PayPal Madness

[gveranon]

Yesterday I ordered a couple of books from Snuggly, using PayPal. I got this message from PayPal:

Quote

We’ve placed a temporary pending status on this transaction.​... To comply with government regulations, PayPal is required to review certain transactions. The payment you sent is currently being reviewed and we will complete this process within 72 hours. This review only involves this transaction and does not affect the use of your PayPal account.

​I've used PayPal for years with no problem, and I've ordered books from Snuggly before with no problem. Today, wondering why the transaction is still pending, I did some web searches to try to figure out what PayPal's message might mean. I thought it would be something banal and routine, but comments I found indicate that PayPal sometimes leaves transactions in limbo for days or weeks while being utterly unforthcoming as to why. And I found a couple of people who evidently had transactions held up because their order contained the name of a certain Egyptian goddess. Suddenly I understood the probable reason my order is being held up: I ordered a book by an author named Is*s.

So, at this time, I believe some hapless PayPal employee is trying to figure out whether Justin is an international security threat. (And I do wish them luck in that investigation!) I was thinking that surely they will quickly realize this is just an innocuous book order, but then with a sinking feeling I remembered that the title of the other book I ordered is Graves.

This is all kind of funny to me, but the implications of it really aren't funny at all. Surely I'm not the only TLO member who has ordered a book via PayPal by J Is*s. Has anyone else run into this?

	TLO THOMAS LIGOTTI ONLINE

[Justin Isis]

Quote Originally Posted by gveranon

Surely I'm not the only TLO member who has ordered a book via PayPal by J Is*s.

Nice which one did you get?

[gveranon]

Quote Originally Posted by Justin Isis

Quote Originally Posted by gveranon Surely I'm not the only TLO member who has ordered a book via PayPal by J Is*s. Nice which one did you get?

Pleasant Tales II. But the order is still pending at the PayPal stage! I realize I could just cancel the PayPal transaction and place the order again with a credit card, but I'm curious to see how long PayPal will sit on this.

[Justin Isis]

Quote Originally Posted by gveranon

Quote Originally Posted by Justin Isis Quote Originally Posted by gveranon Surely I'm not the only TLO member who has ordered a book via PayPal by J Is*s. Nice which one did you get? Pleasant Tales II. But the order is still pending at the PayPal stage! I realize I could just cancel the PayPal transaction and place the order again with a credit card, but I'm curious to see how long PayPal will sit on this.

Definitely update when it goes through!!

[qcrisp]

I had trouble with PayPal for exactly the same reason a month or so back. I made a phone call and it was quickly sorted.

[Michael]

I am interpreting this as directly stating that PayPal believes Justin's prose is so f*&kin epic that it's an international security threat. Having read Justin's writing, I would concur. He's that good. Think it might've gone through had Quentin not been in that order. Q plus J, too much for The Man to handle.

I wonder if Ira Levin would have had the same problem?

Any other authors with terrorist names?

[Zaharoff]

Quote Originally Posted by James

Any other authors with terrorist names?

Hermann Hesse.
My bride's mother once derided her for reading "that Nazi."

[gveranon]

Quote Originally Posted by James

I wonder if Ira Levin would have had the same problem? Any other authors with terrorist names?

I can't think of any other author names, but there is a (very good) literary magazine named Bomb. It's been around since pre-web days, and I used to buy it occasionally at a bookstore. PayPal might balk at processing a transaction for Bomb.

[gveranon]

I got notice from PayPal that their review of the transaction is complete and my payment went through. What a relief! I didn't want to have to try to explain Justin Isis and Snuggly Books to a customer support representative. I don't think I could have done it.