Monthly Archives: July 2005

A gentleman from PayPal just phoned and said they'll straighten everything out. Let's see if this happens.

Some of what I told you before seems to be inoperative, as they said back in the Nixon administration…not about the time spent on hold but about what the problem is. Basically, PayPal accounts are linked to checking accounts and every so often, they ask you to verify the full checking account number as a security measure. My problem is that my full checking account number, as printed on my checks and confirmed to me on the phone by my bank, does not match the account number as I (am told) I entered it, back when I signed up years ago for PayPal. They're telling me I entered 13 digits then. My checking account number as I know it has ten digits. My bank says it has ten digits and they have no idea what the other mysterious three digits are. Nor do I.

What's frustrating here, of course, is that I am being victimized by a security procedure ostensibly designed to protect me. PayPal will not let me into my account until I come up with the extra three digits and my bank says, "We have no idea what they are." The connection between the bank and PayPal has worked fine for the transferring of funds for years. It's just this security discrepancy. I'm locked out of my account because I can't come up with the three digits…and of course, PayPal won't tell me. (For a while, they wouldn't even tell me how many digits were involved but I wormed the information out of them that there were three more.)

I said to the lady on the phone, "Come on…there must be a way of overriding this if the system has an error in it. Someone there must be able to verify who I am and reset the numbers."

She said, "For security reasons, we cannot allow you to access this account if you cannot provide the proper identification."

I said, "So you're keeping my money from me?"

She said, "We're not keeping your money from you, sir. It's right there."

I said, "It's my money but I can't get it. So therefore, you have it." And on and on…

Like it says above, I'm no longer on hold. This latest call meant 53 more minutes on the phone with PayPal and nothing was resolved. She says they'll look into it and e-mail me with instructions on what I can do. Somehow, I don't think their suggestions will be as creative as some I could come up with on my own.

You'll be hearing more about this.

I'm chatting intermittently with a PayPal service rep who's smart, eager to help and has no idea how to solve this problem. She keeps putting me on hold and then going away to get help. So far, this new call has lasted 30 minutes.

Disconnected. Lovely.

As I'm waiting here for the PayPal people to find someone there with an I.Q. over room temperature, I've been reading this statement on my screen, which is from a "security" page I can't get past because of this account number snafu…

For your security, PayPal will never ask you to re-enter your full bank account, credit, or debit card number without providing you at least the LAST TWO DIGITS of the number. These digits let you know that we already know the full number and are asking you for the rest of it. Beware of any website or email asking for these numbers for "verification" that does not PROVE that it knows the number by providing at least the last two digits.

That seems odd to me…the suggestion that if someone knows the last two digits of my account number, I should presume they have the full number and it's okay for me to then give that full number to them for verification. Spam/Phisher people send out bogus e-mails, pretending to be my bank or PayPal or credit card company, by the zillions. There are 100 possible combinations of the last two digits. So if they send out 1,000,000 e-mails that say, "We know the last two digits of your account number are 33," they're going to be right around 10,000 times. That's 10,000 people who, if they follow PayPal's advice, will then give their entire account number to these people. That's probably a better rate of return than the Spammers get on most of their fraudulent offers.

Closing in on one hour and thirty minutes. The Marx Brothers made movies that lasted less time than this call. And made more sense.

I am still waiting for that person. One hour and seventeen minutes.

She came back on the line and suggested that I hang up with her, call my bank and get them to verify my checking account number. I said, "I have my checking account number. I'm reading it right off one of my checks. My problem here is that your version of my checking account number doesn't match what my bank says it is." I finally asked her — in nicer language — to forward my call to someone smarter. I am waiting for that person. One hour, eleven minutes.

Okay, someone finally came on line and I found that Tech Support had referred me back to the same department I started with. I got a customer service representative who doesn't understand the problem, no matter how I explain it. I was about to ask, "Could you forward my call to someone smarter?" but she put me back on hold, which is where I now am. One hour and five minutes.

Just went to the bathroom and came back to the same cheezy hold music and announcements. 57 minutes. I'm answering e-mail while I wait but still, this is a colossal waste of time.

Okay, Tech Support can't help. The problem seems to be that when I originally signed up for my PayPal account, I verified by linking to one of my checking accounts. But the bank that handles that checking account has changed the form of their account numbers. They now add some leading zeroes. Ergo, when PayPal asks me to enter my checking account number, it doesn't exactly match the number they have on file…nor can anyone figure out how to work around this. I am now back on hold, waiting for another department. 41 minutes.

The human being came back on the line to inform me that he couldn't help me. He's forwarding my call to Technical Support. So I'm back on hold again, this time waiting for someone new. Coming up on thirty-eight minutes.

Thirty-one minutes. I've had paying jobs that didn't last this long.

Ah! A human answers the phone. I tell him what the problem is. He says, "Do you mind if I place you on hold?" I ask, "Do I have a choice?" He says, "Not really," so I am now back on hold, hearing those same messages again. 25 minutes since I initiated this call.

22 minutes and counting.

MARK'S PAYPAL ADVENTURE STARTS HERE!

I'm trying to clear up a small (I hope) problem with my PayPal account. Their online "help" feature is of no help so I called the service phone number. According to the little call timer on my telephone, I have now been on hold for 14 minutes. Every thirty seconds, a recorded voice tells me that they're experiencing "an unusually high call volume" and I should be patient but, better still, I should consult the online help service. Let's see how long it takes me to get to a real human being.