Dear Friend,

Some time ago, you made a donation to LACNET TSUNAMI RELIEF EFFORT effort and you may have recieved a note from me thanking you for the donation. Your donation made on or before December 31st, 2004 was processed through 2CHECKOUT.COM. LAcNet has used this credit card processing company before and we have not had any problems in the past. Recently though this company has changed their agreements with credit card companies and no longer allows their systems to be used for collecting donations.

After the tsunami on December 26, 2004, we activated LAcNet's donation collection link through them without realising the effect of these changes. As soon as we learned about this we switched to PayPal and were discussing with them a way to clear the payments made through their system. Since our past experience with 2CHECKOUT.COM has been very cordial, I felt that we would be able to resolve it to LAcNet's advantage, and refrained from making a public announcement.

Today to our dissapointment we were told that the only option available to 2CHECKOUT.COM is to refund all the donations that went through 2CHECKOUT.COM. You may have already recieved a message from them on this topic, and your credit card will be credited in full. (on January 10, 2005, 2CHECKOUT.COM says: all refunds have been completed. Please advise your donors to allow 4-7 business days for the credits to show in their acount statements.)

However, what this means is that LAcNet will not receive your donation. Therefore, I urge you to visit DONATE AGAIN through the PayPal system now in place. If you have already done so, please accept our gratitude for doing so. If you are uncomfortable in using your credit card again, please consider sending a check payable to "Lanka Academic Network" (and marked "Tsunami Victims") to:

       C/O Daya Weerakkody
       LAcNet Treasurer
       9603 Avenel Road
       Silver Spring, MD 20903-2311
       USA

All donations are tax-deductible in the USA. LAcNet is a 501(c)(3) organization in the USA. Its US tax Id: 411-69-1170. On behalf of LAcNet team, I apologize for this unexpected problem and the trouble it has caused you.

LAcNet has used money in hand till the donated money is available to carry out our work in Sri Lanka. We have already transferred all the amounts indicated in LACNET TSUNAMI RELIEF EFFORT to Sri Lanka and the work is in progress. A couple of key members have offered the use of their personal funds to cover an interim shortfall, so we are making sure that this roadblock will not impact the work being done at the ground level.

We sincerely hope that you will bear with us during this period and donate again. Current PayPal system allows us to withdraw the donated money quickly and we have made sure that it works the way we want. Lastly, I would like to remind you that we are a 100% voluntary group, everyone at LAcNet are doing this because we all feel that it is our call to help our people at this hour of need, and we appreciate your trust and support immensly.

Please help us get through this set back and keep on going.

Thanking you,