I changed my internet provider because I relocated. For some reason my IP appeared to be from another country (I had a mobile internet key). When I logged into my Paypal account, the system thought I was someone else and blocked my account to prevent stealing.
No problem with that for me, it's a security measure I can understand. I had to unlock the account and here is where the pain began.
Logging into my account to provide my information (ID, proof of residence, etc) I was always brought to a page asking me to verify the IBAN of my bank account. After entering it, an error was displayed, giving me a useless error code (something like error 1005) and with a short explanation "there was an internal problem, please try later". But trying later never worked, the error was always there, preventing me to unlock my account.
I started writing the support. They answered that I had to fill in my information to unlock my account. I told them that I could not do it because there was an internal error. They kept answering that I had to fill in my information to unlock it. This went on for a couple of weeks. What really pissed me off was that every time they answered (the support guy was always different), they always told me the same things, like they were not reading my emails at all.
I tried to call the support phone number for my country. There was an automatic voice with some steps to follow, including getting some authentication code for my account from the website. After all that, the automatic voice reminded me that my account was locked, as if I did not know that already. I never managed to speak with someone in person. That was the last drop, since loosing those 300$ would not have ruined my life, I switched to Fastspring never to come back. I've been really happy with them.
After I while I realized that I could have tried to call the US phone number. But I already switched, so I didn't care.
Ah that sounds unfortunate. I certainly have given up for similar sums in the past (not on payment gateways, but on things like tickets to cancelled gigs and junk).
The honest truth is that we stick with PayPal because we're an Australian company who, as a business decision, take US dollars for our products. Setting up a merchant account in Australia that can take US dollars seems to be unheard of and practically impossible.
Though I'm sure you've heard of the Internet Filter and more recently the full recording of internet history at ISP levels for all customers. Australia has some catching up to do in general in regards to the internet and internet business.
I had similar problems when I had someone from Vietnam working for me (she had worked with me here at a larger corp, then went home and worked for me.) I was able to break through to a human on the US phone number, got the account unlocked, and then made sure my Vietnamese employee did everything through a NAT/VPN setup that gave her one of my US IP addresses.
The phone support wait was long, but I haven't really had any trouble since. Of course, I don't really let money build up in my paypal account; I'll spend it on hardware or move it to my bank account. it's pretty rare there's more than ten grand in paypal, and usually it's more like one to three grand, so that might make it easier.
No problem with that for me, it's a security measure I can understand. I had to unlock the account and here is where the pain began.
Logging into my account to provide my information (ID, proof of residence, etc) I was always brought to a page asking me to verify the IBAN of my bank account. After entering it, an error was displayed, giving me a useless error code (something like error 1005) and with a short explanation "there was an internal problem, please try later". But trying later never worked, the error was always there, preventing me to unlock my account.
I started writing the support. They answered that I had to fill in my information to unlock my account. I told them that I could not do it because there was an internal error. They kept answering that I had to fill in my information to unlock it. This went on for a couple of weeks. What really pissed me off was that every time they answered (the support guy was always different), they always told me the same things, like they were not reading my emails at all.
I tried to call the support phone number for my country. There was an automatic voice with some steps to follow, including getting some authentication code for my account from the website. After all that, the automatic voice reminded me that my account was locked, as if I did not know that already. I never managed to speak with someone in person. That was the last drop, since loosing those 300$ would not have ruined my life, I switched to Fastspring never to come back. I've been really happy with them.
After I while I realized that I could have tried to call the US phone number. But I already switched, so I didn't care.