posted on November 12, 2000 11:23:26 AM
Just last week it was announced that Paypal was at last available for UK internet users. Unlike our US cousins, Paypal have no way of verifying our home address via our credit cards, so have come up with a rather unique solution. What they do is post two credits to your credit card account that are supposed to look something like 'x.com paypal*store #089' and another which looks just the same but with a different 3 digit number.
You wait until your credit card statement appears, or check it online or phone your credit card issuer (depending on how impatient you are!), then you go to the site, enter both 3 digit numbers and BANG, your credit card is verified. You pay for your purchases using your credit card and any credits you receive as a seller can be credited to your credit card.
This is nice in theory. But it doesn't actually work very well. The 2 credits that appeared on my credit card were supposed to have a three digit number after the merchant name, mine had a one digit number and and what the credit card company say is a merchant phone number in both cases, so looked like 'x.com paypal*store #7 800 123 456' (compare this with what it SHOULD look like above).
Well, first of all I tried putting the one digit number followed by the first two digits of the phone number. It didn't work. Then I tried asking for help on the Ebay UK and International Community Boards. But the replies I got were along the lines of 'Yeah, that happened to me too, I tried contacting Paypal but their support lines suck'. With typical British grit they'd tried sending an email, not got much of a reply and GIVEN UP.
Well I'm not going to give up. In fact I'd appreciate it if each and every Ebay user in the UK who has experienced the same problem would please email me at [email protected] and I will collect together everyone's tales of woe and approach Paypal myself. Basically, if this is allowed to continue, either we will lose bids by Paypal users not being aware that we can accept payments by Paypal, or, if we do display the logo, we could build up a nice healthy balance and let find that with no verified credit card we have no way of encashing the money.
Do representatives from Paypal read this board? Because if so I'd appreciate a COHERENT reply to at least one of my emails. The last one wasn't even in English!!
posted on November 12, 2000 12:16:56 PM
paypaldamon wanders by from time to time, but the quickest way to get his attention is to post this info over on the Partner Services board.
always pickersangel everywhere
posted on November 12, 2000 01:48:22 PM
Considering all the horrible experiences people have reported about PP, it's hard to understand why people are still joining. But to actually WORK HARD to join is unbelievable. Why don't you thank your good fortune that you were unable to join and move on?
Check http://www.ygoodman.com/paypal.html for links to several tales of PP terror.
posted on November 12, 2000 02:00:49 PM
I am from canada and had the same problem...they told me to fax the info in to the head office....fixed done and working ....faxed all the info on one page 25 times to the office ...figured they ccould not miss it ...was done in 2 days
