Unable to remove bank account; PayPal support is no help

Drumshhh
Contributor
Contributor

I have tried for the last 90 days to remove a bank account from my business PayPal account, so I can move it over to my personal PayPal account. It is the secondary bank account (the primary being my business checking account). Every time I try to remove the account, I get the following message:

"You cannot remove this bank account because it currently has a pending transaction. This transaction may take up to 3-5 days to complete, at which time you will be able to remove the bank account. Please try again after the transaction has been completed."

I called PayPal today and the 1st-level CSR told me the problem was that the account was set as the backup funding source for my Secure Cards. Sure enough it was, so I switched that over to the other (primary) bank account. Nice, useless error message, PayPal!

Even after doing that, however, I was unable to remove the account. The same error message pops up. So the 1st-level CSR forwards me to a 2nd-level rep in the Debit Cards area. He says there are no pending debit transactions and forwards me to the Bank Accounts section.

The guy there does some research and finds no pending transactions whatsoever. He makes some changes on his end and asks me to try again. No good. He asks me to clear my browser cache and cookies (srsly? whatever) so I do that and still no good.

After a little bit more on hold, here are the options he presents me with:

1) He can put in a support ticket and maybe it will be resolved in 24 hours or maybe it will take a few weeks. In either case, there is no way for me to check the status of the ticket, and I will not be informed when it is fixed. I must just keep trying every few days until I can finally remove the account.

2) He can disable the account on his side (after which it will be unusable for ANY other PayPal account), and then I can call my bank to have them change the account number (thus hosing up any ACH/EFT bill-pay setups I have with other vendors).

NEITHER OF THESE OPTIONS IS ACCEPTABLE, PAYPAL! You try to present your company as the premier web payment system, but you cannot even notify customers with SPECIFIC problems when those problems are fixed? If I treated my customers this way, they'd all leave!

I chose option 1, however I will be calling PayPal every day or two until they resolve this. I look forward to going through a dozen 1st-level CSRs repeating my problem and going through the same useless troubleshooting steps every time...

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Drumshhh
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Update: This evening Vanessa from, if I remember correctly, "Executive Escalation" called me. Very nice person; very professional. Unfortunately - and she did warn me of this at the beginning of the call - what she had to say was not helpful in solving my problem.

 

The gist of her message was this: since this problem only affects me and not a large number of the ~85M (her count) PayPal customers, it is placed in a fairly low-priority queue within the IT department and they get to those tickets when they get to them. Might be a day, might be a few months, might be a year.

 

After some very cordial back-and-forth about my frustration with PayPal's processes, I offered this suggestion (Vanessa having the ear of People Who Make Changes, apparently): modify your problem-reporting process so that account issues are separated from programming issues, with the former being handled in a higher priority than the latter even if it only affects one account.

 

My problem, for example, suggests two sub-problems:

 

1) My account is unusable until I can remove the linked bank account. This should be high priority as it directly affects my ability to successfully use PayPal's service.

 

2) There is a bug in PayPal's software that sometimes (at least once?) prevents a user from un-linking a bank account. This can be treated as low priority unti/unless it starts affecting hundreds or thousands of users in which case dealing with all the resulting high-priority account issues becomes costly enough that fixing the programming issue becomes more important.

 

In short, send a **bleep** DBA into the database to do a one-time fix to my account, then push the bug-hunt onto the back burner if you must. But fix account issues fast.

 

I suggested to Vanessa that if I did $10K in fees each year perhaps I'd get different treatment (which, while maddening, is an understandable business decision I admitted to her). She replied that whenever she'd reported problems to IT, nobody had ever asked her about PayPal volume. I mention this only to note that what Vanessa said isn't the same as "PayPal volume has no bearing on the speed of problem resolution." They might not ask her, but I bet the IT managers can see the data nevertheless.

 

I expect this is the end of the line for me. Until something breaks the monopoly on Ebay payment options I must stick with PayPal, and therefore I must wait a day, or a few months, or a year, for my problem to be resolved. I'll probably keep calling PayPal support in the hope that the squeaky wheel will get some grease.

 

So at least 1/85,000,000 of PayPal's customer base is almost completely dissatisfied. Add in the loss of the plug-in - my MOST USED FEATURE - and my relationship with PayPal is devolving into one big ball of fail.

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Drumshhh
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Contributor

Update 2 for today: Vanessa called me back to ask about some very old recurring subscriptions that I had. These subscriptions had been mentioned by a level 1 CSR on one of my first calls, and from what I could tell they were all canceled. But for good measure, Vanessa had me also cancel a couple of old, but "Active", links with my web hosting provider (which, to my knowledge, hadn't actually been used for any payments for at least 18 months).

 

Long story short, we did not solve the problem, but still...Vanessa called me back. And it's 6:20PM Omaha time. I just want to put in writing here that I appreciate the effort. They need a couple of Vanessa's in the IT department...

 

 

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Drumshhh
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Update: PayPal sent me a pen & pencil set and a little "we appreciate your business" card. Which is nice, but unfortunately does nothing to free up my bank account so I can, you know, use the PayPal service.

 

I feel for the escalation folks who have to deal with irate customers because IT (apparently) can't get their shizzle together.

 

I'll gladly send them a pen & pencil set if they'd just fix my account!

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I am having the same problem as you.  Your saga is incredible in this day and age.  I feel like I was just told that I have cancer or something.  I have years of dealing with Level 1 CSRs ahead of me.....

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I anyone really know how to fix this problem, please help us. I was a Paypal pioneer (my account is now almost 8 years old) and helped the firm when they went abroad and before the tussle with the banking authorities in the US.  They really need to get there act together on basic things like preventing people from accessing their bank accounts.

 

Chris

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BTW, I suspect you have a claim under the Fair Credit Practices Act.  I don't think that Paypal has the right to retain your credit card information following a dispute and without any claim for payments.  Their failure to take action within 30 days to resolve your FCPA probably opens them up to liability on several levels.

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Drumshhh
Contributor
Contributor

Sorry you're having the same problem. It's been a few months; I should call them again - a few days in a row - and see if I can get anywhere. Won't be holding my breath.

 

In my case the linked account is a checking account, not a credit card, so I'm not sure if the FCPA is going to be much help. I'll look into it, though, thanks.

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Drumshhh
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Contributor

Update: Fixed! I tried again today to remove the troublesome checking account from my PayPal account and it worked like a charm. Only thing left is to now add that account to my other, personal PayPal account.

 

If that doesn't work, I'll be back! Smiley Wink

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PgMonsta
New Community Member

ok so I am sighing reading all of your Pay Pal drama.  I just tried adding my bank account info Bcuz I am trying to get my Pay pal debit card so I can make purchases besides online and it is saying that apparently my bank account is being used by another pay pal account.  Problem is...I only have one pay pal account...one email account...one bank account....I think im SOL....

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