My legal fight is paid for entirely by my government, which is great because it's their fault I'm in it

I knew the guy that produced the Meatloaf album, signed a distribution deal with SONY, then spent 20 years suing them to get his money.

He finally won, SONY settled, and I saw him less than a week later. I asked him how much he got, of course, and he couldn't tell me, but said that it was "More money than I ever thought I'd see in my lifetime."

Then I asked him if it was worth it, and he said it was, but it was still a hard road: "I got divorced, went bankrupt twice, became an alcoholic a few times, and constantly wondered if it was all worth it, but I finally won."

He seemed pleased at his win, but not celebratory. I think he was happier that it was finally over, and he had something substantial to show for it.

So he got his credits on the album, and a LOT of money, but within a couple of years, he was back to suing SONY, because they STILL weren't sending him his royalties.

I once knew someone at SONY, and I tapped him for a contact for a friend I knew with a great band, and he said "If this guy is truly your friend, don't let him sign with SONY. We've got two floors of lawyers whose entire job is to fuck people over."

And a documentary called Whatever It Takes: Inside the eBay Scandal

great podcast!

Swindled did too https://pca.st/episode/40fcefc5-c541-4e00-be64-7e6f624bd4b1

That's the one episode I haven't been able to listen to. The video was so traumatic as a young kid. Haunting.

Back in the early 2000s, I had a pretty good eBay biz started, but I had to quit it because between eBay and PayPal, I couldn't get any traction. They were constantly suspending my account for a few days, or a week, or a month. I wasn't doing anything wrong, and I could never get a straight answer on why, because EVERYTHING was automated, with canned email answers to every question, that didn't explain anything.

Near as I could tell, a competitor must have been complaining that my listings were counterfeit or bootleg or something, which wasn't the case. I could be wrong, I really have no idea why they were targeting me.

There is also a LOT of buyer fraud, and eBay offered NO protection for sellers. We lost EVERY dispute, so fraudsters were rampant. There were certain countries I refused to ship to, because every shipment was disputed, and their money would be refunded, and I was out the item, which were all unique, collectible, one-of-a-kind, expensive items.

I was also reading a lot of stuff about people having their money accounts confiscated by eBay, or locked up for months. I didn't keep much money there, I always swept it out whenever possible, but I knew it was a matter of time before they stole my actual money, too.

On three different occasions they completely deleted my entire shop, with virtually no explanation, and I had to relist everything from scratch. The last time they did it, I just quit. I had already started another biz, because I couldn't count on eBay, so I just concentrated on that, and I'm still doing it, 18 years later.

I won't do biz with eBay or PayPal.

Definitely