You may recall that back in December, I had a series of infuriating exchanges with PayPal.

After collecting almost $20,000 to buy Christmas toys for needy children, PayPal forced me to manually refund every contribution, while keeping the fees of these transactions. When I balked, they attempted to freeze this money for 180 days, with no recourse, effectively ruining the holiday for 200 families.

Initially, Paypal’s justification for this was that I had used the wrong method to collect this money, but this was later dismissed as false by a PayPal executive.

What it really came down to was this: When you collect a lot of money in a short time, it triggers a review.

I have no problem with a review under these circumstances. My problem is with the way these investigations are resolved.

Once your money is frozen and you’re in panic mode, you are now at the mercy of the customer service representative, who is asked to make “a judgment call.” This is where it all breaks down. PayPal’s policies are so confusing that the representative inevitably grows frustrated at being unable to explain them. This escalates matters, and almost always ends up with PayPal collecting interest on your money for six months, while your business or project gets deeper and deeper into trouble.

After a worldwide public shaming in December, and again in January, when this violin story came out, I had hoped that PayPal would be much more thoughtful in making these decisions, especially when dealing with people who are attempting to assist charities.

Then today, I read about Steve Berry and Ben Morris, both longtime contributors to Dr. Who Magazine. For four years, they have been compiling a book of celebrity memories of Dr. Who called Behind the Sofa.

Every penny of profit will benefit Alzheimer’s Research UK. Everyone involved cares deeply about Alzheimer’s research. No one is getting rich. It is a labor of love.

Personally, I would have bought it just to read Neil Gaiman’s memories, but there are over 100 celebrities involved in the book, which has been selling briskly.

Too briskly.

As Steve says:

This morning I received a very short, very terse telephone call from a lady called Francine, who works for PayPal.

Francine informed me that the PayPal account associated with Behind The Sofa had taken a lot of money over a very short period. She explained that she had looked at the site and understood that I was taking orders for a book.

Francine explained that PayPal would be freezing my account, meaning that the project is stalled. The phone call was followed by an “account frozen” email.

Why?

Well, they won’t tell me the details.

Francine flat refused to provide me with information about how to contact them (by phone) to discuss to issue, or indicate how long my account will be frozen pending their review. She then terminated the call. I cannot use the account at all until PayPay deign to contact me.

Not one single penny of the money taken so far has been lost. I am endeavouring to find a way to discuss this with PayPal. In the mean time I would ask for your patience and, if you feel inclined, your support by Tweeting @PayPalUK and letting them know what you think of their customer service.

Oh, I think we can do that. Don’t you?

-Read Steve’s entire statement as well as the history of this great project on Steve’s website.

UPDATE: Paypal proposes a solution and it still blows.

UPDATE: 3/13/12 This has been resolved. Thanks for your help.

As you know, I have had my share of issues with Paypal recently, and while I appreciate the effort they made to do the right thing in our case, I still have a lot of misgivings about them as a company.
This e-mail didn’t help.

Dear Helen Killer,

I love your site and was thrilled to hear of your “win” against PayPal. I recently had a heartbreaking experience of my own with them.

I sold an old French violin to a buyer in Canada, and the buyer disputed the label.

This is not uncommon. In the violin market, labels often mean little and there is often disagreement over them. Some of the most expensive violins in the world have disputed labels, but they are works of art nonetheless.

Rather than have the violin returned to me, PayPal made the buyer DESTROY the violin in order to get his money back. They somehow deemed the violin as “counterfeit” even though there is no such thing in the violin world.

The buyer was proud of himself, so he sent me a photo of the destroyed violin.

I am now out a violin that made it through WWII as well as $2500. This is of course, upsetting. But my main goal in writing to you is to prevent PayPal from ordering the destruction of violins and other antiquities that they know nothing about. It is beyond me why PayPal simply didn’t have the violin returned to me.

I spoke on the phone to numerous reps from PayPal who 100% defended their action and gave me the party line.

Erica

I forwarded this e-mail to my contact at Paypal several days ago. They have not replied.

UPDATE: I neglected to mention in the original post that the violin was examined and authenticated by a top luthier prior to its sale.

UPDATE 2: Thanks to sharp-eyed reader Mr. Pete, who found this paragraph in Paypal’s Terms of Service:

UPDATE 3: Paypal has advised that they are now looking into the matter.

Similar to the necklass, except it’s a turd.

These came in very handy when I was tutoring my parrot.

“Vinatge” is Croatian for “Alibaba.”

All right, let’s go over this again. This is my my water, and this is your my water. And this has got to be your my wine, because I’m not wearing lipstick.

This reminds me of a joke:

Q: How do you know which way to put on your pampkin?
A: Oringe in the front, brown stim in the rear!

LOL GOOD TIMES

THERE’S TOO MUCH SAX AND VIOLINS ON ETSY

Not only do they change colors, they were born with two sets of genitals! Try finding that on ModCloth.