Team Kaysar Refunds Donations After PayPal Account Suspended And Copycat Sites Emerge
August 23, 2005
by Andy Dehnart
Rewarding four reality show cast members with $500,000 viewer-donated cash awards is turning out to be more difficult than it seems.
TeamKaysar.com’s PayPal account was suspended over the weekend, so the site’s owner, Jay Namasivayam, “[has] requested PayPal to refund the entire collection back to all those generous BB fans that donated.” But he says that “this is only a minor setback to what we all want to achieve.” So far, the site says $4,106.10 has been collected.
Jay has also found that his costs were more than expected—“setting up a trust fund, registering a non-profit organization, and lawyer expenses … the cost will be between $3000 and $3500 Canadian”—and he writes that “these expenses need to be covered from the donations collected.”
In addition, other sites have apparently been trying to scam Kaysar-lovers out of their hard-earned dollars. A notice at the top of TeamKaysar.com reports on the existence of “a couple of copy sites requesting donations and claiming to be working with TeamKaysar.com. This is NOT true.”
Another Big Brother fan site, Big Brother ADDicts, even issued a press release to proclaim its skepticism. It says, in part:
“It is still unknown if the site Team Kaysar is legitimate or if devoted Big Brother 6 fans are being taken advantage of. Even if this fan?s intentions are good, details of how the money will be handed over to Kaysar and his fellow team mates it still unknown. Many Big Brother fans are still very cautious about the Team Kaysar website.”
Today’s Update on Trust Fund progress plus PayPal news [TeamKaysar.com]
Big Brother 6 Fans create their own Twist [Big Brother ADDicts press release]
http://www.foxreality.com/detail.php?storyid=1011&type=news
