[Communications] CCGA Session Payment Problem

[Amy Olson]

Hi Mr. Singh,

I’m so sorry that you weren’t able to join the conference yesterday. It’s too bad we didn’t hear from you at the time you wanted to join, we could have given you a ticket for admission and accepted a check by mail. We can offer you access to the recordings of the sessions if you’d like. They should be available by mid-week. Let me know and I can add you to our email list for access.

In reading your email, when you mention the payment site, were you referring to Hopin, the platform that hosted the conference? https://hopin.com/events/ccga-8th-annual-gardeners-conference

Because it was our first large virtual event, we decided to process payments for the conference using Hopin’s integrated system, which is Stripe. Here’s the privacy info regarding payments:

Transaction Data which includes details about payments you have made and other details of products and services you have accessed or used through the Hopin Event Platform. We do not store card details on our server. Credit and debit card payments are processed by Stripe on their secure payments server and all card details and fully encrypted and stored by them.

CCGA accepts donations from sponsors or for workshops and it’s true that we can’t accept payments at this time via PayPal or Apple Pay. This is something we discussed when planning the conference and intend to work on. Our current method of accepting donations is through GoFundMe Charity and by cash or check. Thanks for reaching out with your concerns. As we plan future events, we will be mindful of expanding our payment methods and also how our attendees' data is managed and stored.

I hope you’ve been outside enjoying your garden today!

Kind regards,
Amy Olson

CCGA Communications team

> On Mar 20, 2021, at 10:47 PM, Ashok Singh via Communications <communications at chicagocommunitygardens.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I'm Ashok Singh and am a member of Edgewater Beach Garden Association, I came to know about nice sessions related to gardening conducted by you. 
> 
> I wanted to sign up for a session for today, and your website payment link took me to a third party website for credit card details. What I found unusual on that site was, it saves the credit card info in its system and does not provide an option to not save. Further, there is no "paypal" type payment option.  
> 
> Any person who does not want their credit card and other personal info to be stored by anyone  cannot register and join your session.
> 
> You may please consider changing your payment system that is more user friendly. We in EBGA have made provision to allow payment through check, credit card, paypal etc.
> 
> Thanks
>    
> -- 
> Communications mailing list
> Communications at chicagocommunitygardens.org
> http://chicagocommunitygardens.org/mailman/listinfo/communications_chicagocommunitygardens.org

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