I really wish this was a triumphant post featuring a picture of me handing over a fat check to Hakalau National Forest Refuge…but instead, it’s a shitpost about Paypal.
Just a few days before I planned to close my experimental Shopify web store, one of my customers emailed me, saying that Paypal wouldn’t let her finish a purchase. I followed up, and it appeared Paypal had put a hold on the new account I’d opened to use only for the store. (I didn’t want to mix this project up with the account I use for routine online purchases.) I gave them the photos of my driver’s license, tracking numbers of shipments I’d sent, and other items to prove I wasn’t a scammer. As soon as I did, Paypal deactivated my account. When I searched their acceptable use policy, I couldn’t figure out what I’d done wrong. Was it my lack of business license? The fact that I’d sold some items to people in Canada? No explanation.
I read through some Reddit threads about Paypal deactivations and discovered I was far from alone. Several folks complained about their new AI audit system, which had randomly shut down accounts people had had for 20 years or more, also without explanation. I myself had used Paypal for a couple decades without incident, so I was surprised and upset to learn that they planned to sit on my $500 “for 180 days.” I wouldn’t be able to get the money we’d raised for the birds until February 2026!
I tried calling Paypal to appeal, and predictably, they read me the same deactivation boilerplate I’d read on my account website. They promised to move my request up the chain, which would take “8 days.” Well, those days have come and gone already. This is shitty behavior from an enshittifying company, for sure, but why do I feel like the shitbag here? I feel like I did something wrong, though I know I didn’t (at least not morally—it’s more likely I didn’t cross all my T’s with The Man.) The money will still go to Hakalau whenever I can get it out of hock, but still…I hate to disappoint any of you, my dear readers. I’m also disappointed that such a fun project that brought me so much joy and hope during a stressful time ended with such a whimper.
But all is not lost. Even if I can’t get the donation money back right away, I learned a lot from this experiment. I learned that the kind of web store I want requires a little more bureaucratic work than I was willing to put in at this time. While the store looked fine and was fairly easy to set up on the front end, the back end (namely my lack of business address and license) was too slapdash. This may be what bit me in the butt. But more importantly, I learned that there is an audience for my work beyond my intimate circle.
I can make incense that people want to buy.
People want something that I love making.
For the apprentice that I am, this is huge. I’m convinced that if I put more time and thought into it, I can run a successful incense web store and perhaps more.
And there will be more to come…later. For now, as a huge project at my day job looms over my life like a passing tidal wave of stress, I will have to dive under and surf until it passes in December (hopefully). It’ll be all I can do to try and stay sane and healthy until then. And, while I may not have incense for sale for a while, I do plan to keep writing about and exploring incense when I can. And that post where I hand over the fat check will happen!
Thanks so much to all of you who read my work here and who bought incense from me. It really means a lot.
PayPal sucks!