Tuesday 25 March 2014

Paypal have gone all BIG BROTHER on me

I have been told that my paypal account has been frozen until I produce photo ID, my drivers licence, my national ID card or my passport!

I do not have a photo drivers licence, or National ID card. I do have a passport (which I am loathed to photocopy and sent to anyone), but wonder why they should need such information when then already have postal address details and bank account details.

I have opened a resolution case to see if there is any thing even remotely like CUSTOMER SERVICE.

Until it is resolved, I cannot access MY MONEY, but surprise, surprise I can still put money into the account (an account that I cannot access).

And in case you are wondering - This is not a SPAM e-mail. If it was I would just delete it and carry on, this is even worse, a formal e-mail from Paypal. Oh where is the world going when you cannot access your own money and the only way to contact anyone with a query is via drop down boxed - that have no relation at all to the query you want you discuss.

Rant over.

Tony

Update;
Within minutes I get an automatic e-mail giving me details of how I can resolve this issue. The only problem. The drop down boxes do not have a section for resolving this issue, so you have to just re-write another e-mail explaining why I have no photo ID or do not want to send passport ID.

In short - going round and round in circles.

Get your act together Paypal!

7 comments:

J Womack, Esq. said...

Meanwhile, here in the States, you must now show photo ID to deposit cash into your bank account, even in small amounts. And the person depositing must be signatory on the account. Therefore, my son, who is 18, can not just drop off some money into my bank account for me. Nor can I, his father, just drop cash into his account when he goes off to college. It's a bothersome invasion of my privacy, if you ask me, violating my 4th Amendment rights to privacy in my person and papers.

Tony said...

Has anyone else ever tried to contact Paypal? You just keep getting useless e-mails giving you lots of drop down options - none of which have any relation to your initial query, or and I think this may be the only way to deal with it - you have to call them by phone (I wonder how much that will cost me?)

Chris Stoesen said...

They do have a phone number to access. I am not sure if they have an international toll free. The number for outside the US that I found was: 1-402-935-2050 (if calling from outside the U.S.)

You have to go to the bottom of the paypal page and go to their contact us page. They give you a onetime passcode for the call that expires in 60 minutes. The one that popped on mine was 115602. Try that and see if it helps.

My troubles were with Ebay and not paypal but it took a long time to resolve.

PaintPig said...

Just as an aside I always report paypal scams to paypal (some have been very good of late), I think it is important to nip the scammers in the bud.

I have contacted them re an unauthorised withdrawl but that was relatively easy (well I thought it was). For totally oblivious of customers try contacting ebay.

Hope you get it sorted soon mate we don't want any holdups with the new book.

Steve said...

Had this a while back and got it sorted. It is because of money laundering regulations to ensure you are a real person not some drug gang account! If you attach a credit card and (high street) bank account to your Pay Pal account, that usually works.

Stefan (aka. Monty) said...

Hmmm.... That sounds strange.
Fortunately I haven't had such problem until now. Kepping my fingers crossed that you'll be able to have yours solved soon, mate!

Cheers
Stefan

Tony said...

After nearly a week, the account has been reinstated. I would like to say that Paypal have been a great help - They have not, but instead just dictated that I must supply this information before the account would be opened again.

Then when the account was opened, I had another message from Paypal, saying that I could not transfer any money as my credit card had expired.

I get the very real feeling that paypal are doing all they can to hang onto my money while both ignoring my requests and putting up one obstacle after another.

Paypal have a monopoly position when it comes to E-bay and as a monopoly seem to think that CUSTOMER SERVICE is not required or needed.

Come the revolution!

I'd like to say all is back to normal - it is not, but more importantly this episode has seriously dented my trust in this banking institution.

Tony