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…
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?
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.
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
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
have contacted a few folks who I think may have some influence in Paypal. Are you checking your gmail / skype ?
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.
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.
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)?
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.
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!
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.
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.
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
Dugg it, tweeted it, trying to get the word out. Praying for you Johnny. Keep us posted on what we can do.
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
Johnny,
Please add me to the list of people who will send you money if needs be.
Ryan “LosT” Clarke
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.
post some wire transfer details, so we can send some emergency funds.
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.
Putting the word out dude. Hang in there! Floodgates will open up i’m sure of it.
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.
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
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..
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
Do we boycott paypal?
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
Posted to SANS advisory board email list. Hopefully someone there knows PayPal folks.
Am praying for you Johnny
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!
FYI: Keely Fox is the current PR person for paypal, kfox@accesspr.com, 415-844-6284
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..
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…”
@
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.
Please let us know how we can get money to you.
What a bunch of shits Paypal are. I can’t wait for the day they close and it will happen!
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.
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.
I would happily wire some money over, just need the info.
Keep up the good works,
Eddie
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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
Say a prayer. Everything happens for a reason, and it will all work out in the end. Trust me on that one. ;)
–Marfi
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).
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.
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
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.
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
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