PayPal Will Not Delete a Bank Account or Credit Card!

[Jeze]

I have tried for months and months to delete a closed bank account and associated credit card.  Each time I try, I get a PayPal message saying that I cannot delete an account while there is a payment pending.  I have emailed PayPal about this problem, but they don't seem able to understand what I am saying and tell me to go through the account delete process.  I am finding this extremely frustrating!  Any suggestions?  Thanks!

[FriendlyFed · Accepted solution]

Hello, I just dealt with this problem and told them the online community has this prob. a lot and no one is answering.  I had the same message 'can't delete back up cred. card while pending transfer" and i don't have a pending transfer. 

Emailing paypal seems to get no answers and all the stuff online tells you to do what you have already done.  I suggested they add to the trouble shooting section what the person told me on the phone today, who canceled the card for me.  It is this:  They PAYPAL system often does not 'reset' pending transfers when they have been finalized. So THEY show a pending transfer, that you can not see on your account. 

you have to to the 'call us' tab on the contact page, when you click on that option, it gives you a WEB Code so when you do call in, they have your account information already.  The # is Login, Click "Contact Us", Click "Call Us", but get that web code first.  It is super simple once you wait on hold, of course.  I only waited about 5 minutes.  He found the transaction that had not been 'reset' and badabing it was done.  SO many people have written about this on the community page without answers, I just picked yours cause it was recent!

I do have two other cards on there, so have a primary and back up card besides the one I deleted.  Hope that helps.

[Jeze]

Thank you so much!  I will try this tomorrow...

[miniaturehome]

IMHO,  this problem is NOT solved.  My account is a business account, and I cannot go 7 days without using it!!!!!!  The card I'm trying to delete expired 5 months ago when my bank closed out their Visa debit cards and switched to MC.  The new MC is there, and also two other back-up credit cards.  Paypal can't get any money out of a closed account, so why the heck won't they delete it!!!!

[FriendlyFed]

I agree, they should make it easier, and it is infuriating that paypal doesn't answer anything on these community pages, we all have to figure it out ourselves or tell each other.  Which is why I posted the way to fix this.  So the phone call only took me a few minutes, if you follow what I mentioned in the original answer, they will remove it for you.  I think you decide which of your cards is primary by going to your 'manage' your payment method page first. Anyway, hope that helped.. take care!

[miniaturehome]

Yes, Friendlyfed, I appreciate you posting the solution including the phone number.  I will call as soon as I get a chance.  You would think ebay would be unhappy with paypal requiring you to not use your account for 7 days in order to delete a card!  Think of the business they'd lose!  Changing the primary card hasn't been a problem for me.  The other thing that bugs me is that I can't figure out how to delete old addresses.  When trying to pay, I get a pop-up wanting me to choose from four different addresses associated with my account.  Home and business are the same, but the current address is four years old, and I've moved twice since I set up the account.  I wish they'd make things easier, and I wish the help pages would tell you how to fix problems instead of what you've already done that doesn't work.

[miniaturehome]

Well, you won't believe the next part of the story!  I got an email from paypal saying they had deleted an expired credit card from my account.  I wondered how they knew to do it, because I hadn't called them yet!  Well, I just now discovered that they removed a card that had not expired simply because I hadn't updated the expiration date in their system.  But the card I wanted to delete that became obsolete months before it expired in May/11 because the bank switched from Visa to MC was still there.  The guy I talked to was friendly and finally deleted it for me, but he never did understand the situation.  He kept asking me which card I couldn't delete, and I kept saying "the one you just deleted for me."