My Biggest Failure

Let me tell you guys a story about.....Jongo's most epic failure.

I started building businesses online around 2001. It was right after my oldest son was born, I needed to pay for diapers and baby formula and all I kept hearing about was...'You can make money online!' It was the wild west back then. But one of the hardest things to build was the ability for people to 'pay you' for the services and products you sold.

Please remember, this was when nobody trusted putting their credit card information on any websites and the idea of crypto was still like a decade away. When I say it was the wild west, I mean people used to send me cash and hand written cheques in the mail lol

Then along came PayPal!

This was literally the greatest thing ever for online businesses. You could throw up a PayPal button and start accepting money for your products or services in minutes. It was truly something to behold. And I went in hard with PayPal.

So much so, that I pretty much earned my entire income from my businesses online through PayPal payments....You can see where this is going?

Along the way, you started hearing of people getting their PayPal accounts shut down.

It started as rumors here and there but eventually there were dedicated online forums about how every day people got their accounts shut down and money lost forever. You see when you sign up for PayPal, you agree to their terms of service. And in their terms they clearly state, they can shut you down for breaking their AUP (acceptable use policy). Problem is, they also say in their terms they can change their AUP at anytime....

Meh!

I used to think to myself, and even write about these were isolated cases. Most of the people getting shut down HAD to be scammers! I had nothing but good experiences with the company, and anytime I had any issue with a payment, they were a phone call away.

I even had a dedicated account rep, so when I say I was all in on PayPal...They could do no wrong.

Let's just say, I drank the kool aid!

Year after year, the reports of accounts getting shut down kept piling up and I just told myself....I have been operating with a perfect record for years. They love me. They are just shutting down the bad actors and the ones 'abusing the system'.

Then came April of 2016 and if you know my story, you'll know what happened....

'Your account has been suspended and you can never get it back!'

Was pretty much the email I got from them. I remember the day like it was yesterday, I just laughed and gave my 'account rep' a call....Wait what? I no longer had an account rep...I went through customer service rep after another and they all told me the same thing.

You are done!

To say I lost everything (because remember, all my business ran through PayPal) would be an understatement.

Lost my house, my business, my mental health, and almost my brand new marriage....All of it gone in an instant.

And you want to know why?

It was my single greatest failure in business...I knew, deep down, there was something to be worried about with PayPal. As much as I was a fan boy, and as much as I screamed from the roof tops that they were perfect...Something was rotten at their core.

I didn't take into the account the innocent entrepreneurs that had similar stories to mine, all losing everything because of that company. I was blind with loyalty that PayPal never deserved.

The lesson for me and I hope for anyone else reading this is.....The brand you sometimes love, bleed for and sacrifice so much for, just never loves you back. And they will spit you out in a second, if they think they benefit in some way.

Sounds way too familiar today....

(Note:* This post always gets 5% beneficiary reward sent to @leofinance and @leostratey and today I'm sending 5% to our good buddy on LEO @tokenizedsociety )*

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