Human Blunder Loses Occupy Wall Street $144,000
EmailOccupy Wall Street is anxiously waiting to find out if it will recoup $144,000 in credit card donations that were rejected over three days when the group’s online account, which is handled by an external fiscal agent, was temporarily frozen due to human error.
The Alliance For Global Justice, which was retained 10 days ago by Occupy Wall Street to manage the processing of online donations, first blamed one of the entities Occupy Wall Street is protesting – Authorize.net, owned by Visa — for the rejected donations and the freezing of another $40,000.
“I can’t help but believe that politics must be involved somewhere,” said Kathy Hoyt, a founding member of AFGJ, in a statement posted online that has since been removed, after the group realized it was its own blunder.
Chuck Kaufman, a national coordinator at AFGJ who is working hand-in-hand with the movement’s finance team, told ABCNews.com today that his organization simply wasn’t used to processing so many donations.
“Our group normally processes a dozen donations a week, so all of a sudden Occupy Wall Street took off and it was 400 per day,” Kaufman said. “We just didn’t understand the banking architecture. We’ve never done anything on this scale before. I guess we should have communicated this to E-Onlinedata in the beginning.”
The sudden surge of activity acted as a red flag to E-Onlinedata, the company that acts as an intermediary between the cardholders and the banks. Kaufman said the company rejected $144,000 in donations and froze $40,000 that had already been donated but not yet pocketed by the group.
“I don’t blame the credit card companies for wondering what was going on,” he said. “Essentially they’re liable for any donations they process, so I understand where they’re coming from.”
E-Onlinedata did not return ABCNews.com’s request for comment at the end of their business day.
Kaufman’s group receives 7 percent of the Occupy Wall Street donations that it processes. Out of that, he estimated that 4 percent went to E-Onlinedata, leaving the Alliance for Global Justice with a total of 3 percent.
He stressed it’s not a profit, though.
“When Occupy Wall Street is gone in two years and the IRS comes knocking, we’re the ones who will provide the accounting,” he said.
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If EVERY protester arrested or ticketed takes their case to court the system will get overloaded. Imagine if cops had to show up for court for EVERY person ticketed. . . Please pass this message on
Posted by: Danny lee Shaw II | October 11, 2011, 6:34 pm 6:34 pm
So let’s see….as best I can determine they are protesting on Wall Street because Wall Street accepts money from willing donors while they are also accepting money from willing donors. Maybe they are just their protesting themselves in order to make money doing nothing.
Posted by: wantingbalance | October 11, 2011, 9:24 pm 9:24 pm
Obama’s largest donor bloc was Wall Street. Are they protesting against Obama?
Posted by: s | October 11, 2011, 9:36 pm 9:36 pm
The headline is inaccurate. It’s very common for credit card processors to freeze funds when they notice unusual activity. The funds will be restored when the processing company has been satisfied that the unusual amount of activity is not fraudulent. The company running the charges on behalf of OWS has records of the charges being authorized so this should not be a problem. Frankly this could have been avoided if the company running the charges had contacted the processing company to alert them of the increased activity. The funds are certainly not lost, as the title states.
Posted by: Jennifer Thieme | October 12, 2011, 12:23 am 12:23 am
@Danny lee Shaw II
There is a BIG difference between taking public donations for a non-specific political cause or charity and an elected GOVERNMENT taking donations (read BRIBES) from global corporations!
What part of that is so difficult to understand?
Just as the NYPD accepted $4.6mil from JP Morgan, it may be legal on paper, but both situations are morally wrong in a democratic system and they reek of corruption.
Even if we assume that the best intentions and moral strength of those accepting them remain intact (which is often not the case) there is an element of doubt about who they are working for. No person working in a position of power for the public of a country should ever be accepting payments from a corporation or wealthy individual, ever.
Posted by: GaiaLogic | October 12, 2011, 8:55 am 8:55 am
I work on Wall Street. I get up at 5am, drive 2 hours each way to work, support an extended team of 5 managers & co, etc, etc, etc. I’d like to know how many of these so called protesters are willing to make the sacrifices that I make. These people need to get a life, get a job and move on. Not everyone that works on Wall Street makes a fortune and most people I know here work very hard for what they do have, so WHATEVER!!!!! They don’t represent me, they represent a group of underachievers, jealous, losers who are living off donations because there are fools who’ll feed the hate
Posted by: WHATEVER! | October 12, 2011, 9:24 am 9:24 am
Taking donations VIA those big bad credit card companies – really??
Posted by: jamescbuilder | October 12, 2011, 9:45 am 9:45 am
whatever: well said. they can’t keep track of their own money and they want mine..and yours…
Posted by: Salty | October 12, 2011, 9:56 am 9:56 am
Hmm – maybe they should have hired a better partner to handle donations – like a big corporation. Would love to see who is supporting these idiots. They are just as idiotic as flag burners. They are using technology and systems designed by corporations to fund the revolt agaisnt corporations. Hello! credit cards are the brain child of corporations – if they weren’t hypocrites they would be taking donations in currency only, via the post office and keeping that money in a big pile. But that would be inconvenient – enter the big corporations. These idiots are in for a rude awakening when they find themselves blacklisted due to posting their involvment on Facebook, Twitter, etc. What big corporation will hire them – ever?
Posted by: Andy | October 12, 2011, 10:04 am 10:04 am
Balance needs to be restored, keep protesting 99ers. These people complaining are GOP drones that listen to fox Lies & eat it up & regurgitate it here.
Posted by: hhh | October 12, 2011, 10:15 am 10:15 am
“That is what the Constitution does: it grants rights to citizens and reserves powers for government.”
Posted by: maths tricks | October 13, 2011, 5:25 pm 5:25 pm
This will all end about an hour after the first freezing rain or blizzard hits NY! There is a reason why most successful protests begin in early summer. The weather is better in the summer, and people can get time off from work or school. Outdoor protests just don’t work in northern cities during the winter.
Posted by: Bowser | October 22, 2011, 3:02 pm 3:02 pm