PayPal Sees The Err Of Their Ways
Posted on May 27, 2008
Exactly 2-months ago, to the day, my PayPal account was banned. Paypal decided that they were going to hold my $5,000 balance for six-months to cover any possible credit-card chargebacks, and they denied my request(s) to appeal. I finally convinced them to return my $5k balance, I switched to Google-Checkout and things have been going just fine ever since. I proved to myself and to the thousands of people that have read about my ugly PayPal saga here in my blog, that life does go on without PayPal….
…Then today I got a call on the iPhone… and a voicemail at home… and a voicemail on the business number… and an email.. It was a very nice lady from the PayPal Office of Executive Escalations (whaa?!) - She told me that she was contacting me in response to some concerns that I had raised in my blog (hey, PayPal reads my blog! *waves to PayPal*). She explained the “limiting account” process (aka BANNING) a bit, and told me that after further review, Paypal was reversing their decision to “limit” (aka BAN) my account - and all that was necessary to UN-ban and restore my account was to agree-to, and sign the PayPal Acceptable Use Affidavit - basically swearing to abide-by and uphold the PayPal TOS and user-agreement. I signed-in to my PayPal account, clicked on a new link that appeared for me to sign the affidavit, read the rules and user agreement, and digitally signed it - and just like that, I was no longer banned from PayPal. My unappealable, un-reverasable ban had been appealed and reversed.
So I guess this proves a few things: Paypal is not a totally-blind, totally unresponsive organization - they apparently have some processes in place to catch at least some of the mistakes or borderline/salvageable customers. It took a few months, but hey, it worked in my case. Although based on my research and even from what my Executive Escalations lady told me, 99% of banned Pay Pal accounts are NOT reversible - there is still that 1% chance at getting reinstated and it looks like PayPal does try to save that 1% if possible. So if your PayPal account becomes “limited” (banned), AND you didn’t break the rules, don’t give up. Make some noise, call them, email them, and hope and pray that you’re part of that 1%.. If you did break the rules - forget it.. But if you didn’t, or if as in my case, it was ‘borderline’/arguable, don’t give up.
So the question is, will I keep using PayPal now that I’m not banned?
YES… and NO….Maybe…I dunno.. Depends…. For sending money, absolutely - Like it or not, PayPal is the king when it comes to sending money. During the time I was banned, my biggest problem was not being able to send money. I created an ePassporte account to pay for our new logo, and it sucked. So for SENDING money, PayPal will get all of my business.. There really is no other choice. For receiving money? I’m still undecided… Google-Checkout has been working flawlessly for us. GoogleCheckout deposits my funds almost immediately into my bank-account so I don’t have to worry about my funds being “seized” as PayPal did with my $5k, and the GoogleCheckout fraud detection system (so far) seems superior PayPal’s - so for now at least I think we’ll stick with GoogleCheckout - We may use PayPal for members/customers that have issues with GoogleCheckout (we’ve had a few complaints), and if we have enough demand for it, maybe we’ll resume a modified PayPal Premium Membership subscription service like we had before.
For a Tuesday, it wasn’t such a bad day…
Filed Under PayPal | 6 CommentsAnatomy Of A Logo
Posted on May 25, 2008
Image and “branding” are important for any big-business, and just as important for even the smallest of websites. If your visitors can’t remember your domain name you need to do your best to ‘burn’ the image of the website into their memory (think Coca Cola or McDonalds). Ideally, you would plaster that image or ‘brand’ of your website all over the internet with advertising and all over the real-world with T-shirts, mousepads and whatever else you can slap your logo on.
When I first started GrownUpGeek.com, I had zero budget, so I used my mad Photoshop skillz to throw together this logo:
This logo served it’s purpose for a few months but once the website was generating some income we figured it was time to invest in something better.
After some Googling we found George Coghill. George had a unique style that we liked so we commissioned him to come up with some ideas. We only specified to him that we wanted a sexy yet geeky female character based on my wife (aka “The Geek”). I sent him some photos and he came up with this draft:
We then used the final of that draft for our logo which we’ve been using for about the last 2 years:
Using George’s original artwork I was also able to hack this ‘haircut’ version that we’ve used in various places:
We’ve been using George’s logo for a while now and decided that we wanted a new look. We wanted the same character, but something with a “Web 2.0″ look to it. I had seen John Cow’s new logo that he had done last year and Tyler Cruz’s - both which were done by SOSFactory.com, and decided to see what they could come up with. A few hundred dollars later and Sergio sent me this first draft:
We liked the new look and told Sergio to press the “colorize” button and we got this:
He then added our text and tagline:
SOSFactory will provide layered PSD’s so we will be able to move things around as we see fit. Our finalized header will probably look something like this:
We will do the finalizing of the logo and put it live on the website (hopefully) in the next few days.
If you have not already “branded” your site you should consider doing so. Even with no money at all you can come with something on your own like we did, or you can find a struggling new artist to do something very inexpensive (like $10 or $20) over at the Digital Point Forums. If you’ve got a few hundred $ that you’re willing to invest you can’t go wrong with George Coghill, and if you want to take it to the next level (and spend even more), I highly recommend SOSFactory.
Filed Under The Site | 6 CommentsWhy I Out-Rank Mubin Ahmed for the Term “Mubin Ahmed”
Posted on May 21, 2008
Seems that lately this blog has been ranking #1 on Google for the term “Mubin 
Ahmed“. I would like to say that the reason I outrank Mubin’s blog for his own name is because of my nija-like SEO skills - but the truth is it’s probably because Mubin had some server problems a few weeks ago and he’s still recovering from a Google bitch-slap. I’m sure that in a week or two he’ll be back on top for the term “Mubin Ahmed”…. Unless I keep making keyword-stuffed posts like this one, full of the words Ahmed and Mubin. 
If you’re looking for Mubin Ahmed’s blog, click on over to www.mubinahmed.com
Filed Under SEO | 8 CommentsWho Want’s 1,541 EntreCard Credits ?
Posted on May 17, 2008
I stopped using EntreCard a few months ago but I had a balance of just over 1,500 eC. I held a contest to give away the credits, but nobody was interested. I offered the credits to another blogger who held a contest, and nobody was interested..
So.. If anyone wants 1,541 EntreCard credits, for free, no strings attached, just post a comment that says “I want them!”.. If you post a comment that says “entrecard sucks”, etc, I’ll assume that you arent interested in them.
The FIRST person to post a comment that they would like my EntreCard credits can have them..
Filed Under Advertising | 6 Comments
