JeffAshby.com

I wanted to share a horrible experience I had with PayPal while I was in the Philippines last month visiting my wife’s family.  In order to get cash, we opted to use PayPal’s ATM/Debit Card since they generally have lower fees and don’t charge a remittance to convert dollars to the Philippine Peso.

For the last two years or so, if I wanted to instantly fund my paypal account (which is impossible to do with a bank transfer)  I would “send” the money to another paypal account, and then from that account I would send it back to the original account.  The money would be added instantly instead of 3-5 days for the wire.

We had let PayPal know that we were going to be in the Philippines and using our account to access money there.

About 2 weeks through my 3 week trip in the Philippines, my second PayPal account went into “Fraud Protection” in that I can no longer send or receive money.  I thought this would be a quick fix, however that is not the case.  There are several options to confirm my account with PayPal, however each option requires you to actually be IN THE UNITED STATES.  We were able to work through this inconvenience because my original account we use the debit card is still fine.

The real fiasco comes at the Manila airport on our way home.  As my wife’s family dropped us off, I gave them my extra Filipino money (In which I didn’t think I was going to need).  Upon checking our bags, I come to find out that there is an extra fee for my wife to leave the country.  I needed to transfer a little more money in order to pay for this, so I found a computer and logged into PayPal.  I found out that earlier that day, they had placed a hold on my main account for “protection” and again allowed no possible way for me to verify my identity.  Again, they already knew we were in another country, and still locked up our account.

Frustrated, with our flight leaving in about an hour, we only had one option – We actually had to beg for someone to give us enough money to pay my wife’s fee.  It wasn’t much money, and we were able to make it back home safely.

As soon as we got home, I called PayPal to get my accounts fixed and to ask them why their system is so crummy.  I let a “specialist” customer service rep know what happened, and told them that it makes no sense that if you are in another country relying on their services, that they should at least give you some way to verify your identity.  She agreed, however there is nothing they can do about it now.

Although they have really crappy service and policies, they did end up saving me some money by not allowing me to get to it.