Fed up with PayPal customer service!

[Ray652]

I have been a PayPal account holder since 2009.
I am resident in Canada with a Canadian address as my primary account.
I live a few miles from the US border in WA State.
Because of my location and proximity to the US border, I use PayPal exclusively to make purchases in the USA and have them delivered to to the UPS Store where I have a personal mailbox number for receiving shipments.
This address is the Secondary address on my PayPal account.
I have had a USA Secondary address since joining PP in 2009.

I recently tried to change my Secondary address to the UPS Store in Blaine WA [removed].
I was unable to make this change on the PP website (my account)
Error message was to contact customer service.
The PP agent in the Philippines entered the address with 3 spelling errors.
I called back to ask that they be corrected.
This was not done.
Today I called and asked for a supervisor.
The supervisor only wanted to talk......she did NOT listen to the reason for my call.
She then told me that with a Canadian PP account, I CANNOT have a secondary address in the USA......
Something I have had since 2009.
Also that I CANNOT have my current Secondary USA address as my Primary Account.
The ONLY reason I have a PP account is to have USA online purchases paid for AND delivered to a USA address where I can pick them up.
I have NEVER used PP for a Canadian purchase and 100% of my purchases since 2009 have been shipped to my USA address.
That is why I need my PRIMARY address to be my USA address for the merchant to be able to verify the shipping address.
She told me that was "impossible"
The then she put me on hold and after 45 minutes, the line went dead.
I need to talk to someone in the USA to get this resolved.
Any suggestions?

 

[kernowlass]

@Ray652 

You were lucky meaning able to add it all those years ago, probably because it was a private mailbox.

However Paypal is country specific so you have to open a paypal account in the country you reside in and add an address / phone number / bank accounts / cards from within that country.
You can't add an international address to a country specific paypal account. Whether you could back then or you just got lucky I don't know but for the last 10 years I have been on here I know that adding an international address is a no go.

[Ray652]

Thank you for your comments.
Let me explain the issues.
I assume that you are in the USA.
I am in Canada.
The fact is that 90% of all Canadians live within 60 miles from the US border, in fact Canadians can stand with one leg in Canada and the other leg in the USA.
There is more trade 2 way between Canada and the USA than any other 2 countries.
The MAIN reason for a Canadian to use PayPal is for US purchases.
Transaction within Canada do not require PayPal, we have our own internal money transfer options.
The USA border is strewn with ma/pa parcel delivery agents from The UPS Store through Fedex / UPS, USPS etc.
Thousands of Canadians cross the border daily to pick up their US delivered shipments.
The US merchant confirms with PayPal that the Ship To address is verified on PayPal.
In my case, my residence and banking are in Canada however I use a Canadian bank issued US Dollar VISA attached to my PayPal account.
I added a US address to my PayPal account as a secondary when I signed up in 2009.
Since then I have changed my US address 3 times over 13 years and was always able to update it without issue using an agent.
The last update, the agent in the Philippines' used lower case characters on 3 words.
I called not to change the US address but to Upper case characters of the same character.
I agree you cannot make these changes on your web account and are referred to a PayPal agent to do that manually.
If I cannot have a verifiable secondary US address, I have no use for a PayPal account.
Maybe I should look for an alternative to PayPal.
My PayPal PRIMARY address is my listed Canadian address.
Somebody in PayPal management is not thinking here.

[PayPal_JonK]

Hi everyone!! Thank you @kernowlass for getting the conversation started on this one. 

Welcome back @Ray652, I'm sorry to hear your experience with our support teams and this topic hasn't been the greatest lately. While Kernowlass' answer is correct, I'd like to step in and clarify a bit further as there are a lot of variables at play here. 

Depending on the merchant you purchase from, you may be able to have an item shipped internationally. However, you may not be able to add that international address to your PayPal account as your Billing address. 

With that in mind, I do understand your primary address is listed as a Canadian address, but you still may run into an error adding a US address directly onto your CA account as a secondary address. 

I would recommend seeing if you are able to use the US shipping address while you're checking out with the next merchant you're trying to purchase from. If you're unable to ship it to a US address, then I would recommend shipping it to your CA address. Please keep in mind some merchants may choose to not ship items internationally or to PO boxes. 

My apologies for any inconvenience this has caused. Good luck on your future purchases!

 - Jon K

[Ray652]

Hi,

No interest in shipping from the USA to my Canadian address.
I have made a hundred US purchases ALL delivered to my PayPal USA address.
Not even ONE to my Canadian address.
My default shipping address on PayPal is my USA address, verifiable to a merchant.
If this was not the case, I would have deleted my PayPal account long ago.
I do not see any logical reason for this restriction. 
It works for me now.
The second it stops working for me, I will be gone from PayPal.

[Ray652]

I hear you and feel for you. My account was originally a business account.....when I wanted to end the business account, remove my business name and just use a personal account, it took me several months and multiple calls.
What a messed up management team!!!
Customer service????
Really???
More like...."how can I mess up up your day, how can I frustrate you, how much can I talk over you etc etc.
Good luck!!