I am 21 years old, and I am the daughter of a single mother who has been refurbishing garage sale finds and reselling them on eBay since I was four years old. My mom worked full time as a table games dealer, putting up with drunks and cigarette smoke during the week. To pay for anything other than bills for us kids, she used E-commerce as her side hustle for my brother and me to participate in school activities and sports. After 18 years at her full-time job, she was financially stable enough to quit and start her own business with the help of an old family friend. The business was successful (seriously, we had lines outside the door every day before opening, and I could not be more inspired by my mom's dedication and loyalty to her customers.) until the pandemic hit. Of course, it is not surprising that most small businesses were affected by Covid-19 even with the help of PPP. The store does not break even some days, and we refuse to close because we have a great community and loyal customers that come in to see us every day. Thankfully my mom never stopped reselling on eBay. E-commerce has saved us time and time again and helped keep the business afloat.
Recently we received the unfortunate notification that we had violated the acceptable use policy, which we had never done before. In 16 years of using PayPal, my mom had never violated a policy, and it should be mentioned that she is also ethical and did not take advantage of the pandemic either. PayPal froze her account for 180 days with almost $5,000 in it. While it was challenging to go without E-commerce funds for 180 days, it was even more challenging when PayPal drained the funds following the freeze. We spoke to PayPal, and after hours on the phone with several different representatives, we gave up. No one would explain why this happened to us or what we did wrong until a kind employee gave us a slight hint. The employee said that he "was not allowed to tell" us what we did wrong, but "PayPal wouldn't want its users selling something 'like' gun accessories." Thank you to the employee for the courtesy to give us a clue.
We had listed these items relating to "guns" (We are from the Midwest. We grew up on farms and often hunted.)
- a plastic scope mount for a hunting rifle
- a Daisy airsoft pistol
- a scope for a hunting rifle
- a holster
It is not specified which accessories are allowed and which are not. (Further research has led me to the assumption that none are allowed.)
"ammunition, firearms, or certain firearm parts or accessories" The word "certain" implies that there should be a list of accessories or parts that are not allowed. We, however, were not aware of this part of the policy at all, to begin with, since we are honest people and typically do not need to reference the list because we never intend to break the law. We assumed we were selling a piece of plastic, a big kids toy (airsoft is a popular sport), and a monocular for hunting. It is already difficult to see my mom under stress from a declining business due to a pandemic. $5,000 of hard-earned money taken from us and put in PayPal's pocket over something that is not even criminal is heartbreaking. I will not stop until my mom gets back what is rightfully hers. The firearm accessory and parts policy is too vague and obscure to enforce and appears as if it was written like that on purpose to scam users out of substantial amounts of money.
