On Thursday, my pending balance of $260 cleared. There was no problems with the buyer and everything went smoothly. That night I tried to make a payment of $250 to pay for RAM for my computer. My computer is dead and I need this RAM to continue to work my job and get paid through PayPal. My PayPal balance is literally the only money I have right now, other than a few bills in cash. So I guess you can say, my life and job and food and source of income is hanging on this transaction.
I'm going to bring up the most frequently asked questions when I tell other PayPal members about this problem:
Maybe your account is new and they're trying to be safe.
No, my account is over a year old with thousands of dollars of transactions in both money received and sent. They shouldn't have to worry about $250.
Maybe you're paying with a different computer/location.
No, I'm using the same computer and I'm paying from home, the same location I've been paying for things for almost a year.
Have you tried clearing the cache? Cookies?
I've tried that. And more. Different browsers, different computers, mobile, everything. Nothing works and the security check keeps popping up.
Maybe it's a high-risk transaction and that's what's triggering the internal security system.
I'm not sending 3 million dollars to some shady guy in Dubai. This is $250 for computer parts from a reputable store, Newegg. And like I've said before, I've made purchases before and this never happened.
Just complete the security check. It just needs your phone number.
Except I use a prepaid phone service and the other phone I have is a company-provided phone, neither of which PayPal accepts because it's not "registered under my name."
Have you tried contacting PayPal? They can help you.
I've spoken to about 16 people now(yes I counted) and nobody has been able to help. Strangely, each person seems to have a different say in my account, none of them seemed to check out. From a US rep telling me to change my security questions to someone else telling me to wait 48 hours, the answers seem to be different each time, with no actual resolution after trying all of them for days.
Have you tried sending the money to a friend?
Can't, security check pops up. Even trying it on eBay with a $0.99 purchase brings up the security check as well.
Have you tried withdrawing the funds to your bank?
I can't even link my bank account because the security check pops up for that as well.
In conclusion, as you can probably tell I'm "locked" out of my account, from using money that I earned rightfully by adhering to PayPal's rules and regulations, patiently waiting out their ridiculous payment holds and I don't know what else to do. It's been almost a week now and I can't use my PayPal balance and if this one transaction doesn't go through, I'm gonna be out of a job, out of a computer, and who knows what else. All because PayPal won't let me spend $250.
If you guys have any ideas, please let me know. I'd love to hear it.
