I recently tried to send some money to a work colleague. I selected the amount, put in the account information to transfer to, and added a note that it was for a farewell gift for a XXXXX XXXXX (a name), a different colleague who is leaving our company. To my knowledge, the note itself was an optional field - I only added it for reference, but did not need to enter anything there. And I wish that I had not.
PayPal put a hold on the payment and in order to get the hold removed, and my account restored, they required two things:
1. XXXX XXXX's birthdate, and
2. The details of the item I sold in this transaction, and the kinds of things I sell in general.
PROBLEM 1: I don't know XXXXX XXXXX's birthdate, and no else does, either. And now she's left the company. I don't have access to this information, and can't get it. It is also PII (Personally Identifiable Information), and I don't think I ought to be giving out someone else's PII - and I'm certainly not going to be allowed to know it if I contact our HR department.
PROBLEM 2: I didn't sell anything, didn't buy anything, and don't sell anything - and in the past, when I have bought and sold things, I do not use PayPal.
What do I do? I have explained all of this to PayPal via Message, but they only apologized and then told me that I would have to come up with the birthday. I've even sent the money via Venmo, so I'm perfectly happy if the transaction is simply cancelled. I'm so annoyed by this that I would like to just delete my account - but I can't even do that until I restore the account by - of course - providing the birthdate information I do not have, and cannot get.
It feels like PayPal's customer service is run by Kafka.
HELP!
