dwellar

The other day, I sent PayPal a long e-mail detailing exactly what we were and proof that Aftermath Zone (http://www.aftermathzone.com) is not a gambling business in any way whatsoever.

Today, they sent me a reply:

"Dear Darryl Thompson,

We regret to inform you that we cannot overturn the limitation on your
account.  Due to the violation of PayPal?s Acceptable Use Policy
regarding Gambling, your account has been permanently limited.  Please
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.

If you have any questions, please contact the PayPal Acceptable Use
Policy Department at aup@paypal.com.

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

Know what that sounds like to me? Like they did not even take a chance to review any of the information I gave them. Utterly fucking ridiculous!

I took to the PayPal customer support by phone, and actually ended up. Lividly, I started saying how ridiculous this whole thing was as I sent them an entire e-mail detailing and proving that we are not running a gambling business. Surprisingly this time, the customer support agent was sympathetic with my situation as he ran his own small business, and has escalated my issue.

He said that I should hear back from them in a couple of days. I am really hoping that it is with good news, because this whole situation is out of control and has a huge negative impact on the website.

As always, I will keep you guys updated on the situation.

Welcome to my LJ, guys! I had been thinking of creating a blog for a while actually, however, there were a few different ones to choose between. I don't believe in excess, so if I was going to make a blog/journal, I am only willing to maintain one. Ultimately, as you may already realize, I chose Live Journal because I like how this one works. Don't be a stranger! If you would like to add me as a friend on LJ, I will gladly accept.

Anyways, this week on Aftermath Zone has had more downs than ups for me. Without getting too much into it, I am currency dealing with PayPal issues. They have limited my account so that I cannot receive funds, and as such, I have had to put the WSG purchases on halt. It is actually completely ridiculous how incompetent PayPal is as a business.

This all began with the following e-mail from them:

"We are hereby notifying you that it has been determined that you are in
violation of PayPal's Acceptable Use Policy regarding your sale of games of
chance on http://www.aftermathzone.com/games.php?category=luck.  Therefore,
your account has been permanently limited."

So, they basically limited my PayPal account because they believe that I am running a site where you gamble with real money. This is clearly not the case, as many users on AMZ can attest to. I called their customer support as well, and they basically told me that my account was limited because we have scratch cards as a form of real money gambling.

I am attempting to dispute this issue with them so that I can get the Webshop running properly again. It is just sad that rather than taking the time to confirm the "issue" with me, they acted without much of an investigation at all and limited my account. I never had much faith in PayPal to begin with, but chose them because of their reputation for being trustworthy for online transactions. Unfortunately, there are countless horror stories for Merchants and people running sole proprietorship businesses where PayPal has screwed them over.

This does not mean that I am giving up on PayPal. I am trying my best to resolve these issues. However, as a seller, I do not feel like I am safe, and I have had bad experiences with them where customers would make fraudulent claims and PayPal would not do a proper investigation. Ultimately, I just want to get this stressful situation over with as soon as possible, and it frustrates and infuriates me that I even have to deal with a violation that has no merit. It's just a giant waste of my time and energy.

Hopefully this situation resolves itself in a timely matter so that I can work on more important things. That being said, I am the type that hopes for the best, but always expects the worst. You can't have your expectations shot down that way.

Thank you for reading my tl;dr entry, I will be doing more in the future! :)