5 Things You Didn't Know You Could Get Banned From

Have you ever been permanently banned from a business? No, I don't need to hear the specifics, as I assume your justification for stripping naked in the McDonald's ball pit and declaring yourself King Cheeseburger is airtight. I'm just taking a poll, and a surprising number of you probably shamefully whispered "Yes."

Well, this list is to let you know that it could be worse. Unless you're one of the people I'm about to talk about, I guess.

5 You Can Get Banned From Amazon For Returning Too Much Stuff

Amazon generated about $177 billion in revenue in 2017. That's $543 for every single person in the United States. And that, in turn, is 194 Taco Bell chalupas for every citizen. Everyone uses Amazon, is what I'm saying, and most of us would be pretty much lost without it ... and shocked to find we'd been locked out of our account for taking advantage of the site's return policy.

One of the big selling points on Amazon is that you can return pretty much anything within 30 days for a refund. If you bought it from a third-party seller, then maybe you need to mail in a quiche with it or something, I don't know. But Amazon itself is littered with mentions of this return policy, and some folks found out the hard way that the company is apparently using it as some kind of bait. Because while a couple of returns will probably not upset your the apple cart, if you make a habit of sending stuff back, Amazon will kick your ass out.

Amazon gives no indication of how many returns it considers too many, but has closed some accounts for returning five or six items in the course of a year, even when there's a clear explanation for each return. This also means that if you have money on gift cards, which can be hundreds or even thousands of dollars, it's useless. What a kick in the giblets.

We have no way of knowing how often this happens, but there are whole forums dedicated to people upset that they've been shut out of Amazon, can't access their money, and are generally just unhappy that the world's richest man couldn't show a little leniency.

4 Pulling The "My Dad Works For Sony" Bit Can Get You Banned From PSN Forever

If you've ever played a game online with another human being in the last decade or so, chances are you've had an almost cartoonish number of insults, slurs, and manic curses tossed at you by children and adults alike. You've probably heard so much shit talk that you can't even imagine what it takes to get someone actually banned completely. But it can happen, and for one poor schmuck, it happened because he dusted off a version of the old "My uncle works for Nintendo!" playground boast.

Hamad Jalalie got accused of hacking by another player on Fortnite. When that player threatened to report Jalalie for shenanigans, he responded with "Bahahahahaha my dad works at Sony he will get u banned." Now, this is a classic lie in the modern age, and has evolved into a much-quoted meme. But oh shit, was Sony not about this. It turns out that part of the Terms of Service you agree to (but obviously never read) when you sign up for the PlayStation Network says that "pretending to be, or by association able to influence, an employee of Sony, its affiliates or 3rd party partners is against our code of conduct."

So, without any discussion or additional violations, Jalalie's account was ended outright, with no access to multiplayer features, the PlayStation Store, or future futile remakes of Crash Bandicoot. Plus, they included in their initial message that this could never be overturned, ever, until the Sun swallows the Earth.

3 Lying About Climbing Everest Gets You A Countrywide Climbing Ban

Are you the kind of person who lists "climbing Mount Everest" as a life goal? That is adorable. Did you know it costs $11,000 to get the permits to do that? It's true. And you also have to follow some strict mountaineering rules, or the government of Nepal will run hog wild on you and ban you from every mountain in the country for an entire goddamned decade. These strict rules include "Don't lie about climbing Mt. Everest."

Of course, lots of these bans are based on safety or skirting fees and permits. A Polish climber received a ten-year ban for not getting the correct permit first. (He'd ascended the peak on the Chinese side and had a Chinese permit, but got sick of the view over there and came down the Nepali side. Or, you know, he was running short on oxygen and hoped to find help in Nepal.) Another climber from South Africa got banned for trying to sneak up the mountain with no permit at all, and also no experience climbing mountains. Two climbers got banned because they had a permit that only permitted climbing and not skiing, and yet they decided to ski instead of climb at one point. That kind of thing.

But then you've got the Indian couple who were banned for faking their climb. The pair, who are also police officers, doctored photos of someone else's climb to make it look like they reached the peak, and the Nepalese government went full Yeti by tossing the same ten-year ban at them that everyone else gets. Keep in mind, these people did pay the $11,000 for permits and actually did climb the mountain, just not all the way. The reason seems to be reputation-based. Climbing Everest is some important, inspirational shit, and you can't have just anyone posting it on their LinkedIn profile.

2 You Can Get Banned From All City Properties For Complaining Too Much

It's one thing to get banned from a Chuck E. Cheese for a drunken act you don't even remember until you see the video go viral the next day, but what does it take to get banned by a city government? Is that even a thing? Apparently, because it's what Statham, Georgia is doing to Catherine Corkren, on the charge of being incredibly annoying.

Corkren had made it a habit to attend every single city council meeting in Statham, founded by the great Jason Statham . The town has a population of under 3,000, and Corkren isn't one of them. She lives in Atlanta, which is over 50 miles away. But for 18 months, she attended all of their meetings, filed over 100 requests for documents at City Hall, and shit on the local politicians on social media. This was all because in 2015, Corkren's former partner, who has since passed, was stopped in Statham on a traffic violation, which turned into a legal battle that Corkren is carrying on.

In September 2018, Statham City Council voted to ban Corkren from showing up at any more meetings, or in fact setting foot on any city property, even though Corkren hasn't been charged with any crime. They just couldn't take it anymore.

Honestly, the whole story plays out like a movie that should star Rachel McAdams and involve allegations of police corruption to pad the city budget, with a power-mad mayor who rules his tiny town with an iron fist. It's compelling shit. But the matter also waiting for someone with more authority to weigh in. Corkren has sued the town over the ban, as you can imagine.

1 If You Screw With A National Park, You'll Get Banned From 20 Percent Of The USA

Do you take advantage of national parks very often? They're pretty majestic. Great Smoky Mountains National Park, with its great, smoky mountains. Rocky Mountain National Park, with its rocky mountains. Jellystone with its plentiful pic-a-nic baskets. Be a shame if someone shit all over those places with rampant graffiti, huh?

Back in 2016, some nature enthusiasts began to take notice of unwanted artwork in a number of national parks across the country. Someone had been using acrylic paint to tag rocks in places like Death Valley, Crater Lake, and Canyonlands, Land of the Canyons. The artist was Casey Nocket, and she basically sucked on a structural level. She sucked so much that other people who had seen her art went online and managed to track her down. That's a thing you can do to someone who is dumb enough to sign their graffiti, as Nocket had.

Redditors found Nocket's Instagram, which detailed more images, along with her admission that she was a bad person. She was reported to the National Park Service, which then banned her from every national park in the country. That ban covers any land under the National Park Service, the Forest Service, and other agencies, which works out to some 550 million acres. That's literally a fifth of the land mass of the USA that this woman is no longer allowed to enter. That's like being banned from an entire region of the country. Imagine being such a dick that the government just tells you, "Yeah, you're not allowed back in the Midwest. Ever."

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