PayPal banned my account, even though they initially said they wouldn't. I agree I made a mistake, but carrying lifelong consequences for such a small offense is disproportionate. The mistake that I made was that I had good intentions but panned out the wrong way. I was looking at BlackhatSEO for somebody to create a Spotify Plays bot. I wanted to have the bot created and then provide it publically to all so anybody could make money from their music. It was my counter to payola and price-fixing in Spotify by the big three record labels, who were undercutting the entire financial model by duping the little players.
The idea was to let a lot of musicians use this bot to massively inflate numbers, causing an internal meltdown in the financial model. My intent was to flush out the big three of their practices and replace the financial model with a more democratic system free of corruption.
The problems arose when the person that agreed to help me out build the software tricked me into providing real, good-believable demos and eventually scammed me out of money through PayPal. I was young, naive, and really eager to get this to work because my music career was not going anywhere without battling this corruption, so I agreed to send it as friends and family, foregoing my rights if I got scammed to get my money back.
And unfortunately, I got scammed, losing a total of about 500 euros. It could have been more, but I was able to recuperate about 250 euros somehow. Paypal found out, eventually marking the transactions as suspicious and thus automatically blocking my account. I went on talking with PayPal, trying to explain the situation and that I had no bad intent. Rather, I felt I was the victim, not the perpetrator. And although PayPal initially agreed with my story, they eventually blocked me, cutting off all communication and making any kind of repeal impossible. .
According to Paypal's own rules, money after 180 days will be returned to the account owner. There is about €200 in that account still locked away and I haven't seen it returned. Adding Paypal to her own rules is also ineffective because they have eliminated any possibility of me contacting them.
So as the situation stands, Paypal keeps €200, which is rightfully mine, hostage as well as permanently banning my account with no possibility to appeal. I'm on a blacklist as well because, in the process, all my other Paypal accounts (each of my companies had one too) got closed off, totally destroying my entire financial infrastructure of 3 other companies and my personal wallet in the process.
Even though it happened about ten years ago, the negative effects are still with me.
Because it's such a complicated situation, I've created a real-time diagram where you can follow all the steps that I've taken to get things solved. In reality, nothing is solved. I am truly stuck. I'm not being heard, I'm not being taken seriously, and this unjust situation has already haunted me for 10 years.
To me, the desired solution is:
Paypal
All my accounts were unbanned and their functionalities restored.
They refund me 250 euros for not following their own rules.
In the meantime...
I anticipate that this will not be an easy process, and that mediation or a legal battle will be required to persuade Paypal to change its mind. Getting my crowdfund campaign funded would genuinely help me out to solve this situation that is still a burden on my shoulders.
PayPal 10 years ago might not be PayPal today. I will admit I've made a mistake but it would be great if I can get in contact with them again to send in an appeal to be relieved of this punishment. 10 years is unreasonably long.