If Paypal was an Australian company, I’m sure it would be called Paymate. Or I-owe-ya-one or something. But it would have the connotation of mateship and friendship and going the extra mile for your friends. But Paypal isn’t really like that.
Over 12 years ago, the first only community I became involved with was for mums experiencing pregnancy after infertility. I was brand new on the intertubes and googled altavista-ed forums or mailing lists or something and came across Panfert.
Our babies were born. There was a group of us all due around similar times. Most of these women were in the US and knew each other from infertility support groups. And Panfert grew. Soon we decided we needed our own little community to talk about parenting issues. So IFBabies was born.
Another Aussie gal had found Panfert by this stage along with some Brits. Over the years we ended up growing as a group and formed a great support network for each other. Some people had older children, some went on to have more. There were adoptions. There were deaths. Some weeks the group would be wildly active. Some weeks there would be very few messages.
Along the line some people lost contact. One of the founders of IFBabies went through a really rough trot and I am sad I have lost contact with her.
At one stage we organised monthly ’swaps.’ We would have a theme and send a package to someone. About 5-6 years ago this then evolved into the Holiday Swap. One person volunteered to coordinate the project and you could sign up. Then however many people signed up you would send that many gifts to the coordinator who would then bundle up parcels to send to everyone.
I didn’t participate in the first couple, but loved reading how creative people are. It was always getting into the holiday spirit and making mums feel pampered. The first year I participated I beaded keyrings with people’s names on them. I think other years I sent eucalyptus scented draw sachets and pot holders and things. This year I forgot about weight and sent heavy things! Oops!
The deal was once the goods were bundled up to be sent out, postage would be calculated and then divided amongst how ever many people were participating, so everyone paid equal postage.
Here’s where paypal comes in. It is a fantastic way to transfer funds overseas. ThePcoordinator would send an invoice and you could just pay.
That is until this year! I just happened to be in South Africa when the invoice came through. Not a problem I thought, I’ll wire the money, no issues. But there were.
Paypal recognised I was not in my home country. The first I knew of it was a generic email I received that said my account had been suspended because of suspect activity. I actually mistook it for a dodgy email and forwarded it to Paypal thinking someone was trying to steal my identity.
When I tried to pay for an eBay purchase I was told that my Paypal account was being investigated. So I logged onto Paypal and lo and behold they thought my account had been accessed illegally and I needed to confirm who I was.
As with all things, there are shades of grey. Paypal would be the only place now I have not changed my surname post divorce. I went through the steps of unlocking my account- changing my password and setting up more security questions and answers. Then they said they had to debit AU$2 from my credit card and it would appear on my statement with a 4 digit code.
Even in this digital age, credit card statements are still not instantaneous. It took 8 days for the exact description to appear with the code. Then once I had entered the code I was told I had to wait to see if they would unlock my account- another 24 hours to wait.
I am glad Paypal recognised abnormal activity on my account, however I also believe there were better ways it could have been handled. Here I was trying to wire US$25 to someone I had wired money to in the past. It was from an invoice.
I had supplied security questions in the past and I could have easily answered those. I had a password that was not a dictionary word with a mix of upper and lowercase letters and numbers. It would have been much easier to be able to reset my password, answer my security questions and even provide bank account numbers or credit card numbers instead of the run around I had to go through.
Others have told me they have had similar experiences with Paypal when travelling. Perhaps Paypal needs to have a notification system where you can inform them of travel plans? Whatever it is, they need something else that will save the run around I have been through over the last 10 days or so.
