Paypal in South Africa

[Pap_sak]

Pap sak
Thanks for the warning, I use paypal to pay for stuff I bought, and it worked. But I have not tried to register it with FNB.
Pity FNB don't have a rep on the forum.

well I am not going through FNB so not really their fault and these days you can use any bank account...

http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/2011/11/20/paypal-is-opening-up-to-all-south-african-banks

[Pap_sak]

let me carry on banging my head...

1-402-517-4519
(a U.S. telephone number)


Monday through Friday 9AM to 530PM local South African time

So it's 09H55 and guess what, I get a message saying lines are not open at the moment - they only open from 9am - 530 pm....what a useless company....

seems they open from 10, but the department that can help me only opens at 14h00, they said they will phone me back...

[Newretailer]

but would you want your potential customers to go through this?

Heck no!

[Dave A]

As I recall, the verified card issue only crops up for payments over $100. Under that it's all sweet.

If you have to make a Paypal payment that's a little over, make a couple of payments under $100 into your Paypal card a few days apart to accumulate the higher balance until you've gone through the verification process.

I know it's a PITA, but it's there for our protection - and if there's a less painful way to verify, I'm sure Paypal would be pleased to hear it

[Pap_sak]

Dave - nope it was for $42

Anyway, it looks like things have been sorted out after a few phone calls. The first time I got through I was told the department that could help me only opens up 4 hours later - but they would phone me back.....of course they did not. So I phoned back later and got it all sorted. Took about 25 minutes of calls but used skype so wasn't too bad.

The american operators are extremely polite and friendly(very impressed with their phone manner) but not very efficient.

Will not use paypal again, as I said, I can understand the first time, but the second? Why not a third...and then you got the hassle of sorting out the problem in the states. And it's not just me....

http://www.paypalsucks.com/

[Dave A]

Dave - nope it was for $42

Maybe they dropped the threshold - I set up my Paypal account and went through this about 2005, and a lot has happened since then.

I know there was a phase where I was genuinely concerned about having a Paypal account at all - probably about 3 or so years ago - when there were lots of problems with fraudulant use of Paypal accounts/unverified credit card accounts. I know Paypal really was forced to tighten up on how they did things as a result.

[Dave A]

Just been reading the home page of that Paypalsucks website you linked to. Kinda reminded me about the indignation against retraints of trade here.

There seems to be something in the SA mentality - control & domination - that introduce these clauses into agreements, in the first place. Their basis is clearly unethical, except in a narrow range of circumstances.

From my extensive travels abroad, I find this kind of activity to be offensive, to say the very least. I have not seen it to be the norm in other countries. Generally the societal norms & ethics prevail.

Did you know that Paypal was started by an (ex) South African?