing, I can no longer take money via donations/simple-pay on Amazon, meaning the only way to donate now is through PayPal. Looks like no legal action is being taken, so at least that's good.

[wightsnow]

Anyway since I apparently lied about being non-profit on my thing, I can no longer take money via donations/simple-pay on Amazon, meaning the only way to donate now is through PayPal. Looks like no legal action is being taken, so at least that's good.

Did you get to keep the previous donations?

[Dark.Revenant]

They can't just take the money away, so yes I keep them.

[EagleMan]

Even if they thought it wasn't his money, it's not like they could keep other people's money.