The short version? Accepting payments internationally is effing hard and effing expensive and the risk of fraud and other illegal activities is astronomical. Paypal does it head and tails better than any other organization.

I do agree. But I feel this complaint is different to the "I started making money and Paypal suspended my account" complaints that are normally posted.

It's the repeat nature - asking for the same documentation over and over again - that's so annoying here.

It's not really repeat nature. It's the same account, but it's for a short period of time each year which would seem suspicious to me, when they claim it's a conference they say the following:

"4/ Our bank statements are none of your business. 5/ The details of our venue agreement and insurance are also none of your business."

So they're refusing to prove it's a conference but requesting that Paypal are "reasonable"? Having your account verified once and then go dormant in payment receipt for the majority of the year then start again would seem suspicious to me... especially when their justification isn't something they're willing to prove.

Well I can't speak for the organisers, I'm just someone who attends.

But they have proved that they are a conference for the same dates for the previous three years.

And the implication is that Paypal are asking for more documentation than previous years ("the documentation you are asking for this year...").

What guarantees are paypal offering on handling their bank statements?

Even assuming paypal aren't crooks - is doing this OK with the Scottish Data Protection Act, Charities commission or Company registration?

What do people think of google checkout? Do they have a better record of not pulling this shit?

Supports a smaller number of countries for payments than Paypal, very few countries can be account holders who take money (eg: you can pay via GC from Sweden, but you can't be Swedish and take money via Google Checkout) and Google don't have a history of customer service, do they? :p

I've actually had worse customer support with GC (who froze our account with 30k with no support phone line to call) than Paypal (their phone lines are up until 11pm PT).