After buying a bit of crypto when PayPal first introduced it several years ago and just leaving it at PayPal, last month I finally decided to transfer a little bit of Bitcoin out of PayPal to my wallet at another exchange. I selected the minimum amount possible (just over 0.001 BTC), worth around $30 USD currently.
I was surprised to immediately get a vague error message:
There's a problem
Right now, we're not able to complete this transaction.
There's no hint of what the problem is or how to resolve the issue, all you can do is click OK. I tried a few things:
- tried sending to a few different addresses, at different exchanges where I have accounts and also my own local wallet
- tried sending a different amount (can't send any less as I was already trying with the minimum allowed by PayPal)
- tried sending a different crypto, Litecoin instead of Bitcoin, and sending $1 USD worth of that
- tried using the PayPal app on my phone instead of the PayPal website, and disabling any ad blockers or other extensions
Looking at the network requests in my browser, I could see there is an error on the evaluate-trade API request, which contains the error message:
{
description: "Internal Decline.",
issue: "INTERNAL_DECLINE"
}
I contacted PayPal support, and got some very verbose and roundabout responses that boil down to:
- the PayPal internal security system reviews something in the attempts to send the crypto out of my account as "unsafe or unsecure"
- until a security review is completed by ‘Paxos’ and the funds are sent back to PayPal, they can't do anything to help me
- I should try sending smaller amounts or spreading out my transfer over multiple payments, "building up a history" of sending crypto... (I am already trying with the minimum possible amount!!)
- I should try no more than once per day or every few days, to avoid a further security lock for too many attempts
- I could sell my crypto and withdraw the cash (I don't want to do that and create a taxable event, I want to keep the same asset--which PayPal accepted my money to purchase and led me to believe I own--and move it elsewhere)
It has now been more than two weeks that I have been trying to transfer the minimum possible amount of crypto out of PayPal. I have been trying every 2-3 days, and always getting the same cryptic error message.
At this point I have no confidence that any progress is being made on the "security review" or that I will ever get access to transfer the assets I purchased. And I have to say that after this experience, I will never again willingly keep a single dollar with PayPal.
