Big Brother

Today I received an email from PayPal that said the following:

Dear Charles Rose,

The PayPal User Agreement states that PayPal, at its sole discretion, reserves the right to close an account for any violation of the User Agreement, including the Acceptable Use Policy. Under the Acceptable Use Policy, PayPal may not be used to send or receive payments or donations for obscene or sexually oriented goods or services.

...

We are hereby notifying you that, after a recent review of your account activity, it has been determined that you are in violation of PayPal's Acceptable Use Policy. Therefore, your account has been closed.

...

You will need to remove all references to PayPal from your website(s) and/or auction(s). This includes not only removing PayPal as a payment option, but also the PayPal logo and/or shopping cart. We thank you in advance for your cooperation. If you have any questions, please contact the PayPal Acceptable Use Policy Department at p*****-c*********@paypal.com.

Sincerely,
PayPal Acceptable Use Policy Department
PayPal, an eBay Company

First, of all, "[i]f I have any questions"? How about we start with, "What the f#@k are you talking about?" Last time I checked, I sell t-shirts! No nipple clamps or smutty photos here.

Second, you just shut down my business without a warning or chance to comply? That seems excessively harsh.

Third, in order to find out any information about why my account was "closed" I have to send an email. You're serious? An email? Again, WTF!

Skipping all the boring details, I learned the reason I had been shut down was because on Nov. 1, 2005, our good friend Kyle sent me a PayPal payment in which he wrote in the memo section the following, "Thanks for hooking me up with that escort service."

For any of you not familiar with Kyle, this was clearly a joke, but PayPal wasn't laughing. Neither was I.

Let's gloss over for the moment the fact that escort services are legal. And, let's overlook the fact that "escort service" could have meant a limo service or something else innocuous. The memo could have said, "Tom, thank you for the best sex of my life. I threw in another $5 for the excellent blow job!" It still wouldn't have changed the fact that I did not "send or receive payments or donations for obscene or sexually oriented goods or services." It was a joke, and if PayPal is going to shut someone down, they better have proof that they did something wrong and they better give that person something more than a stupid email address.

In the end, I resolved the issue. I explained what happened to the Acceptable Use Policy Department, and they re-opened my account. But, I was pissed. I complained to the top "Issue Escalation Manager". I asked PayPal to send me a letter stating that they would review their policy and procedures surrounding the Acceptable Use Policy. And, I expect that letter. I just want to feel like I was heard.

Epilogue:
Do you think I have an FBI file now?