Pay Pal Woes

I want to sell something on eBay -- my first time. Before I can post an ad for my old Tivo, however, I needed to make sure I had a pay pal account so I can received payment. No problem, right? Wrong. I've used pay pal only a handful of times in the last few years, years in which I have moved a lot, switched phone numbers a lot, and had a few different email addresses and credit cards. Pay pal made it impossible to create a new account, because I was already registered, and it also made it impossible for me to figure out my old log on information so I could access the system.

Stephen got to "hear" me vent over IM while I was straightening this all out:

10:51 AM dewstephen: hey

10:52 AM me: sup

i'm having problems with pay pal

10:53 AM dewstephen: oh yeah? whatup

me: well i already had an account, so they wouldn't let me register for a new one

dewstephen: no way to get access to the old one?

me: but i don't have enough old information to get the email address and password for my old one

dewstephen: call them?

me: like i've tried my last few addresses and stuff

yeah - that's the next step

10:54 AM dewstephen: can you call? btw, haha, they are in the adjacent building to freescale.. lol

want me to walk over there?

:)

10:55 AM me: :)

11:50 AM dewstephen: so what up in denver? you doing anything outside of cleaning up the house?

11:51 AM me: i've been out a few times

11:52 AM dewstephen: when do you start work?

11:57 AM me: I F***ING HATE PAY PAL

12:01 PM i set up pay pal for the journal at law school and had a similar headache inducing conversation with their customer service then

12:02 PM they really need to revamp their system

dewstephen: you don't even know the half of it

their legal agreement you sign is really restrictive for the customer

there are a lot of websites devoted to how paypal are a**holes

12:04 PM me: like i couldn't remember when i last used it, or what email address i used. and i confirmed my old addresses, etc. and they wouldn't f***ing give me what email address i need to submit to figure out my password

12:05 PM then they said they would send me an email with a new link that would allow me to re-register

12:06 PM but it's just my most recent pay pal receipt

and i asked if there was a way i could call back to talk to him specifically and not have to wait 10 minutes on hold, and he said call back at 5pm pacific time

wait 6 hours so you don't have to wait 10 minutes

f**k them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

12:11 PM OK - now it says enter credit card type, when there is no space or pull down menu to enter type

12:16 PM me: then i offered to verify using my phone number and it asked me to input the last 4 digits of some phone number that's not even mine

12:17 PM dewstephen: lame, lame lame

12:19 PM me: i finally figured out what address, phone number, email, and credit card i used, and that's not even helping

i better f***ing get 200 for my tivo after all this crap

12:24 PM dewstephen: haha, sorry

12:26 PM me: now i can't even send them a bitchy email while i'm on hold because you have f***ing log on before you can do that

dewstephen: that's lame he told you to call back....

12:27 PM me: i should have stayed on the line until i got the helpful email he was supposedly composing

but honestly i'd rather talk to someone else, he was not particularly helpful

12:29 PM have you ever listened to this episode of This American Life about the woman stuck on hold with MCI for forever

dewstephen: no!

dam...

me: it's really good

that's how i feel now, though my situation is not as extreme

12:31 PM dewstephen: customer service these days is just terrible

s

12:41 PM me: ok - problem solved (knock on wood)

you'll never guess what they had me do to sign up for a new account

12:42 PM i had to sign up using a fake email address, a gmail.net address, so it would let me create the account

then i had to go into my profile and add my real email address

and delete the fake one

12:54 PM dewstephen: nice, smooth move.

I really curse like a sailor when I'm on hold. :)

Here's the link to eBay, just in case anyone is interested in bidding on my Tivo.