Merchants Beware!

Paypal has closed down my account, you may be next. Closed it and froze it because some of my art contains breasts. Without so much as a warning. I appealed the decision but they said no more appeals. Here is the first letter I got from them,

Dear Chris Wright,
As you know, the PayPal User Agreement states that PayPal, at its sole
discretion, reserves the right to close an account at any time for any
reason. We are writing to inform you that, after a review of your site,
and in accordance with PayPalís Acceptable Use Policy, your account has
been closed.
PayPalís Acceptable Use Policy prohibits the sale of items for mature
audiences. After a review of your site/account, you have either received
payments via PayPal, or have PayPal referenced on your site. Due to the
violation of the Acceptable Use Policy your account will be closed.

and so on, it also states that my money will be transfered to my account in six months! Six months! That is taking their sweet time isn't it? The timing couldn't have been more annoying for me either. The day before I left for Trinidad, as if I wasn't busy enough trying to tie up last minute details & pack & move out of my studio.

After telling them I would change whatever, could they please change it to a warning, this is what Paypal said.

Dear Chris Wright,
Thank you for contacting PayPal.
After review of your information, we are unable to remove the limited
access. PayPal was found to be on your site.
Your site was found to be in violation of our Acceptable Use Policy. There
are no further appeals.

Nice answer to my appeal eh? "Paypal was found to be on your site"? "There are no further appeals" Imagine that, I was actually using Paypal. It would have been nice if they had of told me which site they had a problem with, since I was using paypal on about 8 sites when they cut me off.

Although this is unfortunate, the good news is that I still have the ability to accept your Credit Card payments through secure PaySystems.com They are a very reliable company located in Montreal and New York who has been nothing but the best to deal with and will treat you well with secure encrypted processing.

I probably should have known better then to depend on them but things started so smoothly.

Here are some nifty sites that have things to say about paypal too. They list other options and discuss how unfair and unregulated Paypal is with their giant business. http://www.PaypalWarning.com and http://www.PayPalsucks.com and also http://www.NoPayPal.com there is lots and lots of stuff to read on these sites.

What bugs me even more then getting shut down. Is that I have friends who produce and publish PORNOGRAPHY - not just artwork which shows boobs. They sold of the content they produced through Paypal. Paypal caught them and gave them a warning. A WARNING! Then hooked them back up. How come I didn't get a warning? I would have gladly moved some of my art(/porn?) elsewhere to follow their rules. No, I have to go by vague rules and when they decide I've broken them, I'm cancelled.

Paypal is currently being investigated by regulatory authorities in three states.

More on this story to come.