Paypal nightmare.......

O

onekeano

Registered User
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I bought a product on eBay at the weekend - nothing unusual in that.

Went to pay for it and was directed thru Paypal - so far so good. Then I was asked for my Paypal code and I clicked on the "what's that" button and found out it is the 4 digit number beside the work PayPal on my credit card bill. I copied and pasted that number into the code with no joy. I tried again twice later with no success.

I got on the phone to Paypal and was told they had disabled my card because it had failed 3 times. I told them what I had done and they said "yes very sorry but youneed to use another card". I told them I didn't have but she just kept saying sorry when I asked her how I was expected top pay for this item.

I asked to speak to a manager but was told "managers don't take up these issues". I asked to speak witha supervisor and after a whilewas put through to be told my address was causing the problem (after years of using eBay and Paypal now my address is the problem !!!). When I expressed my exasperation she changed tack and told me it was because my credit limt was only €142 and this transaction exceeded this. When I told her I had previously spend €3-5000 at a time she backtracked and said "oh no, your limit is €14,000".

So then she said " very sorry but you will have to use a new credit card" - I told her I didn't have one and she said "sorry, system can't be amended... sorry".

I genuinely don't have another credit card and certainly don't want to get another because of PayPal's incompetence. I also want to continue to use eBay which will be very limted if I don't have a PayPal account.

Is there any right of appeal via consumers association or IFSRA to get my account re enabled as I don't see why I should pay €30 or €40 extra per year just to overcomes PayPal's intransigence?

Roy
 
onekeano said:
... When I expressed my exasperation she changed tack and told me it was because my credit limt was only €142 and this transaction exceeded this. When I told her I had previously spend €3-5000 at a time she backtracked and said "oh no, your limit is €14,000"...
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How would someone in PayPal know the credit limit which is agreed between you and the credit-card company?

For normal day-to-day stuff all PayPal or any other payees need to know is that your credit-limit isn't exceeded by the current transaction(s).

It sounds a bit odd to me.
 
That's the limit on my Paypal account apparently - which would be different to my credit card limit. It must be based on some previous transaction history or something like that?

Roy
 
I had the exact same problem.. several years ago. So it's nice to know that paypal care.

I tried to work the situation by stating that it's unfair that a computerised system can ban cards for no good reason and that the computers decision can't be overridden by humans.. wrote to the UK financial regulator about it.. no joy.

Paypal don't care about Irish customers... they insist that your address meets a certain format which is impossible with Irish addresses...

JHegarty, you mention that they are a private company... but they can't discriminate surely? They are not treating everyone the same... I entered in my address exactly as it appears on my bill, yet my card was banned and I was called a criminal by the computer. This has never happened, not once with any other retailer, either online or in the real world.

Keep in mind that Paypal put in place the system that they use.. they choose to let a computer ban a card for life because the address was apparently entered incorrectly.. despite the fact that the address was accurate.. and this lifetime ban cannot be overridden by a human. Now I know that loan applications cannot be decided by computers alone, so I tried that tack with the UK financial regulator.. with no joy.

My experience was over two years ago.. and seemingly nothing has changed.


MB05.. no, you cannot open another account.. it's the card that's banned, not the user. You might be able to get a new card from your card company with a new number, this might work. But in my case it would make no difference... I couldn't enter my address in such a way that the computer would accept it as being the same as my card address.. this is because of a different number of mandatory fields in the Paypal address format.. so i'm forever screwed... a human would easily accept that the addresses are the same.. not a stupid computer though.. completely unfair and stoopid system in my opinion... and yes, Paypal are choosing to use this system.. the 'system' itself can't be blamed.. Paypal themselves should be blamed.
 
This is a security issue , and you have to trust Paypal , as they must ensure all transactions are safe .

If , as you say , you have been using eBay and Paypal for years , then you should have confirmed your address and paypal a/c using this 4 digit code , a long time ago.
 
eh.... if YOU used paypal regularly you would probably know that in the VAST majority of cases you don't need to use this code. And for the record, again, I input the code as required by Paypal from my credit card.

Roy
 
Paypal are a nightmare and 'customer service' is full of drones who are simply not allowed to make a decision based on the 'system'. It is the worst, most inflexible, incompetent service ever but unfortunately there is no real alternative out there as yet and if there was, ebay (who owns paypal) wouldn't allow us to use it.
Your best bet is to use a prepaid card like 3v or wirecard as your existing card will be impossible to use now once paypal have banned it.
Best of luck
 
JoeBallantin said:
JHegarty, you mention that they are a private company... but they can't discriminate surely? They are not treating everyone the same...
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They can unless it's becuase one of the ground for illegal discrimination (race, religion..etc..)
 
It takes 'Computer says no' to a whole new level! You would think that you could answer a few security questions or provide further proof of your identity to get around this. I have never heard of an organisation having a system that cannot be manually overwritten by a superuser.
 
JoeBallantin said:
I couldn't enter my address in such a way that the computer would accept it as being the same as my card address.. this is because of a different number of mandatory fields in the Paypal address format..
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I'm just wondering if this is to do with the zip code?
I don't use paypal but in other situations where a zip is mandatory I input 0000 or similar and it works fine.
 
Mommah said:
I'm just wondering if this is to do with the zip code?
I don't use paypal but in other situations where a zip is mandatory I input 0000 or similar and it works fine.
Click to expand...

Mommah said:
I'm just wondering if this is to do with the zip code?

I don't use paypal but in other situations where a zip is mandatory I input 0000 or similar and it works fine.
Click to expand...





Nope nothinjg to do with the zip code - I've bought probably 100+ times on eBay mostly using Paypal but it's down to that bloody 4 digit code thingy.



MB05, couldn't agree more. I work in a much bigger IT company than Paypal and I cannot imagine a customer ringing to try to pay money to our org and us telling them "eh thanks but no thanks". It's unbelieveable that they can't do the usual 3 questions and reactivate the card.



MelF - thanks for the link - I will check out that wirecard option.....

Roy
 
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