It appears PayPal is yet again targeting Proof Products USA, a veteran-owned conservative e-commerce company. According to the company’s owner, Dana Peters, the mega financial technology corporation is withholding funds from Proof Products USA’s subsidiary metal fabric shop, “Milspin,” until the online store removes several listings of brass knuckles. In a press release, Proof Products USA stated that it “will not comply.”
In an email Peters shared with The Federalist, PayPal reportedly wrote, “A recent review of your account activity identified products/services on your website violate PayPal’s Acceptable Use Policy. Specifically, brass paperweight” is Brass knuckles are not allowed. are associated with https://milspin.com/collections/solid-metal-paperweights and are not permitted on our platform (sic).” The email continues, stating that Proof Product USA’s “account has been limited temporarily” and that to resolve the issue Proof Products USA must either “remove” the brass knuckles listings or “remove or deactivate PayPal as a payment option for the violating items outlined above.”
This isn’t the first time PayPal has allegedly withheld funds from Proof Products USA. In 2021, Peters said that PayPal kept $90,000 from “Fake Masks Worldwide,” a different subsidiary online store of Proof Products USA, for selling “breathable masks.”
Fake Masks Worldwide wrote in a November, 23rd press release: “The left leaning meat wallet organization of PayPal strikes again. They want us to delete all the products they don’t agree with from our website. So they’ve locked the account and are withholding all funds until we comply. We will not comply. Nerds. Any orders that were paid for via PayPal will still be fulfilled, because we aren’t thieves and we put our customers first, unlike PayPal.”
Peters says PayPal never stated what rule exactly Proof Products USA violated in either instance. “I dug really deep into their terms last year,” Peters told The Federalist. “[PayPal’s rules] are so vaguely written that it could be one of a dozen different things that would violate their terms. Basically, anything you’re selling, they can justify as violating their terms.” The Federalist repeatedly reached out to PayPal to ask which specific rule Proof Products USA violated in both instances but received no response.
Peters explained that when PayPal first targeted his company, it came with a canceling avalanche. “Within a matter of two weeks,” said Peters, his store’s advertising was banned on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, and he was also punished by PayPal, Shopify, and even his domain host. “It was just one after the other,” stated Peters. “We had to build a whole brand new website with a different URL. … It was crippling and cut our revenue down by half.” Eventually, Peters brought in lawyers to recover his original URL and the $90,000 PayPal was withholding from his company.
When asked why Proof Products USA still uses PayPal after the first round of targeting, Peters told The Federalist that he’s kept PayPal for his various brands (except his “Fake Masks” site) since “a ton of people trust PayPal to pay for things on the internet because they know if they did get scammed, PayPal will return their money. Whereas a credit card or debit card might not.”
After the 2021 debacle, though, Peters has been sure to frequently drain his PayPal account, in case the e-commerce corporation decided to withhold his funds a second time. This is why Peters says the amount PayPal is reportedly withholding today is much less than the $90,000 PayPal kept from Proof Products USA in 2021.
Peters speculates that the initial domino effect of canceling was thanks to a scathing Snopes article that blasted any company allowing Fake Masks Worldwide to use its platform or services. Snopes was particularly enraged that Fake Masks Worldwide was advertising breathable masks to school children.
Snopes, the “fact-checking” website known for habitual lying, reached out to nearly every social media platform used by Fake Masks Worldwide, Google ads, and the company’s domain host, successfully pressuring each one to ban or cut ties with Fake Masks Worldwide. “We relied so heavily on paid Facebook marketing to drive our business,” Peters divulged, “and last year, they banned us permanently for life without any chance of having it reviewed.”
When Snopes requested a comment from Fake Masks Worldwide at the time, the company responded: “We (Fake Mask USA), ask that you (& all political elites) politely f-ck off, & allow us to operate our business in peace — UNCENCORED — on American soil. We will never apologize for helping Americans breathe.”
PayPal came under fire recently for introducing a new policy feature that would have permitted it to dish out $2,500 fines any time it decided a user was spreading “misinformation.” The company quickly walked back the policy after subsequent backlash, but, clearly, from Peter’s story, that does not mean PayPal is a reliable payment processor for the millions of small business owners who depend on it. Worse yet, the alternatives to PayPal are pretty abysmal.
As The Federalist’s Samuel Mangold-Lenett explains, “The whole of the American economy (and therefore, by association the collective industrial West) is mission focused on creating a geopolitical order in which various industries — controlled by members of the managerial elite and secular left — are able to superimpose their will on people by manipulating global markets.” Unfortunately, for business owners like Peters, “there is a massive void” not yet “filled by ‘conservative alternatives’ to [the current financial] institutions…”
“We upset a lot of people with our typical marketing,” said Peters, “But I think once you get angry enough at the left, they will just relentlessly try and get you canceled away.”
Ultimately, though, it doesn’t matter how angered the left is by your messaging. Global economic and social control desired by the people who attend the World Economic Forum and advocate for things like stakeholder capitalism cannot be attained if everyday citizens are allowed to own businesses with products and missions that exist outside the leftist worldview. “They’re destroying businesses entirely,” said Peters, “and, ultimately, they’re destroying people’s jobs and lives.”
