Your suggestions, please (Patreon)

With all the delayed updates done, now please allow me to get something off my chest.

With a heavy heart, I have to announce that I was banned from Paypal permanently without a reason. (But this Patreon is still running cos I'm not using it to withdraw money) How it all started was through a poll I made on DA, and most of the viewers said that they prefer Gumroad to Lulu. But to sell with my artist name and not my real name on Gumroad, I'd have to create a Paypal Business Account, which I did. And that's when it all went downhill.

Just after two test transactions, one for the Battle of Traditions and the other for All for a Friend, I was suddenly sent an email saying that I had activity that violated their Terms of Service. I don't know if these purchases triggered this ban, because my account was banned the day before and it was restored after I called them. But I can't find any other reason than to suspect the two purchases. Thing is, my works don't feature any nudity and if you bought All for a Friend, you'd see that there's nothing overtly sexual. The only thing is that they're in bikinis, so apparently Paypal thinks that's wrong. I know that bikinis are illegal in the Victorian Era, so this coming from 21st-century Paypal made me shocked, angry and disappointed. And the Paypal staff I spoke to said that this would be final. My only last resort is to a file a report on bbb.org, but I'm not getting my hopes high.

There are artists who sell straight-up porn on Paypal and still get by day to day, yet Paypal chose me of all people. This means that I will now have to wait every 3 months to get my Lulu money and I'll have to close down my Pixiv Booth store. The latter...probably won't affect me that much since I discovered DLSite which seems to be the no.1 shop for my Pixiv viewers - and I've noticed that the Japanese Pixiv artists don't even use Pixiv Booth themselves. But it hurts. It still hurts.

If you've been in a similar predicament like mine, I'd greatly appreciate any advice you may have. Surely, Paypal isn't the world. But this has got me so paranoid that I'll have to find alternative ways and means to get my money, lest another medium decides to freeze things out of nowhere.

Do you think that a direct bank transfer works better than e-payment processors? If you have any experience, please let me know.

Thanks for hearing out my rant. In a bit of a mess now.