ffs financial problems-- without donations, we're probably going to shut down

[Sarah]

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THE SHORT VERSION:
ffshrine / galbadia hotel costs ~2,000$ a month to run, which I do not have right now. my goal is to get 3 months of costs saved up from donations while I sort the finances out.
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THE LONG VERSION:
I've been paying out of pocket for ffshrine for quite a while. the ads cover very little. I didn't mind doing this... but I was recently the victim of identity theft and my bank account has been completely drained and credit cards have been taken out in my name. about $60,000 of mine is gone. I'm working with both my bank and the police, but the process could take months, and it's possible I may not get any of it back.
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I am going to do everything I can to keep ffshrine up with or without donations, but without them it may simply not be possible.

as an aside, if we receive enough donations I'll also be able to upgrade the hardware to have things run faster and more smoothly, and have the space to add more content. this isn't the priority of this, but if we get more than enough to cover basic bills this is where the money will be going.

donations may be sent via paypal.

[Captain Dolce]

So you won't buy new sextoys for yourself with the money, if it's more than that for the bills? ;-;

But silliness aside, I would love to donate some $s, but I have no Paypal and I can't get it, because this oh-so-international company doesn't accept bank transfers from my country, and I have no credit card. 'f course it wouldn't be that much, either, because I earn like... only a little more than nothing.

If you could get Moneybookers, I could transfer it to there. Other than that I can only wish you good luck for getting the money to be able to keep our beloved FFShrine, and of course to get your money back asap. It really sucks to lose that much money.

[Simon B.]

30$, i'm not rich but if there is a lot of contributions,that could be much.

[Sarah]

I'll look into setting up some alternatives to paypal. the problem is to open most of them you need to link them to a bank account and mine's been frozen obviously.

simon: that's great, actually. if we get a bunch of people to donate amounts like that it'll definitely add up.

[Captain Dolce]

afaik Moneybookers doesn't ask for a link to a bank account or credit card. I'm not too sure, though.
But if you can set up something which is accessible to people in Europe not being able to use PayPal, I would sure donate about 50 € (which equals about 80 US-$) or something.

[Simon B.]

like i said to Jessie:

FFshrine is like my 2nd house, my virtual sweet home

when FFs is down, it makes me sad.

[Jessie]

Donated $10 its not much but i hope it will help, and as simon said if FFShrine goes a lot of people are going to be very unhappy.

[knighTeen87]

trust me i would absolutely help you if had a good job or money,but i don't.Please someone do sth. do keep GH alive

[gold_n_eye]

I will consider donating to keep this website alive, but whatever happens could you please try keeping this forum online...I assume hosting a forum website would cost much less than keeping gh up and running.

[Sarah]

the cost comes from two things

1) the server resources. lots of people online loading small pages = lots of CPU and ram is required. this is where the forum ramps the cost up.

2) bandwidth. this is where gh comes in.

both play a pretty significant part of the cost. bandwidth moreso, but not by a ton

[poptart fantastico]

Yeah I'd help if I could but as the above person said, I don't have a good job, or even the money. I'm poor. Seriously. I'm sorry Sarah, I really wish I could help you out. )c=

[GoronMoron]

Definitely donated what I could spare. I would not be happy if this place were to disappear. I've invested too much time here, I think, to let that happen. :P

[htaler]

Just donated!

Please let us know the parameters of the web server maybe there's a better option somewhere?

[Shadow2100]

I cannot donate money unfortunately. If I had some money and a place to send it, I'd give u some. I sincerely hope you get all of or even half your money back. I wouldn't put too much faith in the cops or bank however as IMO, they're both pretty useless. But maybe i'm wrong and they'll catch this guy and get your money back. After all, it's their job and if they can't do it, they don't deserve their positions. I hope that eiother you get yer money back or that everyone on this site donates money to you.

[Sarah]

thanks again for everyone donating, pleasantly surprised at the responses so far considering the time of day ~

we lease 3 servers with modest specs. mostly p4's [one celeron] ~4gb of ram a piece. 3x 500gb hdd's in the gh box. for the hardware stuff, I do want to move to colo because it'd save a lot... but I need the money to spend in the first place.

we have a 75mbps commit for bandwidth burstable to 1 gig

[megabug7]

I'm sorry to hear you've been a victim of identity theft
Having had my ebay account hacked recently, it brought to light how careful we should be with everything on the 'Net'.

I hope the police/bank will be able to catch the scum that did this, and that you retrieve some - if not all the funds, that was stolen

I can donate around $70 for you in the next couple of weeks.
My pay check comes around the 12th of each month.
So hopefully this will help you. (I have PayPal)

Take care

- mb7

[spacedog]

donated. keep us posted on how you're doing!

[Krisp]

A few days ago I requested money be transfered from my bank account to Paypal, so I'll be contributing as much as I can.

Hope you move past this, FFShrine was a milestone for me on the internet (being the first Final Fantasy forum I joined), and I'd like to see it continue running. Good luck with getting your bank account back, hope things go well for you.

[gdiza]

I personally would love to help as well, but I'm strapped for cash as well.

If there is any other way I can help, please let me know.

This site has been wonderful source for various things over the years that I've been using it and would hate to see it go.

[Xero15]

This is very sad news.

I've only posted like 2 times, but I leech a ton on this site/forum.

So... if GH will be up for at least 2 more weeks, I think I can donate $100.

I just gotta transfer the money from my bank account to Paypal, but the clearance is about 10 days.

I hope everything works out for you Sarah, and I hope to see GH up for a quite some time.

[byblo]

As others here, I have a paypal account but cannot send money on it since they only allow the use of a credit card and do not accept bank transfer...

So yes, please try to find another way to give us the ability to contribute, I will be really sick if GH will shut down.

[THE SKYREAPER X]

Ay, sorry to hear about that. I can't donate anything right now since I just bought a new pair of roller blades. But by Thursday of next week, I will donate probably 90 dollars. I really like this site. Good luck finding the theif. If you do find him, why not post his adress here so we can all get together and, well you know.

Good luck.

[MissEverNight]

I'll donate as soon as I get paid again!

In the meantime you should use ICONIX to keep you safe online, it tells you when you recieve a genuine email, and helps protect against fraudulant websites. Also, you should get CCleaner, it cleans out all your cookies so no one can hack in your PC
http://www.iconix.com/ Iconix WebScanner
http://www.ccleaner.com/ CCleaner

[Belmont]

Donated. This is probably the best music website I've ever been to in my 20 years in living. I will defenitly help to keep this website up.

[execrable gumwrapper]

Sup, Sarah? First time caller, long time listener. Sometime after the 20th of next month, if I keep getting the hours I've been getting at my job, I could donate anywhere from $50-$300. I love this place and I've never even downloaded a single music track from here, lol.

Identity theft sucks ass and I hope your shit gets straightened out.