A Tide of Woe: The PayPal Story
Early on in the sudden rise to fame of the OWS Bandanas, my business had a bit of an existential hiccup. You see, Paypal, patron of the meek and downtrodden, decided to suspend my account after the second week of bandana sales. They did this without warning and without explanation. I found out when I went to pay some bills and discovered that the numbers in my Paypal account were fake numbers, to be used only as a sadistic tease to my impoverished state of being.
This would have been less of a humiliating tease if it weren’t for the fact that they had given me a call week one, chatted with me about my business for a half hour, and told me everything was going to be fine. I made the mistake of continuing on as if being told everything was fine actually meant what it said on the box.
The following Facebook thread provides a reasonably accurate timeline of events following the discovery that my business was threatened with imminent collapse:
I’ve had anons telling me to switch to a reasonable company, one who doesn’t harass my favorite authors. I’ve heard the litany of complaints. I’ve heard the stories of capriciousness, stupidity, terrible customer service, and outright evil, but as an Etsy seller, I seem to have no alternatives.
I can understand that, until the massive influx of bandana sales, I was only using PayPal to sell a bit of jewelry here and there. My business was, for the most part, an interesting side project. It was an excuse to make new fun things that might just pay for themselves. I never expected to be a 24/7 business owner. Now I am. So, I can understand the company that manages the transactions that my business generates wanting to do due diligence. I can picture insulating my customers and myself from fraud. There are much more functional ways to do this than pull the plug on said business and sit on top of the funds like a mother hen.
I am still waiting for half of all of the money generated by bandana sales to be released. I’ve been promised this will happen soon.
It might be time to investigate running my own store that accepts PayPal alternatives. Any chance Shopify accepts other merchant service companies?
I'm Matthew Borgatti. I run a store called Sleek and Destroy, and I love to make stuff.
Jan 14, 2012 @ 02:30:49
The good news is, setting up a merchant account and taking credit cards yourself is even more of a pain in the ass! Oh wait, that isn’t the good news.
Jan 16, 2012 @ 16:43:51
The universe of money is filled with good news. The fundamental constant of this universe is “Not Getting Dicked Over”, and is to be seen within the very fabric of the interactions between every particle in existence.