Is PayPal Fascist?

Now that I have your attention, I would like to ask for your help:

As some of you know, PayPal "limited" my accounts. (It is locked so that I can not send or receive money, and I am NEVER supposed to have a PayPal account ever again.)

I have *always* worked to keep my blogs free of pornography, and you will NEVER see "spread legs" and other degrading shots of women here. My blogs are published on the Kindle (a privilege that I intend to keep), and my forthcoming books will be as well. I had absolutely no reason to suspect that Paypal would have an issue with my blogs, and I was given absolutely no warning .. no information on what the issue was or opportunity to fix it... before they locked the accounts.

Yes, I'm a lifestyle Domme and a writer, and I write about those things. Apparently my having donation buttons on my blogs and accepting payments for my written assignments and email training was against their TOS. The buttons were taken down as soon as we knew that there was an issue, however they refuse to even consider reinstating the accounts.

Okay.. I understand that they might have an issue with adult content (I just wish they had been clear about what was acceptable), and I am already working on setting up an account via a service that will be okay with the content here, but here's the problem:

I used my publisher's PayPal account for some of the buttons because I did not to want to use my legal name on them. Instead, she added my ForMistressMagick *at* yahoo *dot* com address to her account.

She is an established eBay seller, selling there since 1998, when she had an eBay business, and has thousands of positive feedback ratings. It is true that she is no longer selling those items, however she is still an active eBay buyer and seller.. or was.

She spent two weeks going back and forth with Paypal via email and on the phone before giving up. They kept doing things like calling her back at the conference room that she had called from the day before (for privacy) rather than using the number that she gave them to use. One of the women in customer support that she talked to (after waiting on hold for half an hour during her lunch hour), was freaked out by the idea that I would send guys out to buy panties and wear them, and tried to get her to say that I was selling sexual services and pornography, which I am not.

The same woman also told her that she would not be able to sell copies of my books via Paypal*, which is obviously untrue. If you go to eBay and search on "Screw the Roses, Send Me the Thorns" you will find at least half a dozen listings which can be purchased there and paid for via Paypal, and I suspect the same is true for most any other BDSM non-fiction book.

(*We are planning to sell the books via Amazon, but had hoped to be able to sell copies directly as well (including autographed ones), and are looking at different options for that now.)

This woman told her to write and submit a statement explaining what had happened and saying that she would never accept payments for me again, and she did just that. However, she just received the same "appeal denied" email as before.

She wanted to do some holiday shopping on eBay, and after weeks of frustration, she tried opening a new account with one of the few unused emails and unused credit cards she had left (none of the ones on her locked accounts can ever be used again on the PayPal site), indicating that it was a personal account and only for buying items on eBay. Paypal immediately blocked it.

She tried calling them about it. According to them, she is supposed to NEVER have an account with them again either, and that it is not an appealable offense. They refused to let her talk to a supervisor when she called. Eventually they promised her that they would call her back the next day at the phone number and time she specified, but never called.

I am really upset that she is banned, and having to deal with all of this frustration because of me. At this point, all she wants to be able to do is to buy on eBay, and possibly to sell a few used, vanilla books. We're obviously never going to try using PayPal for anything of an adult nature *ever* again.

If you want to help, boycott PayPal and/or email aup@paypal.com and complain.

And please forward this to let other PayPal users know that their account can be locked with absolutely no warning and no real recourse.

Thanks so much,

Mistress Magick