PayPal clowns

If you've ever had to deal with the luddites at PayPal, then you'll probably know exactly what I mean.

Ever since arriving in Uruguay over 3 months ago, I seem to have encountered problems with PayPal. My account with PayPal in the UK worked flawlessly up until this point but as soon as I bought some memory from a bloke in Hong Kong - it all went pear-shaped. Their anti-fraud system on autopilot kicked in and limited access to my account, more than likely based on figuring out that I was making payments from a Uruguayan IP rather than a UK one. Ooooh - how dangerous that was of me! Logging in to both my Ebay account and PayPal account and buying some stuff. Inane logic as operated by PayPal.

After about 2 weeks of no memory, I then discovered when I logged into my PayPal account that access was 'limited'. Their decision - not mine, and one obviously based on flawed logic. They deemed it a requirement that I answer 3 questions successfully, one of which was a phone call to my home address asking for the code displayed on my web browser. Despite frantic efforts on my part to get the person living at my address in the UK to answer the phone and quote the code, it was impossible to do. They now want a utility bill sent to them to prove I live there. Good idea in practice, but here is where their logic goes a bit mental.

They've never verified I live at that address anyway! Never received any postal mail or correspondence. SO how can they now accept a document from me (2 years after opening my account, I hasten to add) proving that is my address? It's never been an address that's been verified by the clowns at PayPal.

Hence, we go round in circles. And again. It is now 3 months since they took it upon themselves to lock the account. They owe me money which is mine, and this is something I intend to escalate very rapidly when I return to the UK for a short visit, hopefully in a month or two. IN other words, small claims court request for monies owed.

So much for this global society we live in, eh?


Oh, and their website design is tosh. Makes it as difficult as possible for you to contact them, and then only via some pitiful webform. Respond to an email from them and you then get an email saying they only accept stuff from the website. WHY ON God's green earth did they send me the email in the first place?

Not happy.

JG