PayPal Business Debit Card Declined at Sam's Club

[nearby]

I just talked to an associate, Tiana, about a declined card at Sam's Club yesterday. She said that my card got declined because some Sam's Club and Walmart stores have so much fraud going on that PayPal will decline certain transactions at certain stores. This seemingly happens at random; I had just successfully completed a transaction at the pump and another one at the Walmart down the street.

I think it's unacceptable that customers have no recourse to seemingly random declines at Walmart or Sam's Club stores after shopping and standing in line. The associate said that even debit card transactions with PIN-codes can be declined. They suggest that customers bring another (competitor) card along. What happened to improving your security technology rather than have your customers take the hit? Such lack of customer service just **bleep** off your customers.

[ResqDogz]

With an 18-year impeccable  history  at PayPal, I experienced a spate of similar challenges with Walmart and Sams Club - issues with my PayPal Debit Card that I  had been using for years, there: I was told initially, that PayPal themselves had implemented new security protocols - due to escalating losses from back-up funding declines generated by PayPal customers.

After speaking with PayPal's Vice-President of Loss Mitigation, I was assigned a senior account specialist who provided his name and direct email/phone contact information so that we might continue a dialog as solutions were determined. Turns out, a software error was triggering "false" denials and was immediately identified and rectified, although PayPal DID recommend that I establish a token amount of regularly scheduled inbound transfers from my checking account, to provide evidence of back-up funding reliability (this, despite an 18-year stellar record here) - which I did, despite my reluctance to add yet another annoying task to sort though when reconciling accounts monthly.

MY particular and specific complaint lies now with Sams Club (following on the heels of similar frustration with Walmart, which has been occurring for over a year, now): Yesterday - for the first time ever - I was compelled to process my Sams Club Business Account purchases as "debits", versus the usual "credit" processing I prefer to employ - as I have for 18 years. 

When speaking with PayPal representatives today, I learned that this is a recent development with Sams Club - following the prior examples of Walmart and Kroeger's - and I will definitely lodge my complaint with Sams, directly,

In the mean time, PayPal representatives are encouraging us to express our frustrations here as feedback - which they (as our corporate advocates) may also take to Sams Corporate, and pressure them for restoration of our former option to choose the manner in which WE prefer our charges to be processed.