I got an email from PayPal today:

We have reason to believe that your account was accessed by a third party. We have limited access to sensitive PayPal account features in case your account has been accessed by an unauthorized third party. We understand that having limited access can be an inconvenience, but protecting your account is our primary concern.

Well, it wasn't a third person, it was me. I used PayPal to collect registration fees for IIW (happening next week). All the money we have to pay vendors, etc. is in that account and I can't get to it now. Of course, PayPal has already taken their cut, so what do they care?

To get the account back online I have to do four things:

  1. Submit a bank statement for the account I'm transfering to.
  2. Change my password
  3. Change my security questions
  4. Confirm my location

I was good on the first three. The last one required that I tied a credit card to the account and then they wanted to call me and have me enter a security code. They called the number I had listed long ago that isn't one I have access to on the weekend. They gave me no notice that they were going to call the number--they just did it. Since I didn't answer the phone they said this:

We mailed a letter with your Location Confirmation code to the following address. When you receive the letter, please follow the instructions on how to enter the code on the PayPal website. Please allow 7 to 9 days for your letter to arrive in the mail.

Huh???? Seven to nine days!?! Meanwhile I've got bills to pay and I'm not sure what I'm going to do.

I appreciate that PayPal is taking security seriously, but this is way overboard, as far as I can tell. They've made thousands of dollars from the money I collect there. The least they could do is provide a human for me to talk to and work this out. I'm willing to pay PayPal's high fees for the convenience, but this is very inconvenient.. I think I'll look somewhere else for the next IIW. I need to know that when the event rolls around I collected money for, I'll be able to get it.

Update: This morning (Dec 3) I logged into my PayPal account hoping I could download new attendees and got a message that my account at been restored. I don't know if it was my attempted intervention or whether some of the steps I completed (like sending a copy of my bank statement) was sufficient. In any event, it looks like IIW will be able to pay it's bills on time. Yeah!


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Last modified: Thu Oct 10 12:47:19 2019.