I’ve been locked out of PayPal for years because of their mistake

Someone in Norway has the same name as me, and they made a PayPal account. They accidentally used my email during signup and I got some weird emails in Norwegian. So I called PayPal. I asked them to change the email. "You can't, because it's not your account, you just admitted". Uh, ok. Can you close the account? "It's not your account". Can you contact the account owner and tell them to fix it? "We don't have their email". Can I use account recovery and close it? "Then you would be breaking into someone else's account".

So what should I do? PayPal put a notice on the account in case they log in, and told me to just ignore the emails. I was baffled. Just ignore the emails? Stop sending them then! But there really isn't anything I can do. I tried account recovery anyway, but it didn't work.

They never logged in I think. They probably made another account with the correct details and never thought about this one. So I've been getting the "our terms and conditions have changed" email once or twice a year and ignoring them. They're still in Norwegian.

I just looked it up, this has been going on since 2015. Maybe I should contact PayPal again and tell them how ridiculous they've been.

What is the use case for PayPal in the US? Here in Brazil we pay everything with credit card or bank transfer with a QR code. People can transfer money to you from any bank 24/7 instantaneously with just your email or phone number without any fees. Is that different in the US?

Aren't they regulated in some way or other? I had problems with them in Europe (travel a lot for work, including some African and Central Asian countries) and they blocked me when I tried to buy something while in Nigeria. Fair play, common scam hotspot.

But no matter what I did to prove my identity after returning, they wouldn't unblock my account. So instead I sent a complaint to the CSSF (the FED of Luxembourg, where they got their European banking license) and within days I had the head of compliance from their HQ in Ireland on the phone telling me that my account was open again and practically begging me to drop the complaint.

I haven't used PayPal in over 10 years. Why don't you just leave the service?

the web page essentially accuses me of being a criminal and asks for my bank records. No way in hell.

Yeah don't bother doing that. All that will accomplish is them gathering even more information on you, they rarely/never actually unlock your account & let you use it again. You've been permanently blacklisted on their service, just move on. And honestly you don't need Paypal anyway.

Similar stupid thing happened to me too I think about 10-15 years ago, I was using virtual credit card numbers that my credit card company was generating for me & Paypal thought that was suspicious enough to close my account & permanently blacklist me LOL.

Fun fact: I did learn over the years that I can temporarily create new Paypal account(s) as long as I don't use the same mailing/billing addresses or credit cards/bank accounts. But then it's just a waiting game, they usually figure it out eventually and close the Paypal account yet again.

Got locked out of my PayPal account but I apparently can't close it.

A couple of years ago I was running a growing loans business on r/loans and the other one. One day, I got scammed. Loaned someone money and when it came to pay day, they reported me to welch out of the deal.

It took 180 days to get the money I had on my account. I tried closing the account and PayPal would not let me. It's been years and all I get are notices of terms and marketing stuff. I try to unsubscribe and it keeps coming so I mark it as spam but Gmail does not care.

Does anyone know of an alternative to paypal other than stripe ( same shenanigans) , for getting paid for freelance work that is available in Europe or Asia ??

Amazon blocked my account while trying to purchase a gift card and are now demanding proof of ownership of the gift card they just refused to sell to me????

PayPal sent me an email telling me I couldn't use their service because I had a VPN. No big deal, I'll just start using my credit card. A few weeks later PayPal emails me to say we're all good and I can use them again

Don't use their services they are a liability to deal with.

Paypal locked my account after years of use for absolutely no reason. I never had a invalid charge, dispute, or any other kind of problem with it, just one day they decided to shut it down. They flatly refused to explain what was going on. With all the decent alternatives out there now there is no longer a reason to use their crappy service.

Love that they believe they're the only game in town and can demand your bank statement.

Same thing happened to me when I tried to update my phone number and address at the same time.

you're going to be giving paypal access to your bank account/debit card if you want to get paid, or send money, giving them a bank statement, like many other financial vendors ask for before setting up and account or a loan, isn't unusual. you've decided it's your line in the sand, but it's no big deal, like, at all at all.

I used PayPal for a little while in the mid 2000's to pay for stuff online until I found out they could freeze my bank account.

I immediately removed my bank account from PayPal and over time I got a credit card and it was easier to use. I kept it with only my credit card in my account to sometimes but stuff on eBay and that's the only time I use it

I remember during the GPU shortage I managed to get a new graphics card from waiting outside a best buy for it to open. So I tried to sell my old one on eBay. Gave good pictures and followed all the rules as far as I could tell but because I had never sold anything on their platform before I was instantly banned with no way to appeal. I get they were probably having to deal with lots of scammers but if I could appeal or talk to support I could literally prove I had the GPU I was selling but as far as I could tell there was no option for that. So now I can't sell anything on eBay unless I get someone else to sell it for me.

Same, cant use half of online services because I can't have PayPal (and don't want a credit card for security concerns)

Amazon blocked my account when I was buying a gift for an American friend. I made the account years prior thinking I'd buy something, but didn't end up using it. In other words, this was the first purchase on the account. It got blocked for suspicious activity, and to unblock it, I have to provide an account statement with an Amazon transaction in it... THERE IS NONE!!! THIS IS THE FIRST ONE AND IT DIDN'T HAPPEN CUS I'M BLOCKED!!! I was only buying some bloody markers and a plushy!

Me too, for receiving a $5 refund from Digital Ocean.

I got banned from the Kraken crypto exchange after waiting a year for them to approve me and after providing all my IRL credentials.

Told me I was banned, never to come back, and that they were going to report my fraud attempt to the authorities. Of course they refused to tell me what they thought I did, which didn't make any sense because all I had been able to do was make an account and make a verification request.

Never really even looked at crypto again beyond mining dogecoin for fun.

Paying anything bought through PayPal credit. Wow.

I got locked out of paypal for no reason I could discern from like 2007 to 2015. Can’t remember the exact dates but for years it was “I can’t use paypal any more because my account broke” and then finally after years if that one day it was “oh shit it work look at that”.

When Paypal was inflicting financial penalties for, "misinformation" according to them, that's when I closed my account. Never again utilizing Paypal.

I wonder if you could sign up again with a different email. Seems like they would immediately know you're the same person. But, it is glitchy AF. So maybe it will glitch in your favor