"We are unable to complete personal payments to account holders in Israel" ??

[sl789]

Couple of days ago I tried to send 400$ to my aunt in israel as a personal payment ( I am in USA  ). Two weeks ago I did it with no problem for approximately the same amount.

This time I got a message saying : "We are sorry. We are not able to complete personal payments to account holders in Israel at this time".

I called they customer service and I was told they are running update of the system, try few hours later.

I tried - same message. Called second time (yesterday) , asked if something wrong with my account ( I never had any problems before and never violated PayPal policy). The represntative put me on hold for a few minutes, told me it's nothing wrong with my account (or my aunt account) and advised me to try Sunday (told me it's aproblem with their system and they are working to fix it).

I tried another time Sunday, same message. Called again, requested to check what's going on: Was put on hold for 10 min, again was reassured that my account in in good standing it's the system. Advised me to try Monday.

Has somebody else run into this problem in the last couple of days ?

If it's not individual account related then hundreds of people should experience it. I know tthere is a problem transferring money from USA to India because o some banking issues, but PayPal in this case put a specific warning.

I've found no mentioniong of any restriction on transfering money to Israel.

Any advices ? Is it possible that for any reason they put some restriction on my account and don't tell. ( I repeteadly asked representative if I violated any rules but I was reassure my account and my aunt account are in perfect standing)

[liokumovich]

Same problem. Tried to send money to a friend in Israel yesterday and today and recieved the same message.

I sent an e-mail to the tech support. Hope they resolve this problem soon.

[sharonbaran]

THey seem to be honest in that it's not a problem with your account.  I know my account is fine yet I tried to send a personal payment to someone in Israel on 27 June 2011 and got the error message. I also tried on 28 & 29 June 2011 and got the same message again. This problem has been going on for at least 3 business days. Good to know it's a system problem.  Hope they resolve it soon. 

[sl789]

Thanks for the responses. It looks like they do have some system problems, since few people experienced it.

After I failed to send it as a personal payments, I searched on the internet and somebody adviced to try to pay as for Goods.

I tried it and it went thru but I discovered to my dismay that they slap me with the much higher fee , so not all the 400$ went to my aunt.

I asked her to refund it which she did in order to try and send it as personal again. ( I understand that it's reasonablet that they charge higher fee for commercial payments, since it migth be a potential dispute, but in my case it's just a gift so I don't need any protection ). Now I am waiting when the refund appears back in my PayPal account (they promised It would be tomorrow) so I can try again.

I guess you have what you are paying for. If you do it thru bank or Western Union they charge really big fee (in my CU it's 40$ unrelated for the amount)., but there is no games like it.

[sl789]

The 400$ that was refunded arrived to my account and I've tried to transfer them to my aunt's account inIsrael as personal payment a few minutes ago.

Same message : "We can't complete transfers to personal accounts to Israel in this time".

It goes like this for nearly a week - since last Friday

1. No reason given in error message

2. no warning or mentioning the problem on PayPal site (like in case of India) or technical outage

3. no response from moderators on this message (and they did responded on some other problems during this week)

As I mentioned transfer "for Goods" works but then they charge much much biggger fee.

I now have a big doubt it's a mere technical problem. I still have no information if every account is affected. There are hundresd of thousends of people in USA with family/friends in Israel and if it's a total outage I guess it would have been a lot of  messenges on the web. May be they've blocked it for selected accounts only using some unknown criterias they have no obligation to disclose. I have no idea

[UserBR]

Had exactly the same problem, a relative has been trying to send me money as personal payment over a week and the same message is displayed. also tried to send as payment for goods, but they charge higher taxes. only difference is that they refuse to complete it also to my country, Brazil. it seems Russia is blocked from receiving personal payments too. contacted paypal but had no answers. doesn't seem a system problem at all and more like some burocratic problem with those countries policies. maybe they simply took 'em off without warning and who knows if and when this service will be restored. they at least owed to explain WHY this is happening.

[MrPheer]

(22 June 2011). "ICC-Cal, Paypal sued in Tel Aviv court for NIS 16m". . Retrieved 23 June 2011. "A NIS 16 million lawsuit was filed yesterday with the Tel Aviv District Court against Israel Credit Cards-Cal Ltd. (ICC-Cal) (Visa) and PayPal Inc., and the claimants have asked the court to recognize it as a class-action suit."

This probably has a lot to do with not being able to send personal payments to Israel right now.

[TSH21]

This is so annoying, I have tried sending money to my girlfriend from the UK to Israel yesterday and today, only to receive this message.

Paypal better sort themselves out soon!

[sl789]

This was published by Globs - Israeli Business Newspaper.

It mentions that the lawsuit is only against a certain credit card and PayPal (ICC-CAL),

How does it affects the transfer of money from PayPal account in USA to Israel where no credit card is involved ?

(in my case it's financed by bank) ?

If they decide to suspend all the personal transactions to Israel , why there is no official statement ( like in case of India )  and why the continue to mislled they customer saying that it's only "system update" ?

=============

News

ICC-Cal, Paypal sued in Tel Aviv court for NIS 16m

The claimants have asked the court to recognize it as a class-action suit.

22 June 11 13:26A NIS 16 million lawsuit was filed yesterday with the Tel Aviv District Court against (ICC-Cal) (Visa) and PayPal Inc., and the claimants have asked the court to recognize it as a class-action suit.

The statement of claim says that ICC-Cal charges customers conversion fees for transactions, including shekel transactions. The claimants also say that PayPal is aware of this practice, and allegedly did not try to prevent it or warn its customers.

The claimants say that since PayPal entered the Israeli market in 2010, by establishing PayPal Israel Ltd., Israeli customers could open accounts and make domestic transactions in shekels. The claimants say that ICC-Cal continued to charge a conversion fee between shekels and dollars for the Israeli customers at 2.5% the amount of the transaction, even though the transaction was in shekels.

"It is emphasized that charging customers for a foreign currency conversion procedure is only made by ICC-Cal and not by its competitorsLeumi . and Isracard  even for the exact same type of transactions carried out in Israel in shekels via PayPal," states the statement of claim.

[JasonLuo]

Same here, I try to make a payment to Brazil. The system said the same thing to me.