Thanks, Pal!

Last Updated on: 7th November 2013, 10:33 am

Truth be told, this is Steve’s post to write. It happened to him, I was just watching. But, he’s too mad to write it, plus he’s making me lunch. So I figured the least I could do was scream on his behalf.

Everybody probably knows about PayPal, right? It’s this service where you punch in your credit card number, a bank account if ya want, and your address and stuff and then associate it with a login and from then on, you can buy stuff just by logging in, specifying how much money you want to send to another person with an account and hitting the pay button. People who use EBay love this thing, so much that EBay bought it. So what do you think PayPal’s main objectives are? From their cute little buttons that appear everywhere, they say it’s fast, free and secure. Well, I won’t question them on the secure part, that’s for sure. Here’s why.

As we’ve been saying a lot lately, well me anyway, we just moved. So, you know what happens when you move. You have to remember to tell every frickin body who sends you mail about your new address. So, among the other six zillion places we had to call and visit, we both happily went to PayPal and merrily changed our address. When we finished telling it all the new stuff, it said, “Thank you.” We assumed that meant everything went off without a hitch. Apparently, “Thank you” in PayPal speak means, “You bastards better check your account again because you’re about to get screwd.”

Skip ahead a month, to today. Steve went to buy a couple things. After he put the purchases through, he got a message that did not make him happy at all. It said, “Your sending limit is…” Actually, these few words made him practically jump through the roof. Having a sending limit meant, for some unknown reason, he had gone from being a verified user back to being an unverified user. This was especially angering since he’d had to essentially crawl through broken glass, adding a bank account he never wanted to add to his PayPal account to become a verified user just so they’d piss off about the sending limits. And now the limits were back? Why! Why! Why!

After picking apart an email, we found the problem. PayPal, in its infinite wisdom, had decided that since he had changed his address, they could not believe that this was his actual address until he confirmed it over the phone. In its even greater infinite wisdom, which is a trick, because how can you have greater infinite wisdom than infinite wisdom, but whatever, PayPal had decided to neglect to tell him this little nugget of fun info. Luckily, after we figured this out and satisfied PayPal by entering a happy fun code into their happy fun automated phone calling thing, the account was switched back to verified and all returned to being well.

Ok, I appreciate PayPal’s being super anal about security. This is money, and millions of people around the world are having their financial info and addresses kept in PayPal’s care just so they can buy stuff. For a long time, I resisted the urge to get a PayPal account just for this reason. I didn’t want some entity holding onto that sort of info. But I eventually gave in when everybody and their brother was using PayPal and there weren’t giant reports of PayPal’s members being victims of hacking and all manner of theft. What pisses me off, though, is that when he changed his address, nothing popped up or came in an email and said, “Hey! Asshole! You’re going to have to confirm this!” When a person is moving, they already have enough on their mind. You’d think the least PayPal could do is save them one frustration.

So, if you have a PayPal account that you just opened a couple of years ago, and you decide to move, remember to confirm your address. Otherwise, you’re in for a nasty surprise.

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