Over the last two days OCF has been exploring a problem that has apparently existed for some time, perhaps several years. I am posting about it in the forums to let those who we may have inadvertently offended know about this.
OCF does not get many donations that originate outside the US. When we do they are usually in the form of a check mailed to us. We have posters from many years ago that each Christmas, from lands far away, never fail to send a
donation to the foundation. Loyalty to us after our assistance to them in previous times when they fought their battle against oral cancer.
Because of problems with taking credit cards from many countries overseas, our
donation process within the OCF store does not allow people to make a
donation by credit card unless they are located in the US. We tried this years ago, and the amount of fraud and hacking that originates in some parts of the world was problematic enough for us to just turn off the ability for people to give to us by credit card if they were not inside the continental US. BUT we did allow them to make donations by PayPal, as that is a highly protected system and we did not have to be involved with their credit cards, banks, or potential for abuse.
When our dear friend Charm left us (something I still cannot write about on these boards as I cannot articulate my strong feelings about this loss) his reach was so great, that we started receiving donations from posters outside the US, something highly unusual for us. It turns out that even after his passing, he is teaching us something. OCF's PayPal
donation system does not work properly.
On our donations page, our link for these people to donate does indeed work, (taking them directly to PayPal to do so -BUT THE SYSTEM DOES NOT RECORD THE DETAILS OF THEIR
donation NOR DOES IT NOTIFY US as it does with donations from within the US. Those notifications allow us to reply to the donations.
We pride ourselves in giving thanks individually to everyone that donates to us. Handwritten cards are sent to many, formal letters to others that meet an IRS requirement because of the amount, and for some that have been there for us for many years a letter from me. Saying thank you is important in spades to me, as we would not be able to accomplish anything without the help of thousands of individuals who in amounts large and small all chip in to see OCF continue and do good in the world. We really live and exist from year to year on the benevolence of others, and I am very appreciative that people find OCF worthy of their charity.
But until it was discovered that some foreign donors to Charm's memorial fund had not receive acknowledgment for their gifts, and we had no idea that the automated system that notified us of donations was not working properly, and DID NOT WORK for people outside the US.
If you are someone that has donated to OCF in the last 4 years from outside
the US, (since we changed our system), and you have not had someone from OCF thank you, you have my deepest apologies. This is an unconcionable error on our behalf, and something I take full responsibility for. While this happened through a programming error, I am still at fault for having not caught this before. I believe that we have rectified this situation so that it does not happen again, but I am unable to backtrack and fix the error by sending thank you letters, as the system only provides me with a Paypal amount and an ISP address from which it originated when these foreign gifts were made.
I apologize if anyone feels like we were not appreciative, or that OCF was too busy, disinterested or whatever to acknowledge your generosity. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am sadden by the fact that most will not see this posting and realize what has taken place. And thank you Charm, for helping yet again, find a way to do something better in my life.
