Via Jesse Singal's substack, November 3:
About four years ago, my PayPal account was unceremoniously thrown into a van and disappeared to a black site. All I got to commemorate my account’s suspension was a riddle of an email claiming my account was “permanently limited” due to some unspecified “excessive risk.” I had no idea what PayPal was talking about, as I had used the account for more than 14 years without issue. Given the timing, though, I suspected it had something to do with my involvement in a certain group named after a certain slavery abolitionist.
I was reminded of this recently because PayPal has been up to some bullshit, selectively banning politically unpopular accounts for what seems like made-up reasons, and “infamous” sex realist Colin Wright is only one of their latest victims.
While PayPal is technically a private company that can work with basically whoever it wants for whatever reason, its centralized role as an online payment processor makes this a weirdly potent free speech fight. So I figure it might be useful for me to tell the story of how I sent in commandos (read: deployed my obsessive love of drawn-out conflict involving legalese) to rescue my account.
I called, emailed, and waited on hold, but never got a straight answer from PayPal’s customer service drones. They endlessly repeated that I had violated PayPal’s acceptable use policy as if it were some mantra. If I asked for any detail whatsoever, their response had the tone of a schoolteacher frustrated at having to explain repeatedly to the same kid that crayons should not be shoved up one’s nose. I knew what I did to get my account deleted, apparently. If I wanted to hear it from them, I’d need a court order.
I took inventory of my options.
Here is what I did not have: money in the account, any serious reliance on it, or any wisp of nostalgia for the 14 years we shared.
Here is what I did have: too much free time and a whole heap of pettiness to propel things forward.
So I made a crazy decision. I read PayPal’s User Agreement.
Virtually every modern-day service comes with a gargantuan boilerplate contract that governs everything from privacy policy and liability indemnification to which one of your children you agree to sacrifice. Since you are reading this online, you have likely hit AGREE on hundreds of these without reading a word of them. Within these so-called terms of service agreements, arbitration clauses have become the norm. So if you end up having a dispute with one of these companies, the contract you “agreed” to means you are legally not allowed to take them to a real court. Your only recourse is arbitration.
Arbitration is nothing more than privatized dispute resolution. Because the contours of arbitration can be whatever the parties agree to, it’s always been popular in dealing with international commercial disputes. Compared to traditional courts, arbitration proceedings have no problem with straddling international borders, and arbitration judges can be heavily specialized (for instance, there’s probably one guy whose entire life is dedicated to nothing but disputes over flowers shipped from Kenya)....
....MUCH MORE
There are many attorneys with too much free time. I once called on a ludicrously wealthy gentleman who told me he had three, just twiddling their thumbs waiting to be let out of their cage.
I was slightly intimidated.
