What a fucking joke these people are.
So I see them mentioned in a thread here. I figure, hey, a quick cheap fix for the occasional article and I can chose the level of writing.

So I sign up for the account and then find I need to keep a deposit on hand in an account. Similar to your adwords type of arrangement. No worries.
Not having any dealings with them I drop a hundred bucks in and send in my request for a few articles.

12 hours later I get an email from some chick saying,

Hello xxxx,
Thank you for your interest in Textbroker. We received your payment and your text orders. To protect your credit card / Paypal account, we would like you to verify that this payment was made with your consent.

As mentioned on our site, we verify orders either with a phone call or an e-mail. If we have a valid phone number for you, we will try to contact you on Monday. We do not have anyone in the office during the weekends so if you would like to verify your account right away, please forward us a scan of your picture ID. It can be a passport or drivers license.

You can reach us Monday through Friday from 9am to 4pm PST by phone at +1 (702) 534-3832 or by Skype at textbroker.verification.

The orders will be on hold until we receive your verification.

Thank you for your patience,
Textbroker Support

So I'm thinking well this is a first. I place an order via paypal and the merchant needs to speak to me or follow up with an email? WTF??

Okay so they emailed me to confirm. So I replied saying, yes I placed the orders. Then I identified the articles by name and said, please expedite this.

So this morning I get THIS fucking email:

Hello xxxx,

We do not have anyone in the office during the weekends so if you would like to verify your account right away, please forward us a scan of your picture ID. It can be a passport or drivers license.

We won't be able to release your orders to our authors until the verification process is completed.

Please understand that we have implemented this process to protect our clients and us from fraudulent charges.

Thank you for your patience and understanding,

Textbroker Support

Scan my fucking id for a $50 order online???

So I replied,

Hello,
You are telling me that after placing an order on what I assumed was a secure server, via Paypal who has all my banking information, you want me to send a scan of my drivers license?
That is not only absurd, your "reason" is pathetic.
If I order from ANYONE, online, whether it be Amazon, Ebay or some mom and pop online store they don't ask for a scan of my id. I have to admit that this is a first.
In fact, I have had a merchant account for an ecommerce site for over 12 years and I have never even dreamed about asking a customer to send a scan of an id for them to make a purchase, let alone AFTER the purchase was made.

I'm sorry but no, I WILL NOT understand that you have "implemented this process to protect our clients and us from fraudulent charges".
I have to say that this pretty much takes the cake.

CANCEL MY ORDERS AND MY ACOUNT, REFUND MY PAYPAL, IMMEDIATELY AND PLEASE REPLY VIA EMAIL THAT THIS HAS BEEN DONE.

Message to texbr0kers - GET WITH THE 21ST CENTURY

I find textlinkbrokers too highly rated. I'm sure you can find quite good writers right here on BHW or by doing some homework without having all this hassle.

But the process sounds completely stupid! At a time when you have ecommerce sites creating membership by even your facebook acc!

Strange, I never had to send a copy of my passport or DL. But, they did call me soon after I made my order to "give advice on submissions".

It's because a lot of people use faked PayPal accounts to buy small orders.
For the large shops like Amazon it is no Problem if they lose 50$.
But If it's a small company and they get scamed every day, It rounds up very quick.

There are a lot of american services doing this right now, I assume its due to some new law?

Anyway you did the right thing, PayPal was invented exactly for this purpose - making your online life easier. And if they cant understand that simple fact, they have no right to survive.