* This was long ago enough that PayPal wasn't _quite_ as famous for its practices.
* In Europe people generally assume that companies big and small won't try to fuck you over because there are usually repercussions. Apparently American companies are exempt.
* When trying to get sizeable donations for a moonshot hardware project with high risk of failure it's ideal if donating didn't involve entering an IBAN. (Although I think kickstarter wasn't considered because the project was so niche that there was no chance of hitting a "milestone" in a reasonable time and the approach was to use funds as they came in order to allow the project to make steady progress. The idea being that people who were unconvinced earlier might become convinced later and you'd slowly attract enough support as you progress the project. I think the incident pre-dates crowd supply.)
