Cannot login when outside of the country where I first registered with PayPal

[Greg33]

Hello,

I was recently traveling outside of the U.S. for several weeks and was not able to login to PayPal at all.  Placed calls to PayPal and spoke to a total of four different people.  They all gave the same ludicrous excuse - PayPal will not allow logins if outside the country where the account was first registered.  This is absolutely beyond belief.  I travel extensively during the year and outside of the U.S. for several months at a time.  Does PayPal really not think that people might actually travel sometimes and have a need to access accounts when not sitting in their own home or office?  I've been using PayPal for many years and this was never a problem until just a few weeks ago.  If I provide all the information requested during login - email, password and security code texted to my phone, that should be more then sufficient to allow access to my account.  One of their "customer service" agents even had the nerve to tell me that I would need to create a new PayPal account in each country I was visiting if I wanted to be able to utilize PayPal.  Their non-answers and excuses are truly not appreciated - if they are not willing to provide even a minuscule amount of help, they shouldn't be wasting my time by even answering the phone .  I had also requested to have my call escalated and speak to a supervisor and everyone I spoke to said that it's not possible and they have already done all they can do - which was completely nothing.  They must have an entire training session on different ways to give the same excuses.  Seriously, PayPal should consider a name change - perhaps to PayEnemy since they are certainly no "Pal" to me.  

Does anyone know why PayPal can no longer be used outside of a country where the account was originally registered?  It cannot be for so-called "security" concerns since I've provided all the information requested at login - especially the security code which was texted to my mobile phone.  I find it incredibly hard to believe that PayPal would legitimately think that more then one phone could have the same number and two different people would be receiving the same security code. 

[sharpiemarker]

@Greg33 

It's true though what customer service says. PayPal is not as mobile as people like to think, especially with new real world policies clampin' down on the virtual world. PayPal accounts are country specific because each country/region has specific rules/regulations governing it. The only way is if you upgraded to a business account which has a way you can inform PayPal of your travel itinerary right within your account. Or, don't use PayPal at all while abroad, use your credit cards, they also protect from unauthorized transactions, not just PayPal.

[Greg33]

@sharpiemarker 

Thank you so much for the feedback, I appreciate it. 

I'm curious though exactly when this situation changed?  I was traveling overseas extensively from October 2019 through February 2020 and had zero problems whatsoever accessing my account in any of the countries I was in until mid February.  That's when all my login troubles started.  What laws/regulations suddenly became a burden for PayPal to comply with?  If almost any bank, credit card and other financial institution can operate internationally, what's preventing PayPal from doing so except their own archaic policies?  Even my credit union with one small local branch/office has no trouble to work with me whenever I'm outside of the U.S.  They actually understand the meaning of what "customer service" means and capable of answering the phone with a real person and providing real solutions instead of an endless stream of excuses that do nothing to explain the situation.

And what about people that might have PayPal Credit?  If they are prevented from logging into PayPal, they obviously cannot make a payment to their PayPal Credit account.  Will any potential past due fees be waived for all the months that PayPal prevented customers from paying their bills?

[melminz]

I live overseas as a military dependent and I have no issues accessing my U.S. Paypal account from anywhere in Asia. I've been using it for several years now.  However, I'm usually only transferring money to other people with a U.S.-based Paypal account.

My only issue living overseas and using the U.S. version of PayPal is that I can't change my phone number from my old U.S. phone to my new foreign phone.  Which is super annoying and it makes the text validation code function not work.