sorry, we weren’t able to set up preapproved payments at this time.

[Teakea]

Im trying to link my paypal to my apple id and it keeps saying this...What do I do?

[TT4KC]

I came across this same issue many years ago.  It is the result of having the biller I want to use show up in automatic payments as an inactive biller.  In other words, Paypal has terminated payments to that biller.   According to PayPal, you are supposed to just go back to the merchant to set up billing again, but that doesn't always work (for example as of right now, I cannot set up Netflix either - getting the same error you're getting).  

Paypal cannot delete an inactive biller and they cannot reactivate an inactive biller (which begs the question - why does the inactive biller stay on the paypal account indefinitely in the first place?).  

When this happened before, Paypal gave me the old PayPal site and walked me through the steps to reactivate an automatic biller.  That link no longer works.  I'm having a very hard time getting PayPal to even acknowledge that this is a problem.  They are telling me to contact Netflix to correct. I contacted Netflix and I'm told that error is with PayPal.  On the phone now with PayPal again. 

[TT4KC]

PayPal literally just told me to go back to the merchant and "use another payment method".   Unforunately, that's not an option, and not a solution. 

So - in my case I called the merchant - Netlix.  Again....  Confirmed yet again that the request is leaving Netlix, going to PayPal but Netflix received no response from PayPal.  Confirmed again  that this error "...unable to setup preapproved payments..." is, in fact, a PayPal error, not Netflix. 

My attempt to speak with a rep at PayPal was unsuccessful. 

[TT4KC]

Do we have any response yet?