At UsForThem, the children’s welfare group I co-founded during the pandemic, it was an escalation we had seen coming. Three weeks ago, on 1 September, the following email from PayPal arrived in the UsForThem inbox:
‘We have recently reviewed your usage of PayPal’s services, as reflected in our records. Due to the nature of your activities, we have chosen to discontinue service to you in accordance with PayPal’s User Agreement. As a result, we have placed a permanent limitation on your account.’
That was it. No further explanation was given. Our first reaction was simply shock. Like many small organisations, we relied on the funds trickling into our PayPal account to keep the lights on. That stream of monthly donations was the difference between financial viability and insolvency – the difference, that is, between being able to campaign and having to stop.
Surely, there had been some mistake, we thought. PayPal couldn’t mean us, a group of parents and grandparents advocating for children. A group that campaigned during the pandemic to keep schools open. A group whose mission statement is for children to be ‘placed front and centre in all decisions impacting them’. Could PayPal really have had such an issue with ‘the nature of [our] activities’ that it would terminate our account without notice?
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