Revelation 13:16-18

Corporate fascism is all about making you and I feel powerless while pretending we live in a free world.. Other than classic fascism its preferred weapon is the call center, not the firing squad or gas chamber of old.The invention of the call center (and the anonymous web based conflict resolution process of course)  has certainly advanced the case of those who wish to establish THE CORPORATION as a law unto itself  (and in essence it is only one corporation)

There is no more person on the other side.

Even if you think you are speaking to a person, you are not.

(I’m sorry guys, you may be decent people privately but you’re making yourself an accessory to crime by doing what you’re doing)

They read their blurb from a screen. They are not supposed to take responsibility for their actions.And surely, all pretence of “equality before the law” is gone. I mean between you and I on one side  and them on the other.I may be of the last generation who still learnt that at school, huh?The interesting thing is that they get people so brainwashed that they (the people) start thinking the arbitrary and lopsided rules actually were the law.I notice that whenever  I queue at he bank tellers or deal with a telephone company. What happened to “innocent before proven guilty” or “no arrest (of money or person) without charge”? These are principles that humans fought for the last 4-500 years and achieved a lot in fact. Our various constitutions are witness to that. We must not let it slip but hold them accountable by those standards. 

So what happened?

On Wednesday 4 September we received notice that our PayPal account payment@orgoniseafrica.com is limited in its access. (meaning we can’t get the money out)This was in the middle of a series of successful auctions of our stuff on Ebay. I wrote about it here.In fact while the account was being suspended, (I may look at the money but may not transfer it) I still had over 30 items in bidding on Ebay. Closing those bids down would have caused another financial loss, because Ebay would have insisted on their substantial insertion fees for each item.

Did we do something wrong?

Not that I know, apart from dealing with these companies, naively assuming that they were to be taken at face value of their own advertisemnt.

Is it far fetched to assume that they were ordered to harass us?

What case do they have for stealing our money?

They don’t even think they have to state their case.

What you get is this corporate drivel:

Attention eBay Member!
During a recent screening of your PayPal and eBay accounts, we observed activity that is unusual or potentially high risk. We have limited access to your account(s) until additional security measures can be completed.To resolve this issue, please log in to your PayPal account and go to the “Resolution Center”. The Resolution Center subtab is located on the Account Overview page between the History and Profile subtab.To log in to your PayPal account, please go to: https://www.paypal.com/

Wow, so I went there and  found  they apparently wanted two things:

Proof of posting for 5 randomly picked transactions.

I supplied them with the 5 postal tracking numbers and explained that the tracking is limited with our SA Post office. Now they seem to insist that they will not consider freeing the account before all the tracking shows delivered. The way SA Post Office does tracking, all international postal items actually show “In Transit” forever after they are out of the country. Nevertheless we always deliver our goods reliably  since 6 years.

Contact details of our supplier.

This may mean that they found it suspicious that our account is listed under our UK company while we are shipping and working from South Africa. It’s not a crime to create company structures. PayPal and Ebay use them extensively of course. They seem to handle my business from the US (Langley or Palo Alto for those of you who get my drift) while taking deposits under a Luxembourg banking license. Of course they don’t state their case and they don’t give you any assurances that once you proved those points they will not come up with other arbitrary demands.

A Kafkaesque labyrinth or a roman wilderness of pain (Jim Morrison – The Doors) 

You chose which description get’s that special feeling over in a better way.

Urgent Advice to our customers:

We do not know how this will end yet, but we urge you not to use PayPal for any Payment to us until this is resolved.

If you have any open unpaid Ebay items with us, please contact me for alternative payment arrangements.We must currently assume that your and our money is not safe with PayPal.

They do with it as they please. They are currently sitting on more than 2000 British Pounds or 3500 US-Dollar of ours, as of course they have waited for the most hurtful moment to pounce.

Absurdity wills it that still money is pouring into this account as people continue to pay for their successful Ebay bids.

We will of course honour all winning bids and other orders regardless of the actions of PayPal, even if we never get access to the money.

If you know a good lawyer with a conscience who is willing to take up cases in consumer protection and human rights, please let me know. The jurisdiction of their European arm is apparently Luxembourg. (You will not be surprised that while scrutinizing us to the bone, they do not publish their legal seat (domicilium citandi et executandi) in an easily findable way on their website.

But we’ll get there.

I find it important to show these people that they are wrong.

Apart from the fact that they might find us “suspicious” anyways because of our stance against the “corporate new world order” we have not given them any reason to assume that we are not a reliable vendor. In our short sojourn on Ebay, we have already picked up 25 feedbacks all of them 100% positive. So unless they pay one of their agents to file a spurious dispute or chargeback, like they did with Andy of CT-busters.com a few years ago, our track record is unblemished.

The point of withholding our funds because tracking info still show’s “In transit” is also funny.

I have bought many items on the internet, using PayPal and the Vendors did not provide any tracking info at all. Among these are quite big companies like www.Lulu.com .

Amazon.com also offers slow surface mail (non trackable) for international orders. So what’s the point?

Maybe these companies should also have their (huge) PayPal accounts suspended?

We are asking for your support in this matter in any possible way. I will publish their contactable legal address here as soon as  have it and encourage you to write letters to them.In the meantime I advise you to be extremely cautious in your dealings with either of the two companies. (they are one as is stumbleupon.com) If you need PayPal for your online business, never keep large sums there.Corporate fascism can only be stopped if we become a bit more prickly to swallow and let them know we don’t like them the way they behave. After all they want us to think they’re “cool companies”

I should also recommend you start gifting your nearest call center, no matter what companies they work for.

It’s all the same system: To let the customer who has a complaint starve at the long arm. Dealing with such a setup means to deal with the utmost arrogance and contempt for human dignity that one can experience.

I know that people are fed up with this world wide and I’m sure that the first companies that reintroduce (real) personal contact, accountability and human-ness into the game, will become immensely popular.

The horrible thing is that they manage to steal our time, energy and happiness this way, even if only for a few days, they should not be allowed to do that.

Let’s stop them once and for all!

I will keep you updated.

Georg