Is it just me, or is PayPal a nightmare for everyone?

[oursin]

I've just been trying to pay somebody via PayPal. It's practically impossible to find any link on their website that lets you pay off a credit card without having an account.

PayPal claims that I have an account with them. When I do the stuff like getting a new password (because I certainly don't remember any one I created earlier) and log into my account, and try to make the payment, I'm informed that my account is not verified and so I can't make payments.

I also, I discover, can't delete my account or remove my credit card details unless the account is verified.

Allegedly they sent me a letter with a Sekkrit Code in some while ago. Either, by that time, I'd given up on the whole thing, or possibly never got it at all. This after the bit where I click on a link about how to verify my account which wants me to link it to my bank account. Yeah, right.

At some point a link appears saying 'No PayPal Account? Pay with your credit card'.

This throws a hissy fit when I try to pay with the card I have before me, which is the one associated with my limbo account, but I pick another one and eventually get it done.

I get a message saying access to my account is limited because of suspected access by a third party (this would be me trying to use the credit card, I guess), but the case number they give me comes up 'You do not have any cases that match the case ID you entered'.

Looking at my profile, apparently I first attempted to create an account in 2003. I seem to remember enormous runarounds involved, which is why I let the whole thing drop, then and on a couple of other occasions.

And every time I have to do with them, I ask myself, why bother? But they make it so difficult to pay via one's credit card without signing up, it's maddening.

Comments

[thera-flu.livejournal.com]

Nightmare. I don't use it very often either, and I had switched home computers between uses, so no stored passwords. I even looked at my cheat sheet that I had copied from the old computer, and Paypal still hated me. I had to do the trick of using a different card too.

[intertext.livejournal.com]

Paypal has simplified a lot in the last year or so, and I think the problems you're having originate with the fact you signed up quite a while ago. If I were you, I'd just create a new account and start from scratch. I remember having all kinds of problems in the beginning, but have had none recently.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

I think I once tried to create a new account, and they told me I already had one, so I have had this endless loop of trying to validate that.

[egretplume.livejournal.com]

I didn't even realize it was possible to use paypal without having an account.
That said, I have used my account with them for years with only very minor glitches.
I thought the benefit was guarding my financial info from the vendor, not from Paypal itself, so I didn't worry about letting Paypal access my bank.
But good luck -- it does sound annoying!

[owlfish]

Paypal is special. To reactivate an account and thus update its information to make it usable, I needed the number on a long-expired credit card in order to prove my identity. Amazingly, I eventually dug it up - but I would never count on being able to do so.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Part of my saga involved them needing to ring me at my home address to verify that I was a real person - unfortunately they did this at a time when normal people in the UK are at work. I think they may have got very slightly less difficult for non-US residents.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

Paypal *is* a nightmare for everyone. I've run into the 'you need to verify' problem - only that I never got the letter either, and I never managed to verify it in any other way. I've asked them to give me the opportunity... but they have not answered. By now, enough time has passed that I can use it for small sums again... but happy I was not.

[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

I haven't had any problems using either credit card or bank account with Paypal. however, I've only been using it in the past year or so.

Before that, I had heard many horror stories from users outside of the US. I think that at first, the service made things very difficult for those without US addresses or bank accounts outside the US to use all of its functions.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Yes, the original problems were to do with the outside the US thing. They now seem to have accepted that there are people with credible financial arrangements in Europe (they even have a co.uk website) but still seem to require a massive runaround to get an account actually working.

[glaurung-quena.livejournal.com]

If you can't find a link to delete your account so you can start over, contact their customer service using the form on the website and explain the situation. That has always worked for me when something on their website was too obtuse for me to figure out.

As morgan_dhu said, unfortunately, they are a very US-centric company and they do not always have things set up to work as smoothly in other nations.

One thing, though -- I understand your not wanting to share your bank info with them. However, they really, really want you to link your account with them to your bank account, because then they can arm twist you into sending money from your bank account (which doesn't cost them anything) rather than from your credit card (where they have to pay fees). So they make it much easier to get everything to work with them if you allow them to know your bank info. So your frustration & difficulties are unfortunately at least partly things they're making deliberately hard as part of their Evil Plan to get you to do business with them via a bank account rather than a credit card.

[hafren.livejournal.com]

So they make it much easier to get everything to work with them if you allow them to know your bank info.

Bugger that for a game of soldiers! I didn't realise that was what they were doing. Damned if I give them my bank info. Amazon manage without it.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

That bank vs credit card thing strikes me weirdly since I've just returned from US trip in which hotels had warning notices up saying you should use credit rather than debit card to pay and latter accrued penalty payments.

Also, everything I ever seem to learn about banking system in US as compared to Europe boggles me.

[hafren.livejournal.com]

Yes, I get all of this and have given up trying to use it.