They talk about this Great Recession if it fell out of the sky, like, ‘Oh, my goodness, where did it come from?’ It came from this man (Bush) voting to put two wars on a credit card… Vice President Joe Biden

I avoid debt like the plague.  I’ve not had a credit card since the 90’s when I lost everything in a real estate crash and a “workout” banker from Barclays threatened to put me in jail if I’d made a single error on my financial statement and wanted to photograph every single thing in my million dollar Chicago home, which they planned on taking too.  This triggered my divorce from a wife of 18 years and, sadly, my ending up only seeing my kids on weekends.  Debt is not for me.  I am a cash customer and no slave to debt.  Because that’s all debt is, slavery.

So imagine my outrage at an unexpected PayPal lesson I’m sharing today,  One requiring continuing deep meditation for me to ever grasp.   A lesson that I learned the hard way on the return trip from Antarctica.  Namely, that a PayPal debit card can unexpectedly turn into a credit card.

Turns out, as I traveled home from Antarctica. charges by the Argentina boat company got stuck in the PayPal system for almost an entire month without impacting my balance.  This meant I was spending money to get home on the debit card I did not really have available.  I’d been forced deep into debt by PayPal, lots of debt.

But I was grateful to be home faster and working on my videos of the amazing Antarctica trip, so I tried to reason with PayPal.  I’ve learned the hard way that debt collectors, who work on percentage commissions and bonuses, all exhibit a shark-like-feeding-frenzy-behavior that never achieves a thing in the end.  So I did my very best to convince the PayPal customer service people not to send this matter over to their dark side, collections.  I assured PayPal I valued their service as a longstanding client and the journey faster home their mistake had given me, and that within 90 days or so I would resolve the negative balance.

All of this fell on deaf PayPal bureaucratic ears.  Within days of my trying to reason with PayPal for a little time, and we are talking days!, not the usual weeks or months that even heartless banks use before sending an overdraft to collections, I began getting a dozen collections calls per day.  Day and night, Saturdays, Sundays, holidays, the PayPal collection robot clogged up my cell phone.

LOL, the PayPal collection robot is calling right now as I write!  Good thing I have a musical ring tone I enjoy.

Still, I felt grateful to PayPal and broke my normal policy to talk to their in-house collection people.  Several times, these past few weeks since all this nonsense began, I offered the PayPal collection folk free advertising on the hit DreamShield.org website until they were paid in full.  I even researched the email for the PayPal president and sent a friendly offer to do the best to work this out.  No response came back from either the PayPal president’s office or his dark side collections people.  Sponsor spots have sold for thousands for our popular project.  So my offer was a creative solution to the problem PayPal caused. But no dice.

Despite $600 of precious cash that went into my PayPal in the midst of this debt vortex, my tight money that should have been a sign of good faith since my returning from Antarctica, PayPal, after less than 30 days from the overdraft which they caused, turned my account over to an OUTSIDE collections agency.  Such a waste of $600 in tight times that it stings like salt in a wound.

PayPal’s collection process, which now goes on my credit report, I worried, had undone 4 years of hard work I have spent rebuilding my credit rating after the recession hit me so hard in 2009 that I lost my car and apartment.  Perhaps it’s just as well.  Why rebuild a credit rating when I hate debt so much?   More meditation matter.

UPDATE 5/28/13 : PAYPAL REPAID

About 30 days longer than I promised I finally had the dough to repay PayPal.  But after 4 months of their collection agency calls days and night I was angry and thought of stiffing the unsympathetic giant or at least letting it slide.   But in my meditations the ET angels were quick in response as PayPal was a tool in completing the mission of gentle 2012, intentional or otherwise.  Angels also said I must do this with no expectation of kindness from PayPal who has frozen my account.  I paid off the balance to the PayPal collection agency today, 5/28/13.  Hard one but I’ve learned to trust the ET angels of DreamShield as guides.  Also, PayPal had not turned it to collections but for some odd reason it was never reported to my credit does not appear damaged by this.  Sheesh.  ET Angels sure work is weird ways.  But alls well that ends well. And it feels great to honr the vital work of the Antarctica mission by repaying PayPal for their Unintentional Sponsorship.

Oh, another thing.  I have a dear client whose house burned to the ground while I was in Antarctica.  So he is understandably two months behind on paying me for my social media services. He lost his credit cards in the fire, but more importantly a dog.  He and his wife and kids barely escaped with their lives. 

I behaved the way I’d like a company like PayPal to behave. I told my client to forget about the bill until he’s back on his feet.   It’s a small start on the road to compassion in business.  And his past due bill will never be turned over to a collection agency.

Below is my 1990’s skyscraper project I am still paying for in my life.  Stay out of debt, friends. Cash or barter for your needs.  The old ways are sometimes the best ways.