aypal is the best known online funds transfer system. It's a very simple system; they allow anyone to open up a PayPal account and put money into it, or hook up the account to their bank account.  You can also use a credit card to transfer X amount of money to PayPal and via them to whoever you are sending the money to.

PayPal is basically a convenience; it lets people buy and sell items quickly and easily and with relatively low transfer fees. Many sites that exist without selling products have turned to PayPal to accept donations for services.  In those cases, PayPal basically works as a tip jar, accepting voluntary donations from surfers who want to pay something back for the free entertainment they get from a given website.

There are other services that work just the same way; the Amazon.com Honor System for instance, which is what I'm using now.  PayPal's best attribute is that it's cheap.  Or at least cheaper; they take less off the top than the other small payment credit card transfer. However they are only really cheap if the donor has a PayPal account.  If he or she doesn't, then there is a % of the transfer fee, as well as a surcharge for the credit card transaction.

It's lame to pay these jackals for something a computer does in .001 seconds, but  hey, I do have a PO Box where you can make any sort of donation you'd like, for just the cost of a stamp.

• Also see the Site Donations article for related content.

The content below is pasted from several blogs when I talked about the PayPal situation, with the date it was posted initially.  Most recent updates are added at the bottom, and I don't expect to add any more after the October 31st 2003 concluding one.

October 25, 2003

First of all, no one try to pop for a site donation any time soon, because Pay Pal mailed me this on Friday:

As you know, the PayPal User Agreement states that PayPal, at its sole discretion, reserves the right to close an account at any time for any reason. We are writing to inform you that, after a review of your site, and in accordance with PayPal's Acceptable Use Policy, your account has been closed.

PayPal's Acceptable Use Policy prohibits the sale of items for mature audiences. After a review of your site/account, you have either received payments via PayPal, or have PayPal referenced on your site. Due to the violation of the Acceptable Use Policy your account will be closed and the remaining balance will be sent to you by check.

If you feel that this decision was made in error and that you have not been accepting payments in the mature audience space, please contact us at _______. This email is intended to be used only by merchants who feel this decision has been made in error, and not for accounts that are in violation. Accounts that have violated the mature audience policy will not be reinstated.

I'm not sure what this is about, since they don't give me an URL or anything to whatever is offending them.  It's hard to argue with their "for any time and any reason" logic, but I certainly don't think Friday's blog was the straw that broke the camel's back.  I didn't say anything bad, unless you're really sensitive to talk of cat poo.  My only clue is the link they sent me with their Mature Audiences Policy. However, since that page seems to be entirely about selling adult products, and since I don't sell anything at all through this site, much less porn, it's not of any help.

I would assume that they have a spider that looks for naughty words, and it hit upon my dirty slang page, or perhaps the sex acts page?  The dirty slang one is silly and juvenile, and I would doubt it's a problem, but the sex acts one has some disgusting stuff, which is why there are warnings on the page saying that it shouldn't be read by anyone.  It's also the only page on the site that I didn't write at least 99% of, and I've been wanting to delete it for a while, so perhaps I'll take this opportunity to do so, if that would placate the Pay Pal folks.

I have no idea if they'll look over the site and see that this isn't a porn warehouse, or if they just have a huge workload and don't give a shit about a small (in terms of processing fees) site like this one.  If the rule is that a site can't have any mature content or nudity at all, then I'm probably out of luck, since hell, half of the D2 stories I've posted have violence or some sexual content, much less my other horror stories, and I like to post funny public-nudity photos all the time in the news, featuring bizarre fashions on topless models.

Losing my Pay Pal account wouldn't be a disaster, since it's not like I use it more than 2 or 3 times a month.  However those 2 or 3 times are when I get site donations, which are usually enough to cover the hosting costs, and that's very helpful with my current lack of income.  I'd also like to keep the PayPal account to make it easier for you guys to buy the paperback of my short stories, once it's ready for purchase.  Amazon.com has a tipjar service that works just like PayPal donations, but I believe they charge a higher processing fee.  I also have a PO Box listed on the donations page, if people want to send me a check or cash directly, either for site hosting expenses or else the upcoming paperback, but that's less convenient and slower, especially for people outside of the US.

I'm going to write PayPal back and ask what this is about, but I don't much expect to get anything other than some sort of automated form reply that I'm bad and deserve to be punished. Which is of course true, but that doesn't mean I want my punishment to be so impersonal and arbitrary.

October 31, 2003

Well, it appears that the PayPal issue is resolved.  And not in a good way.

As I related earlier this week, PayPal mailed me last weekend to tell me that my account had been closed. They didn't say why, and the only hint was a link to their Mature Audiences Policy page.  I wrote them back this week saying that I didn't sell anything through this site, especially not porn and that my site was clearly not an adult site, by their definition.

Thank you for contacting PayPal.

Your account was found in violation of our Acceptable Use Policy due to a PayPal donation button being associated with your adult oriented site. Due to this violation your account will remain closed.

Your funds will be released via check to the mailing address registered to your account. Please login to your account and update any necessary information, as we cannot be held responsible for any checks being issued with incorrect information provided by the account holder. Please allow up to two weeks for delivery. We do ask that you please remove all references of PayPal from your site(s) and/or auction(s). 

If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us again.

Sincerely, 
Lisa
PayPal Compliance Department
PayPal, an eBay Company

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