Firstly, you've got it backwards. Paypal takes a cut of the merchant's revenues for virtually passing the money from the consumer to the merchant; therefore, t

Firstly, you've got it backwards. Paypal takes a cut of the merchant's revenues for virtually passing the money from the consumer to the merchant; therefore, the merchant is PayPal's customer, and the consumers the necessary evil. Secondly, PayPal didn't simply say "stop that". They gave him the runaround, froze unrelated accounts, and stonewalled him when he tried to make whatever accommodations would please them. That they were rude and condescending during all of this only adds insult to injury. "Don't ever use PayPal" is really a reasonable reaction to these sorts of stories. When a seemingly legitimate transaction can unexpectedly invite the fury of paypal's overzealous fraud protection drones, how could the reaction be anything but?