[Infowarrior] - PayPal shuts down HFC

[Richard Forno]

(h/t jericho)

PayPal shuts us down

http://www.hackersforcharity.org/259/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…