Hey y'all - Squeakyb here.
The past two months have been a mess with regards to the donation, and we (well, Matt, mostly) have had a lot of trouble both communicating with TBDA and getting them to TAKE OUR MONEY, DANGIT.
However, we DID manage to make a donation, so thank you to all the lovely folks who made this happen:
Yes, that's quite a bit more than what was raised during the stream. There are a few reasons for that (but it was mostly Matt, again).
Now, what the heck is up with TBDA, and why am I making an update?
Well, here's the thing: I messaged TBDA to let them know we were holding a charity stream. Then I messaged them again to let them know the charity stream was happening. THEN I tagged them in a bunch of tweets while the stream was going on. I heard NOTHING.
I figured they were busy, and that perhaps with all of the Kevin Bacon-schmoozing (that's not a joke, he's actually a spokesperson, now), they didn't really have time to respond to someone on Twitter. Fair enough. Whatever.
THEN we started trying to donate the money.
TBDA doesn't accept Paypal. They also don't accept donations from anyone not in the USA. Matt is from Canada, so you see the problem (the Wolf Pack Gaming bank Paypal is attached to his bank account, which is also Canadian).
Matt messaged them repeatedly to ask them what could be done, so that we could avoid having to transfer money and possibly lose it to Paypal fees, again, but alas, they never answered him. He even Tweeted at them quite a number of times to figure out WTF was going on - and got NOTHING.
He transferred the money back to Paypal, transferred it to me (incurring yet more fees, because OF COURSE) last week, I transferred it to my bank, and made the donation on July 9, as you see above on the receipt.
THE FREAKIN' CHARITY WAS TWO MONTHS AGO. That's ridiculous.
So I tweeted about it. I was, naturally, very subtle:
I have no idea what the rest of the tweet series said, because I wasn't tagged in it, but they DM'd me, as well, and in the interest of transparency, I'll type out the message, here (because I don't want to try to capture a bunch of DM messages and paste them here - it's just a pain):
"Hey, I just recently started working for TBDA. Thank you for donating to TBDA. Please let me know when we might speak on the phone to discuss the issues you had with payment. People I know who were trying to support the BBFAC ride through TBDA actually had the similar issues. I thought it had been fixed. Would love to hear any suggestions you have to make this process more user-friendly. Best, John [phone number redacted]"
This is the John in question. He rode across the country to raise awareness for Lyme disease, and TBDA hired him as a social media liaison, of sorts. (BBFAC = Bite Back for a Cure)
Anyway, we made a time to talk, and talk we did - for about an hour, Thursday morning (the 10th - literally a day later). John's a really nice guy, and he wanted to know how to make it right.
Here's what's happening, at least as far as Wolf Pack Gaming is concerned:
Matt and I are going to get together information about the stream, participants, message we want to convey, etc.
We're going to email this information to John Donnally.
John is going to make sure this information gets posted on TBDA's social media (Facebook, Twitter).
TBDA is going to work with us on our next Lyme stream to give us publicity (which will, of course, be next May).
I will be finding the appropriate person to speak to regarding the financial ridiculousness, but as far as them not responding to us? That will NOT be happening again, at least as long as John is there.
So we've established a rapport, our donation went through (finally), and we met our goal.
Thank you, everyone, for your continued support and faith in Wolf Pack Gaming!
Stay tuned for future announcements about our next charity stream!
