As the mommy-in-charge of our (now) annual Manic Mommies Escape, Erin takes on most of the responsibility (and pressure) of making the Escape happen. She has organized the volunteers, reviewed the proposals, polled our members, and pulled together our registration. She is the one that takes care of the problems.

Last Sunday we opened the registration for our Escape to the Bahamas, and in less than a week registered (and received payments) from over 30 Escapees (woo-hoo). It is this second part, receipt of payment, which has started Erin’s latest problem because, our recent, and unusual, activity has set off alarm bells at PayPal.

Apparently when you receive nearly several thousands of dollars in less than one week, and then don’t ship anything in exchange for these funds, the fraud department at PayPal gets suspicious and shuts down your account.

So there was Erin tonight, when she was supposed to be feeding her children or giving her husband much-wanted attention, on the phone with PayPal tonight trying to explain that we were not a) running a scam, b) funding terrorists, or c) laundering money for the mob.

The good news – after reviewing our site they were not questioning the legitimacy of our organization (seriously? Even I question the legitimacy of our organization some days) – but they were considering holding onto the funds until 30 days before the Escape. This, according to Erin, would be a problem since we need to be make the reservations at the end of this month, not at the end of September. Or, they could refund everyone’s money.

You know how they say “this call may be recorded for training purposes?” Have you ever wondered if you could get a copy of that conversation? This is one of those times – I wish I could have heard this conversation as it happened. I can only imagine how calmly Erin took the news that they may not release the funds or were just going to give it back.

Over an hour later she was able to get the funds released, and the account unlocked, but was warned that if we continued to receive payments at the same rate we have been (one can hope), that we would continue to have trouble with PayPal’s Fraud Department.

Yes, that’s right, Big Brother will be watching.

So, we’re shutting down the online payment portion of our registration form – and asking future registrants to send payments by check.

And Erin? She went to the mall to buy a new pair of shoes with a gift certificate she received for her birthday.

Have fun girlfriend. You deserve it.