The big news going on in “the industry” right now is that PayPal has frozen a couple of paid-to-read-email programs’ PayPal accounts, claiming that they are MLM (multi-level marketing, aka pyramid or ponzi) schemes. This happened to a few sites a while back and created quite a hubbub. “It’s the end of PTRs! The sky is falling!” It blew over without affecting other programs, though, and life went back to normal. What makes this scare a little different, though, is that not only did PayPal freeze a couple of PTR sites’ accounts, they also froze a few of their users’ accounts. Ewww. Now it’s getting ugly. Some interesting reading on this (thanks for the link, Val!) is here: http://tinyurl.com/97azx It’s a huge post, but if you read the first couple of pages and the last couple, you’ll probably know all you need. Bottom line: although it appears they’re going after programs that have paid upgrades, and primarily the programs themselves and not the users, JUST IN CASE, it might not be a bad idea to transfer any “excess” PayPal in your account to your bank account until this situation plays out.
