We have been dealing with PayPal a lot recently at Auctomatic.com. I needed to send money overseas, and PayPal was, in theory, the easy way to do that. However, over the past few weeks I have spent an incredible amount of time dealing with my account being continually put into limited access. Along the way, I picked up some tips about how to deal with customer service that might help some of you (thanks to Patrick for suggesting I blog this):
1. As soon as you call and have entered your telephone number and the last four digits of your bank account number, say "Agent" straight away, and you won't have to listen to the ridiculously long recorded message and list of useless options. You will be put straight through to an actual person.
2. Do not let them use the line "X department is currently reviewing your account and will be getting back to you within 24 hours." Do not put the phone down until you have gotten through to the department you need (for me it was Dispute Resolution). Then demand that someone pull up your details on the screen and tell you there and then either 1) what the decision is or 2) what more information you need to provide.
3. Never fax documents, even when they are requested. Always upload scans and then send those files online. Every fax I have sent has taken a week before it was replied to, and every online file transfer is replied to within 24 hours.
4. You have to be persistent. Do not leave it up to PayPal to come back to you with a decision or tell you that one will be made shortly. You have to demand that the decision is made there and then, to you, on the phone. Unless you are missing certain information, they will eventually put you through to a person with decision making authority, and that is where you want to be.
5. Also, just another note: if you are on holiday abroad and you access your PayPal account and try sending any serious amount of money, that will almost certainly trigger their systems and put your account into limited status. Generally I am happy that PayPal errs on the side of caution, but I wish the system had more "memory." For example, if I can confirm I am the owner of the account and I am abroad at the moment and need to use my PayPal account more often than usual, they could attach some kind of note to the account so it was not continually put into limited access.
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