PayPal shuts us down
I had a subscription system running under WP-MEMBER for about a year before that software flaked out on me. Multiple domains caused problems that were irreconcilable. I had donations for our work in Africa coming in (not through wp-member) and a few hundred subscribers to Informer through wp-member. All said, when I switched to Suma, I had 10,000$US in my personal paypal account. That was my family’s support money as well as money for our food program in Kenya.
So I shopped around and picked up Suma. In the process, we had to switch to a business account (although I don’t understand why…wp-member was happily doing recurring payments without a business account). That’s when all hell broke loose. Paypal required a proof of non-profit status (we’re not a non-profit yet, no 501c3 paperwork from IRS) which we don’t have (I selected the wrong box I guess) a printed bank statement (harder to get than you might realize, being overseas) which because a REAL problem because the account was in my name, not the business name and other information. Because I couldn’t provide some of the info (501c3 paper) and the other info (bank stuff) took a LONG time, PayPal restricted my account, meaning my subscription payments are bouncing, and I can’t transfer money out of my account.
PayPal has frozen my assets. We have no source of income beyond the car money we just spent in Kampala on Monday. I may very well have to return to Kampala and get the car payment money back to live off of. We are stranded financially and physically without a vehicle because of PayPal.
I’ve called (Contact PayPal Customer Support toll-free at 1-888-221-1161) to lift the restrictions, but they tell me to email service. Emailing service is ridiculous, and a week goes by between responses. Last I got from them was that I couldn’t talk to them because I emailed from an address that wasn’t on the PayPal account. So I had to create another email account, and try again (a painful process).
Now they are telling me that the bank info I provided isn’t correct because the bank account isn’t in the business name. Now I have to switch bank accounts in PayPal (again, overseas, less that dial-up, VERY HARD), get another statement to them and hope they accept it.
At that point they will probably deny me again because I haven’t sent them the 501c3 papers.
I asked to switch to a for-profit account (even though we’re not) through the “PayPal resolution center” but have received no response. This would remove the requirement for the 501c3 paperwork, but I have no faith in this process because everything submitted to the resolution center must be in a graphic format (png, jpg, etc) and I was forced to take a screen cap of a text document explaining my case. (I mean seriously??) Nothing from them on switching to a for-profit account.
I’d love to go back to having a personal account, but I can’t even imagine how I would request that, how long it would take, or if it would even be possible,
The bottom line is PayPal has frozen my assets (which aren’t theirs.. how can they do this?) including all the support money my family is relying on.
I’ve spent hours on the phone (on hold) to PayPal at approximately 30 cents a minute to try to get this resolved only to be told to use email. I’m considering legal action over this.
HFC is at a complete standstill. We can not order shirts for the conference. Subscriptions are bouncing. Informer is down. Subscribers are (rightly) pissed because they don’t have what they’ve paid for. I can’t order the items for the DEFCON auction. There are too many problems to list here. The biggest is that PayPal has locked down my family’s survival money.
I have no clue what to do at this point.
Does the EFF have any leverage? I can’t tell you how tempted I am to just turn to the dark side here and…
indyK1ng
on July 15th, 2009
Is there a Western Union in your area? Is there some other way to get money to you until this is resolved? How much should we send to you?
Jeremy Roe
on July 15th, 2009
Wow! Horrible – although I must say it doesn’t surprise me – I’ve been burnt by paypal several times. Keep us on the list updated – worst case maybe we can scramble some cash donations via another service like Google Checkout or bank wires or something.
Keith
on July 15th, 2009
That is unbelievable. I’m so sorry to hear about this unbelievable situation. I will be praying for you and trying to spread the word to draw attention.
I know God can turn a burden into a blessing so just hang on brother.
We are sounding the alarm.
Keith (aka Tsudo)
@tsudo on Twitter
Walkabout Tigger
on July 15th, 2009
Johnny-Find out how we can wire you funds. Likely a wire transfer is the best way or just e-mail me the ABA and account number for your checking account. If its a US bank, it will be trivial to deposit funds. Let those of us who willingly support your efforts show you why faith is such a powerful force.
God Speed
Walkabout
A friend
on July 15th, 2009
have contacted a few folks who I think may have some influence in Paypal. Are you checking your gmail / skype ?
Walkabout Tigger
on July 15th, 2009
I am also not above working my way down this list
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/team-outside
until I get to a human being to have this issue resolved. I imagine them receiving dozens of calls would have a rather expediting effect on their customer service team.
Alex
on July 15th, 2009
That’s horrible. Is there some way I can help you? I would not mind donating some money directly to you via another means while you search for a solution.
Adam
on July 15th, 2009
Keep the white hat on Johnny.
This is very typical of paypal. Their fraud detection system has so many false positives it’s not uncommon for them to freeze accounts of people trying to help others. Something Awful did a drive for supporting victims of hurricane Katrina through PayPal which got locked up. They have so many false positives their customer support team can’t deal with number of requests. This results in some people just cutting their losses and moving on.
Being in Australia I don’t know if there is much I can do to help your situation unfortunately. Can you access any US based bank accounts that you can request some donations into via direct debit (or equivalent online money transfer)?
darvaysh
on July 15th, 2009
Johnny, keep the faith my friend. I sent urgent emails to everyone in my “network” that knows anyone at PayPal. Hopefully your msg will get to a human before too long and this thing will get resolved. My prayers are with you and yours.
savant
on July 15th, 2009
http://digg.com/security/PayPal_shuts_down_Hackers_for_Charity
Please digg! tweet! eMail! Blog! Get the word out. Enough bad press and they’ll turn the wheels much faster!
steeler_gal
on July 15th, 2009
This breaks my heart. Please hang tough. I am praying for you, your family & HFC. Sounds like you have plenty of prayer warriors talking to God. God will provide. He will not leave you hanging.
Arian Evans
on July 15th, 2009
There are good folks over@paypal. Pinging as many as I can. Unsure if it will help. IM me on AIM or gmail/IM to discuss other options.
securityninja
on July 15th, 2009
Thats disgusting, if there is anything we as the community can do to help you out then please let us know.
I hope you get this sorted soon and I look forward to seeing you in Las Vegas later this month!
SN
jaqueline
on July 15th, 2009
Please post a bank account or your privat adress or something in this direction.
I want to sent you money. I know others would do too.
But I can’t use paypal. ( I could , besides that sending money trough paypal would burn my own paypal account)
Second, fund raising.
There are a lot of ways to earn money – I guess you concentrate only on some. I am from germany and in europe they are several ways to get money from the european community.(Where’s the problem to open a european department? This would fix the paypal problem too as from the moment you are accepted by the officials you can use the assistance of others like red cross or a embacy)
Anyhow, I need a way to send you money! Please no paypal!!!
Last, your idea is great. To opperate worl wide ist the best.
There is one thing you should care about : wether you run as a charity org or for fun or for a business ————— everything is a business because you need money. Does your design really hit the design of a pro charity org?
Yours
jaqueline (age 46, scientist, germany)
angel.wardriver
on July 15th, 2009
Dugg it, tweeted it, trying to get the word out. Praying for you Johnny. Keep us posted on what we can do.
Mitch Lozare
on July 15th, 2009
Johnny,
I have a few dollars to spare but I don’t how to transfer this to you. Please email me the details on how this few dollar can land on your safe hands. This is not much but I hope this will be of help.
Mitch
LosT
on July 15th, 2009
Johnny,
Please add me to the list of people who will send you money if needs be.
Ryan “LosT” Clarke
Littleweez
on July 15th, 2009
Johnny,
That is aweful. Let me know if there is a way I can send you some money. I have passed the word to some of the local church leaders and we will try to raise some support.
In the mean time you, your family and your ministry is in our prayers.
Luis.
dsoftware
on July 15th, 2009
post some wire transfer details, so we can send some emergency funds.
tkrabec
on July 15th, 2009
I was about to sign up for an informer account. I’d gladly make the payment thru western union for a 2-4 year period, and wait a month or so to get access.
nick8ch
on July 15th, 2009
Putting the word out dude. Hang in there! Floodgates will open up i’m sure of it.
oncee
on July 15th, 2009
Kepp the faith Johnny. There are a whole lot of people pulling for ya.
If there is some other means of getting money to you, please let us know.
SecBarbie
on July 15th, 2009
Article Dugg, and retweeted.
I agree with everyone else, let us know a way to send some money to help. I know a lot of people who really appreciate the work you are doing!
-Erin
@SecBrbie
H3%5KR3W
on July 15th, 2009
This really sucks Johnny. If I were not on such bad terms right now myself, I’d send something. But I did dig and tweet..
SecBarbie
on July 15th, 2009
tweets to help:
@jzdziarsk wrote: here’s the phone number to the executve at PayPayl that eventually fixed me (402) 952-8753 have Johnny call her.
email executiveoffice@paypal.com
Joe
on July 15th, 2009
Do we boycott paypal?
Bill
on July 15th, 2009
Johnny,
I know this does not help right now, but I wanted to share that about another credit card vendor BluePay.com. We had similar problems with PayPal and we are in process of switching to BluePay as they are smaller and MUCH easier to deal with. I know it a real pain to switch all of your applications, etc … but worth it in the end!
In the meantime, hopefully the person above who has connections with PayPal can pull some strings!
– Bill
mtgarden
on July 15th, 2009
Posted to SANS advisory board email list. Hopefully someone there knows PayPal folks.
Am praying for you Johnny
Bobby Carbn
on July 15th, 2009
I just transferred all of my money out of my paypal account. They wont be making interest or lending using my money until they fix this mess!
Bobby Carbn
on July 15th, 2009
FYI: Keely Fox is the current PR person for paypal, kfox@accesspr.com, 415-844-6284
Tonem
on July 15th, 2009
Go and open up an account with moneygram and send money like that. make sure you do not send more than 10K cause they will do the same as paypal..
atlas
on July 15th, 2009
Consider it…. nuf sed.
Sorry this is happening to you, amigo. Please let me know if you have an alternate method of getting money. God’s work through you will continue and this will soon be a memory of how God provides… again…. ph34r not.
“And I know they are wrong when they say I am strong as the darkness covers me…”
@
Mark
on July 15th, 2009
Brother,
We’re here for you. As others have noted, I am ready to get money to you sans paypal. So keep us posted. See it thru. The community will serve to keep your arms lifted (Moses-like) in all of this. My prayer meter is increased on your behalf. More than that my wife and I continue to gather book items for the auction in Vegas. “Nothing will separate you…”
M.
kim
on July 15th, 2009
Please let us know how we can get money to you.
Keith
on July 15th, 2009
What a bunch of shits Paypal are. I can’t wait for the day they close and it will happen!
Will McAfee
on July 15th, 2009
Seriously. Is there a western union near you? Let me know, and I’m going to keep unleashing verbal hell on paypal customer service and PR until they stop stealing your money.
Nick Farr
on July 15th, 2009
Johnny:
Just send anyone who needs to get paid for things my way and we’ll work it out at DefCon.
If you want to route subscribers through another PayPal acccount, I’m sure h1kari will let us do it through the ToorCon foundation.
Anything else, feel free to SMS me at +1 202 316-5850 or e-mail me, etc.
Eddie Block
on July 15th, 2009
I would happily wire some money over, just need the info.
Keep up the good works,
Eddie
Derek
on July 15th, 2009
Hey Johnny, Sorry to hear about this, I did want to re-post something I read when getting linked to your blog:
@hevnsnt: @simplenomad:
Keely Fox is the current PR person for paypal, kfox@accesspr.com, 415-844-6284
Otto
on July 15th, 2009
Paypal is not a bank. Paypal is not subject to banking regulations.
And yes, Paypal can “freeze” your assets because those assets are not yours, they are Paypal’s until they give them to you.
If you want a bank, then don’t use Paypal.
Jason
on July 15th, 2009
There may be someone who can help you int the Consumerist’s EECB list for PayPal –
http://consumerist.com/5013915/all-the-secret-paypalebay-email-addresses-and-phone-numbers-you-could-ever-want
Jason
S Hald
on July 15th, 2009
Not trying to be a Paypal shill or anything but… if you did it right in the first place you wouldn’t have any problems. Paypal has rules in place to comply with US and International laws. You can’t blame them for wanting to see proper documentation. Now had you been able to provide it your complaint would seem more valid.
My own Paypal sucks story follows: I spent the money to become incorporated, I paid out a bunch of money for inventory, I paid for 10 years of domain name and hosting. Set up my website, Yadda Yadda… I jumped through all the hoops and Paypal wouldn’t give me a merchant account based on my personal credit. Nevermind the fact that this was for business purposes and I am a legitimate business. And to top it off I had to liquidate my inventory through feebay. Paypal is in business to make money, and they make a LOT of money.
John
on July 15th, 2009
The problem here is that once you stated you were a charity and a business you fall prey to having to meet IRS standards before PayPal can continue doing business with you because now anything you do we have to report. So to meet IRS standards you won’t be able to have any access to the account until you meet both the bank account (which has to be registered in the name of the non-profit by IRS standards) and the 501c3. Without both you won’t get access back. Email compliance@paypal.com and explain you are not a non-profiit registered with the IRS and that you would like to have the non-profit tag removed from the account. This should clear your account in about 48 hours.
serialfish
on July 15th, 2009
We’re doing all we can to spread the word throughout the community. We’ve got a strong representation on digg and twitter and facebook. Everyone I know is trying to post links to the story. If enough people stand on the lever, we can move the mountain.
Peace, man, and good luck.
Mike Rosen
on July 15th, 2009
I’m sorry to hear about this. If there’s anything I can do to help, please let me know. Also, I got a 501(c)(3) pretty quickly from legalzoom.com. Hang in there bro. Godbless.
-m
Marfi
on July 15th, 2009
Say a prayer. Everything happens for a reason, and it will all work out in the end. Trust me on that one. ;)
–Marfi
Mike
on July 15th, 2009
Aack! This is terrible news. While you work out the immediate problem of money, have you got a process in place to establish your 501c3 status? (In case you need help, I know a guy who runs a very low cost legal firm that he calls Guardian Angel Legal, he does stuff like this all the time).
Nicholas B.
on July 15th, 2009
If you have another mechanism to get money I would also like to know what it is so I can send it on. Additionally if you need me and anyone else to lodge complaints, write letters, call an agency or elected official let me know and I will try to get as many others to help out on the same avenue.
Dennis Groves
on July 15th, 2009
Hey Johnny,
I am really sorry to hear about your difficulty right now. I wish I could say I am surprised, but I have never been nor will I ever be a Paypal customer because it is written in the agreement when you joined that they have the right to do this.
Let me know if I can do *anything* for you –
Dennis
DigiP
on July 15th, 2009
Work with your bank to do wire transfers, PayPal is garbage to begin with and there isn’t a whole lot you can do without a lawyer to file some paperwork to get things resolved.
You should contact your bank(and the media, whomever will listen), open a line of business credit, and have them set you up to take direct deposits or even credit card payments.
As for paypal, they have to follow rules like the banks do. Any nomal account that reaches $10,000 or more gets an automatic investigation or audit of any transactions. I forget what its called, but I work for a bank and its one of the things they look for pertaining to money laundering schemes. The system will flag anything over a certain amount, I think 10,000 being one of the thresholds they look for.
You could try opening another paypal account in the meantime and apply for their debit card, then start taking donations on that new acocunt just go get by for the meantime. Maybe in your wifes name until you get the other account reconciled. This way you have income coming in until the other situation is resolved and HFC is back up and running.
One thing, don’t leave too much in the account, like less than $3000 at a time, withdraw the rest to the bank account or atm withdraw with their debit card. Also, get that non-profit paperwork in and set it up under a new account, then when things get straight with the other account and you get your funds returned, close the account and find a better merchant setup or deal directly with your bank to help you out.
nETBUs
on July 15th, 2009
I have also dugg this article, as well as posting it to my MySpace and FaceBook. Hopefully enough people will get on PayPal and we can get this resolved. Hang in there Johnny, and PLEASE keep the white hat on. You can help others much better outside of a prison =P
Joel Helgeson
on July 15th, 2009
I would be happily to submit you a cashier check in excess of what you need. I only ask that you deposit the funds and wire back to me via western union the excess…
In all seriousness – we’ve met a few times, I would be happy to help out by wiring cash directly to you. You have enough good karma in the world that now it is payback time. You now have my email. I can western union money out, or I can have my American Express rep send travelers checks to you.
God Speed
muts
on July 15th, 2009
I might have a temp solution, check your mail.
Ben
on July 15th, 2009
Johnny,
Can you setup a new account at https://www.obopay.com in the mean time so people can get you money???? There may be other services like Obopay and paypal that you can us until this issue is resolved.
Good luck my man! Let me know when I can send money!
-Ben
jth
on July 15th, 2009
One contact, via Simple Nomad: http://twitter.com/simplenomad/status/2651148783
Keely Fox is the current PR person for paypal, kfox@accesspr.com, 415-844-6284 http://bit.ly/1ao6rt
PayPal is not a bank. They’ve done this to people before (freezing assets for various reasons) and their resolution process is slow at best. I would strongly urge you and anyone else to NOT use PayPal with any significant amount of money, nor should you rely on availability of funds at PayPal. I wish you & your family the best in getting this SNAFU un-FUd.
Jeff
on July 15th, 2009
Posted it on both of my blogs; my wife on FB. I’ll help financially too if there’s a means to get money to you. God bless…
jth
on July 15th, 2009
Walkabout Tigger wrote:
“I am also not above working my way down this list
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/team-outside
until I get to a human being to have this issue resolved. I imagine them receiving dozens of calls would have a rather expediting effect on their customer service team.”
I’d start with Dickson Chu, Vice President of Global Product and Experience. Dickson.Chu@PayPal.com http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dickson-chu/0/10/280
Vyrus
on July 15th, 2009
at the absolute very least, if you were to cancel service all together would they at least SEND your money some place else? this whole mess doesn’t seem like something they want to get to the bottom of quickly, especially since it benefits them to keep your money in limbo longer.
there is no question the right thing to do is keep the white hat on in this situation. the moment you turn to the sith ways you loose any credibility you have to deal with them according to proper policy. that being said, if my family were on the line i can promise you my faith would have waned far into the neither regions of rage by now.
fight the good fight brother, just try to stay in contact and remember you will always have friends here.
Television Spy
on July 15th, 2009
Unfortunately that’s how paypal is, they are amongst the only games in town and as a result you have to play by their rules and they’ll treat you like it’s your privilege to store your money with them.
Slybot
on July 15th, 2009
I just heard back from Keely Fox with PayPal PR, she says your account has been restored Johnny.
Russ
on July 15th, 2009
Let me know what I can do. I’ll send you cash via Western Union as well. Also, Ryan, Thor and I are working on getting the book project underway. We’re discussing ideas with Rachel now and Elsevier is on board with trying to make this happen. Good things are going to happen this year. Do me a favor, email me. If I can run interference on getting some of the 501c3 paperwork done, I’ll hop on that. Maybe we can avoid these issues in the future. Also, we need to discuss the first “Hacker Trip” out there, as well.
Shanna Riley
on July 15th, 2009
I am horrified to read this is happening to you; it just breaks my heart to see someone who is so dedicated to helping others having to struggle through such a mess.
Please let us know if there is any other way we can donate/send money to you in the interim. Lots of people obviously want to help. I will do my part by Digging this & linking it up on my Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, & Tumblr accounts as well as something on my blog later today. I only wish there were more I could do.
Namaste, friend, and stay strong.
asi
on July 15th, 2009
Just emailed a contact at paypal. Maybe you’ll get a call soon.
-asi
Greg Johnson
on July 15th, 2009
I empathize with you and your situation, but PayPal cannot be entirely blamed for this. When you sign up for a business account, there is an agreement you have to sign and you should have read it. It seems like not all of your ducks were completely in order, which they should have been.
PayPal runs by a set of rules. Follow the rules and everything is fine (mostly, they are definitely guilty of screwing people over unjustly). I’ve been using PayPal exclusively for the past 7 years for all my billing and have never had any problems I didn’t cause.
That said, I withdraw my PP balance religiously because I can’t trust my money with an institution that isn’t regulated like a bank. It’s a big risk keeping all your eggs in a basket with a PayPal logo on it, not one I would take.
I run bustatheme.com (uber popular wordpress site) and have extensive experience in both writing wordpress plugins; and working with IPN. Feel free to email me if you’re looking for help in getting set up.
WC
on July 15th, 2009
Unfortunately, PayPal is not a bank and is under no pressure to deal with you money like a bank does. The minute you give them any money, it’s theirs. If they they give that money to who you wanted it to go to, that’s great… But they aren’t required to. It’s in their TOS/etc.
The same goes for money already in your account. They can seize it at any time and not give it back. They do this quite frequently. Most sites give up after it happens to them 2 or 3 times.
I will be very surprised if you ever see this money again.
Bobby Carbn
on July 15th, 2009
From what I have heard the situation has been corrected by Paypal. I would wait for a confirmation from Johnny though.
Toby
on July 15th, 2009
Ok that was supposed to be a joke, sorry was in bad taste.
Pothi
on July 15th, 2009
Problem solved!
http://www.hackersforcharity.org/265/paypal-makes-good/
Arenlor
on July 15th, 2009
I am praying, will put this before my church to pray for. I’ll see what I can do to get a media frenzy going. If this doesn’t resolve itself by Sunday I’ll put a call into Leo (the TWiT Army numbers in the thousands) on his nationally syndicated radio show (he has called out AT&T on it before over one of us TWiTs having a problem). He also doesn’t really like PayPal. So, by all means it should resolve itself quickly enough.
Hash
on July 15th, 2009
I’ve had the bad luck of running afoul of the PayPal gods, it was dealing with stuff in Uganda too…
I’m not sure how much this will help, but get in touch with Jon Gosier (@jongos on Twitter) of Appfrica.net – he’s in Kampala as well, and might be able to help in the short term until you get this stuff fixed.
Jay Beale
on July 15th, 2009
Johnny, just tell us — what can we do to help?
Nick
on July 15th, 2009
I had a similar problem with PayPal. I selected non-profit because this is how I would classify what we do. However, we did not have 501c3 either so they froze the account.
I just told them that since we are not actually a non profit we ARE supposed to pay taxes for whatever goes on in that account and they should switch us to the correct setting.
Just tell them that you are not a non-profit yet and they should treat you like any other business.
That was enough to resolve the issue for us. We had under a grand in the account though.
Tyson Cecka
on July 15th, 2009
I’ve made that same mistake as well for trying to switch over my personal to a nonprofit and it took a week or two to fix.
What I would recommend is starting the process by emailing compliance@paypal.com then call them and ask for a manager who can start a review on your account to restore access.
I think that’s the process I went through, but it is rather annoying, especially since you can actually switch your business info after the fact but you stay locked out.
dingobully
on July 15th, 2009
Paypal did this to Ron Paul in the midst of a national election and didn’t care about it. They need to be regulated and watched MUCH more closely.
Jonathan Schram
on July 16th, 2009
I agree, paypal is an evil website, like their partner Ebay. I had problem with ebay very similar to what you have encountered with paypal. Eventually I told them to F*** off and freeze my account. After reading your posting here I’ll probably go close my paypal account too. Best of luck in your endeavors.
SamIam
on July 16th, 2009
I will contact everyone I know that maybe can help. That may be just raising the awareness level or funding. Let me know how I can do to get some cash to you.
I will be praying for you.
Kim
on July 16th, 2009
I have heard of many internet marketers who used PayPal being screwed over that way for no good reason. Maybe a search on that will bring you to someone who finally got resolution. Sorry I can’t remember specifically who got screwed how, but with your serach skills I am sure you could trun up someone. I do know most suffered with the same drawn out “customer service” you are experiencing. If I run across anything in my files I will post. I’m in hectic mode and I just ran across this post today.
xyberpix
on July 16th, 2009
Sent this out to the SANS Advisory Board as well, and I will speak to the relevant people at work tomorrow to see what we can do to help out.
The company that I work for heavily supports charities in a rather large way, so let me see what I can do. Please can you contact me though to let me know how to get best get hold your details, as if I can persuade work to help out then I’ll need to get hold of you.
OrderZero
on July 18th, 2009
Just know if you decide to sue you will have alot of supporters this has happened to countless people.
bumese
on July 21st, 2009
Paypal very sucks for always. So weird processing sometimes. I have faced many times. We shouldn’t use it anymore. Its security terribly affects our usability, and accessibility
utsav
on December 15th, 2009
Hey i think the paypal problem is solved now…..i heard a pretty interesting story that you told some of my friends at Defcon….about paypal releasing your account within few hours of this post :)