General: One More Reason I Hate PayPal

I feel like I've had more than my fair share of annoyances with PayPal. The point of paying their silly high rates, is the convenience and "safety" of using their service. Yet, even in my limited use, I have been victim to most of their hidden clauses. If you don't make a claim within 40 days of payment - you aren't covered (something I discovered when claiming money back from an evil-doer) - on top of that, there is also a minimum of ~£15 (IIRC), as I discovered when paying £12 for some legal advice on an issue, only not to receive it and to be told that because it was a "virtual" item, nothing could be done.

However, the latest to hit me is an accusation of money laundering. Having paid ~£500 to a company for some bike products, to then have plans completely change and end up being refunded (most) of the money. This has flagged me up for laundering, and until one of their representatives telephones me, my account is frozen and there is nothing I can do about it. I hope somebody phones me soon.

I'd be interested to hear any of your PayPal complaints - so if you haven't registered for the Forum, it's only a few clicks away.

The only problem with paypal that I had was when I was sold an athlon 64 3200 as an fx55, it was on ebay. It arrived damaged as well. Paypal froze the sellers account and refunded what was available in the account, but I was still out a bit. I felt that they were pretty fair over all.

I've never used Paypal, and never plan to. I figure there are easier, cheaper and probably even more secure ways of doing things (after all, adding another organisation into the payment is bound to complicate things). Whenever I used to see something on eBay that only took Paypal, I wouldn't bid. Luckily now there's no real need for me to have Paypal anyway. Especially now I have no money almost permanently

Today, I finally managed to get my PayPal account back to normal standing. One of the final humps was that I had to confirm my postal address, by that of a phone call. They wouldn't accept my mobile number, and I don't have a land line of my own. There was also an option to have a letter send by mail - I asked for this twice, and nothing was ever sent through.

In the end I managed to persuade my neighbour (thanks Karlson!) to borrow his land line - bypassing the whole point of the system in the first place. An automated phone call later, and it was apparently confirmed. However, nothing changed on my PayPal account. I couldn't repeat the process as apparently a call was scheduled already. Did I get a reply to my support e-mail? No, of course not. Then today, I decided to phone the only support line I found on their website. Nearly 2 minutes later on an 0870 number, and all I had was the balance of my account.

After some failed Google searches, I then remembered my good friend, Say No To 0870, which has saved me on more than one occasion. Using this, I found a mass of phone numbers for PayPal, all standard land lines, so they will be included in my mobile phones minutes. Eventually I found a London number for customer support, and got through to an agent without any queuing. I guess their way of keeping call volume down is not to publicise the phone number. The call attendant dealt with my query instantly and my PayPal account is back to normal!

I only wished I was having this much luck with my Wireless, which as flakey as ever, despite new APs and Aerials. I've switched channels this morning and turned off Frame Burst and AfterBurner to see if I can get a more stable connection. Speed is a luxury at this stage!

It was partly my fault - turns out it wasn't as locked down as a thought, so I just carried on using it