Paypal - the blood pressure builder
August 13, 2022 —
Nalioth
In January 2020, Freedompop charged my Paypal account for "services rendered".
Unfortunately, I'd had no services with Freedompop since 2016.
I reported this fraudulent charge to Paypal, and so - for whatever reason - Paypal then locked my account.
This has - sadly - happened before, and in normal times, a phone call & a conversation with Apu resolves the sitch and services get restored.
In this case (perhaps you noticed the date), the governor of California had closed down the state due to the "covid pandemic", and Paypal - despite being a billion dollar company - was unable to set up a "work from home" solution for their live operators.
I tried calling them dozens of times over the years, but "there are no agents available to take your call" was the all-too-repetitive response.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago: I'd logged in to my Paypal account (it's always nice to be looking at your PP account when talking to them) and did not see any of the normal (for the past few years) red text about "your account is restricted!".
So I bought a $2 item from ebay using Paypal and the purchase went through.
As irritating as it's been trying to get hold of an agent for years, now having them resolve the situation without telling me put me way past "irritated".
I implore you to look up Paypal & read about their quasi-legal shenanigans. They are not a bank, so can get away with heinous deeds (such as f✱✱king people for years who've done nothing other than report fraud perpetrated against their Paypal account)
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Tags: Paypal, general-interest, technology
