I ended up getting a call from a Customer Support person, perhaps because of several strongly worded complaints - one in a PayPal Customer Service survey that dropped in my inbox today. There seems to be a super-heavy emphasis on 'fraudulent use' protections that causes PayPal to automatically lock accounts that don't fit into their very narrow definition of 'verified' account. Is it possible that their IT people are just not that sharp, that they don't understand they're locking out people in a faulty verification process? Or maybe that the innocents that get locked out aren't worth any bother because the real problem (that is maybe costing PayPal big$$$) is taken care of by the drastic measures, and that's what PayPal is concerned with fixing. Here's what the Customer Service caller sent me as a follow up to our conversation: "Thank you for answering my call and I really hope you will be able to understand the way PayPal's security work. Your message is very well noted and submitted to the higher management for evaluation. Rest assured, PayPal constantly upgrading the system for better and safer usage." It isn't likely anything more than another scripted nicety, but I did get a chance to explain, at least... And I got back into my account by physically going in to work and requesting the verification code be called in to the work VoIP phone that I registered as my mobile phone.
... View more