Maravi

(HERALD) Sanctions denied us access to Pay Pal

Sanctions denied us access to Pay Pal

EDITOR — Through your paper I’m appealing to all Zimbabweans to wake up and smell the coffee. Sanctions are real, and they are hurting ordinary Zimbabweans. Allow me therefore to briefly explain a new twist to the sanctions issue.

We are a not-for-profit Zimbabwean organisation that has been trying to put in place a Pay Pal account so that those wishing to buy our products or send money to us would be able to do so with ease, avoiding tedious and costly bank transfers and cables.

We were shocked to note that this was not possible to do it on a bank account in Zimbabwe, so friends of the organisation opened an account for us abroad and also assisted by opening a Pay Pal account.

However, we have realised that when a deposit wants to go in, notice is sent to the organisation’s e-mail account to indicate that some money wants to go into the account.

The Pay Pal member then has to log in to the Pay Pal account and confirm acceptance of the money.

Well, after some time we finally got things together and braved all the power cuts and telephone line cuts and the slow downloads, and managed to punch in the password and account name satisfactorily only to have an error message flash up to the effect that "you have tried to access an account from a sanctioned country"!

And there are still people who deny that this country is under sanctions!

I told a friend outside Zimbabwe: ". . . Sanctions are not only those imposed by Pay Pal. The general economic sanctions have contributed to a situation where Internet access is problematical, downloading a site is very slow and just as you are almost there the power goes or the telephone link cuts.'

I hope your readers understand that even as some people try being innovative in order to bust these sanctions, mechanisms have been put in place to ensure that sanctions continue to be Zimbabwe’s flagship.

Concerned Zimbabwean.
Harare.

Labels: PAYPAL, SANCTIONS, ZDERA

posted by MrK @ 6:06 AM