Selling adult material - Paypal policies

[scampiegem]

Can I use paypal to accept payment for sex toys and adult clothing.

I have previously been told that paypal will not accpet payments for such materials, yet I see fairly large adult companies offering paypal as a payment option.

[PayPal_paula]

Hi scampiegem,

I would suggest that you review our Acceptable use policy for this one and you will be given more information on what items you can receive payment for on PayPal.

You can view this policy by clicking on legal agreements at the bottom of every PayPal page.

thanks

Paula

[volatile2010]

Paula,

I have seen several questions like this on PayPal after seeking information myself on the change of policy over the sale of adult DVD's, but you keep referring people to the Acceptable Use policy when it doesn't actually help at all.

The policy is extremely vague and doesn't tell us what we need to know. PayPal needs to produce a list of products or categories of products that it will not accept, and simply update this as and when position changes.

It would be great if you could urge senior people at PayPal to look into this obvious problem. It's been like this for more than five years now and it needs to be clarified so that retailers like me are not having to email someone and wait three days for a response to a simple question.

Thanks!

[PayPal_paula]

Hi volatile2010, 

Thank you for your feedback and I will pass this on for you. 

If it is not clear in our Acceptable use Policy what you can and cannot sell, I would advise that you contact our Acceptable use Policy team directly and they will be able to advise you. 

Thanks for posting 

Paula 

[volatile2010]

Thank you for your response.

I emailed several days ago asking specifically what the policy is regarding the sale of adult DVD's, and as yet I have had no reply.

Why is this such an impossible thing? It's a very easy question that a company like this should be able to answer immediately and without all this fuss.

For such a large company, PayPal often astounds me with their complete ineptitude when it comes to asnwering simple questions.

[frock-lady]

---

volatile2010:

In my experience, adult DVDs is definately NOT on Paypal's list of supported items.  I used the same Paypal account for years with no problem for selling DVDs on one site and also for 2 other sites with products un-connected to adult material - some interfering idiot reported the DVD site to Paypal, and Bam!  they closed me down over night.  I was unable to trade on any of my sites for 2 months while I got another payment provider set up (at great cost I might add).

If you are selling adult stuff, just dont use Paypal

@volatile2010 wrote:

Thank you for your response.

I emailed several days ago asking specifically what the policy is regarding the sale of adult DVD's, and as yet I have had no reply.

Why is this such an impossible thing? It's a very easy question that a company like this should be able to answer immediately and without all this fuss.

For such a large company, PayPal often astounds me with their complete ineptitude when it comes to asnwering simple questions.

---

.

[AssafOp]

I wouldn't ask aup or paypal anything, when in doubt, I suggest not to take the risk, look at what happened when I made a polite enquiry:

Hello there,

I understood by reading the thread here:

https://www.paypal-community.com/t#/Watercooler-Archive/Clarification-source-for-adult-product-rules...

That this is the correct address for me enquiry.

I own and operate an adult community (blogs, chats, forum, profiles and private messaging) for people who are into BDSM. It's a huge community in Israel, I've been doing it for ## years.
The site never hosts porn or promote it or published paid sexual services in any way. The only product sold in the web site is a monthly/annual subscription that enables users unlimited access.

I would very much like to support PayPal as a payment method. But by reading your terms I couldn't understand if you authorise this. I would thank you very much for clarification. Looking forward to working with you!

This is the reply I got:

Thank you for contacting PayPal regarding the use of our service for your site. Unfortunately,PayPal cannot be used on a forum site that is adult in nature and related to the BDSM community. We have rules and regulations that prohibit our service to be used for memberships, subscriptions related to adult digital content.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

If you have any questions, please contact the PayPal Brand Risk Management Department at aup at paypal.com

So far so good, but this followed shortly after:

> We have recently reviewed your PayPal account activity, and  determined
> that you are in violation of PayPal's Acceptable Use Policy regarding your
> sales / offers of Adult BDSM forum  on ******
>
> Please refer to:
> - Transaction ****
> - Transaction ****
>
> As a result, your account has been permanently limited and this cannot be
> appealed.
>

And the next day my personal paypal account, the one I use for example to pay for digital services for my daughter was also limited.

Needless to say my site is legal, I pay taxes and I'm a good citizen, my site never contains any illegal material or porn or anything controvertial, it's a platform for dating and for the community to debate and grow and has brought many couples together, families and even kids. But just by asking a polite question I got all of this back from paypal. so - beware.

[pallee]

I totally agree that the paypal policy is very vague in particular with restrictions. For example paypal policy states that sellers can sell what is legal in their country and sellers can't sell what is illegal; however there are many grey market products that one sellers maybe prohibited from selling but are allowed to be sold by another seller with PayPal.