I awoke today to read the following
email from PayPal:
We are hereby notifying you that, after a recent review of your account activity, it has been determined that you are in violation of PayPal's Acceptable Use Policy regarding your sales / offers of an ebook about escort services on blueprintforanescortservice.blogspot.com.Therefore, your account has been permanently limited.Under the Acceptable Use Policy, PayPal may not be used to send or receive payments for certain sexually oriented materials or services or for items that could be considered obscene.
It is a trick statement as all
of my books are “about escort services” including Memoirs. All
are also sold on my website,
The Accused Madam. I only had funds from the last three sales in the
account so the balance is $30 after PayPal took its fees on the three
sales and adding the previous balance of $2.
The censors at
PayPal must not want anything sold that isn't for children. Does
Disney own PayPal or a piece of the company?
Nothing
in any book I have written could possibly be considered “obscene”
or “sexually oriented material”. My books are all intended for an
adult audience, but if they were rated they would all be PG or at
worst R. There is nothing sexual in any book I have
written.
Screw the censors at PayPal.
When I login to my PayPal account I
see the following notification:
Why is my account access limited?
Your account access has been limited for the following reason(s):
Your account access has been limited for the following reason(s):
- Jul 10, 2011: When you signed up for your
PayPal account, you agreed to our User Agreement and Acceptable
Use Policy. Because some of your recent transactions violated
this policy, we've had to permanently limit your account.
Please remove any references to PayPal from your website.
You'll be able to withdraw any money in your account 180 days after your last transaction. We'll email you when it's ready to be withdrawn.
My email response to aup@paypal.com:
Nothing in any book that I have written could possibly be considered "obscene" or "sexually oriented material". While the intended audience for my books is adult, if anyone were to read and rate any of my books they would each be a PG or at most an R. There is nothing sexual in any book.What you are doing here is incorrect, but this is the US and I respect your right as a company to not do business with anyone you choose. Welcome to Amerika, the new Disney, where everything is for children and adults do not exist except in relation to children.Screw PayPal's censorship of me and my books. So you manage to stop me from selling ebooks that are available from Google ebooks and in Amazon's US, UK, and Canada Kindle stores and as paperbacks through any bookstore. Thanks a bunch and screw you.Vicky Gallas