Cannot create account with my mail address - someone else used it

[cla_]

I'm not in the USA.

I've been sent money with paypal to a gmail account, which I own. Someone else set up a paypal account using my gmail address (because they do that with so many things - apparently their name is the same as mine) and set up security questions and a phone number. The number is American, so I get sent to the American site. Including here. 

I can't create a new account because one is already associated with my email address. 

Paypal USA security group have said that there is no account associated with my email address. 

I can't regain control of the account (assuming it exists) because I don't have access to the (American) phone number that paypal have on file and I cannot answer the security questions correctly. 

I've been trying to get this account closed for nigh on 10 years now.

It used to be an annoyance, but now that someone sent me money on it. Which I can't get because the account doesn't exist but it does exist.

What the **bleep** do I do now?

(Clearly I'm posting this from a separate paypal account)

[PayPal_Erica]

Hi cla_

Thanks for reaching out to us here, and welcome to the community!

Regrettably we are unable to view your account information from here, but if you'd like to reach out to us through one of our customer service channels we'd be happy to help! You can call or email us by clicking the "Contact" link at the bottom of your PayPal page. We are also available on Facebook at www.facebook.com/paypal or on Twitter at @AskPayPal.

I hope this helps!

-Erica

If you see a helpful post, please accept it as a solution or give the author kudos. Thanks!

[cla_]

Hi, 

If I click "contact" at the bottom of the paypal page, then the billing information will be for the email address I'm using here.  That's not the one with the problem.

I need to be able to contact you about an email address where I cannot log in. I can't gain control of that account. If I try to get it closed, I'm told that it doesn't exist. If I try to create an account on that email address, I'm told it's already taken.

Can you not just tell me which email address to use to contact the channels? (rather than "click a link")

Best regards, 

Catherine.

[DPCreations]

Go to the main PayPal page WITHOUT LOGGIN IN then click on the help or contact at the bottom of the page.  Select contact method there.

[cla_]

Yes, that's where I started before writing to the forum. I've just gone through the whole circuit again, to be sure that it hasn't changed:

1. Select Contact / Help

2. To be able to send an email, I am required to log in. I do not log in, but select Contact / Help again.

3. Now I have the option to send email as a guest. Select that.

4. To be able to send an email, I am required to log in. Alternatively, I can call the given telephone number.

5. When I call the phone number, I'm told that the account exists, but is not located in Germany (my location) and I will have to call America because only the American part of the company can deal with American users.

6. When I call the American phone number, I am told that the account with my email address does not exist and I should be able to create an account on that email address.

7. Again on the generic paypal page (www.paypal.com), I create a new account with my email address. It fails because the account exists.  

This is why I came to the forums in the first place. 

In the meantime, the person who tried to send me money has managed to reverse the transaction. So no one will lose cash, which is great.

I'm still left saddled with the situation that I can not create nor remove nor use the paypal account that is associated with my personal email address. Having never verified that address. This started some time before 2004. It's now 2017 and for paypal, this problem is still not resolveable.

[DPCreations]

Did you ever have an account in the U. S.?

Since this started before 2004 and you didn't resolve it then, it may be possilble that PayPal no longer has access to osolete data.

In that case, my suggestion would be to start an acocunt with a new email address.  Sometimes it's just not possible to fix the past.

[cla_]

No, I did not ever have a paypal account nor a bank account in the USA. 

Yes, I did attempt to fix this at the time. I wrote and called paypal at least once weekly from the first receipt of an email asking for verification of an account that I had not requested until the northern spring of 2007, when I gave it away as a bad joke. I tried again in 2008 and for most of 2009. I've tried again in 2012, 2015, repeatedly in 2016 and now twice in 2017. 

Yes, the solution to getting a paypal account is simply to use a different address. I've already mentioned that I have done this.

However the problem remains that people will (and do) attempt to send me money on the email address that I always use.  

[DPCreations]

Another idea.  Does youre email provider give you an option to forward email from one address to another?  I know I can do that my my multiple email adderesses.  Even if you could, I don't know if it would work for PayPal.