Paypal can make the simplest of things so hard sometimes! (paypal.com)

Member Name: cdsmiler81

Product:	paypal.com
Date:	19/10/09 (36 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent safe way to pay for items online

Disadvantages: Not easy to make changes to your account! Not enough warning when reaching unverified spending limit

This review is regarding my personal experience with PayPal in the past few weeks.

I've used PayPal on and off now for many years. It's one of the most secure ways of paying for items via Ebay (especially considering it's support if there's an issue with a buyer/seller on Ebay), and more and more online companies are allowing PayPal to be used as a method of payment when shopping online. This is a nice improvement as it saves you having to input your card details into site after site. However, using a credit card (NOT debit) online is just as secure as most credit cards provide excellent security measures and you can easily get your money back if something dodgy happens!

I have recently had a bit of a bizarre experience with PayPal if I'm honest. I set up PayPal many years ago, and therefore it was in my maiden name. Now, as I've only recently gotten married, I still have one credit card in my maiden name, and that's the only card/account I have on that PayPal account. I recently tried to purchase a laptop from Ebay using PayPal and therefore using my credit card (which had plenty of space on it for this purchase). When I got through to the PayPal part of the transaction I was suddenly told that I couldn't purchase this item as over the years I had used PayPal so much that I was reaching my 'unverified' spending limit. The transaction I was trying to make was quite urgent as it included using a voucher that was to expire the next day. The only way I could verify the account was to link a bank account to it - which would not only take about a week to do (where they send two tiny payments to your account, and you need to tell them how much they were), but as I'm now married, I don't HAVE an account in my maiden name. So I asked them how to change my name to my now married name on PayPal (which, if I'm honest, I know I should have done sooner). The reply came back...two days later. So too late for this issue, and the only way to do it is to send them a copy of my marriage certificate!

Anyway, with no immediate reply regarding the name change, and being aware of my voucher running out, I decide to set up a new PayPal account in my now married name, with the plan to add my credit card to the account. I know you can add multiple credit cards to an account, so I went through the process only to be told that I couldn't add that card to the account as it was already linked to another account! Argh!!

So I'm now in the process of closing down my original account in my maiden name, and moving everything over to the account in my married name. But again this is also something that couldn't be done in a hurry.

Oh, I went through with the purchase - my parents allowed me to use their account, and I have since paid them back!

My main 2 issues are these:
If I was nearing my 'limit' on my unverified PayPal account, why don't they warn you? I was within only a few hundred pounds of that limit - surely a warning wouldn't have hurt?
Why can't a credit card be used on more than one PayPal account? Since (as I've discovered recently - see my Ebay review!!) Ebay vouchers can only be used successfully if the Ebay account the voucher has been added to is linked with a specific PayPal account (you still with me?), then why can't that same credit card be linked to two accounts? Both my husband and I have separate Ebay accounts, and separate PayPal accounts, but we jointly use credit card accounts for household items. So it's a lot of faffing, and tooing and froing going on as it is...

Maybe many of you won't agree with me with regards to my review, and maybe I should have looked into changing my name on the account sooner. But surely I'm not alone in the fact that PayPal, whereas it can be a wonderful tool and service, they can make the simplest things SO difficult at times!

Summary: Has it's benefits, but doesn't like change!!