![]() “If the online forms of your money are frozen, that’s like destroying people economically, limiting their ability to exercise their political voice,” Thiel told me. Several founders agreed to talk with The Free Press for this article. All have expressed shock and dismay at what is happening to the company they created. The people who founded PayPal-the so-called PayPal Mafia-include Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, David Sacks and Max Levchin. So far, they have not, said Aaron Terr, director of public advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. In June 2021, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other civil-liberties groups wrote a letter to PayPal and Venmo, calling on them to open up. PayPal won’t say how many of them it has suspended or banned. These are entrepreneurs, writers, academics, activists-the very same people PayPal, whose mission is “democratizing financial services,” was meant to empower. If you’ve been banned, you’ll need an attorney to file a subpoena for the internal PayPal documents-simply to learn why you’ve been banned. If you’re one of the lucky ones and your account has just been suspended, you can go to customer service, explain your situation and hope that someone gets back to you. After that period, we’ll email you with information on how to access your funds.” Then, toward the bottom: “If you have funds in your PayPal balance, we’ll hold it for up to 180 days. In case there is any doubt, the email adds: “You’ll not be able to conduct any further business using PayPal.” They are simply told via an email from PayPal’s Risk and Compliance Department that, after an internal review, “we decided to permanently limit your account as there was a change in your business model or your business model was considered risky.” They have somehow offended the sensibilities of someone somewhere deep inside the bureaucracy. One by one, they go to start their business day only to find a baffling message from their payments app informing them: “You can no longer do business with PayPal.”
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