SiriusAddict.com

Last night, I sold some stuff online. In last July, my account was blocked via PayPal for one reason or another. That’s odd considering I am using the Verisign token ID, a strong password, and know very well about phishing and spoof e-mails. So I was understandably angry that it appears to happen when I make a payment or receive a payment online.

Today, I wound up calling PayPal and asking them what’s up. Surprisingly, I talked to someone immediately (considering it’s midday and they have limited hours, I was impressed). The representative was very nice (Dave) and took a look over my account. I mentioned that access was limited in late July through early September, but last night, it was active and then limited itself again for some reason.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t give an explanation why, which is a bit disturbing, but I can’t ask too much I’m sure anyway. I asked why it would go into Limited Access in the first place. He mentioned that when they get a spoof e-mail submitted to them, they scan the e-mail for e-mail addresses. Then, if they see your e-mail address in there and you have an active Paypal account (the key here), they *can* limit your account access for security reasons. At that point in time, you need to fill out their change request form (password, security questions, etc). Then if the account is not activated again, just give them a call and they will work through it with you.

While I understand the reason to lock the account due to a phishing e-mail and appreciate the security measures, there’s a limit when it’s security and then when it’s security + annoyance. Considering they saw your account in a phishing e-mail, it doesn’t mean you’ll act on it. I guess their system should be revised a bit, in my opinion but I’m not sure how, that’s the issue. Since we don’t know how they scan accounts for suspicious activity, it’s hard to say why factors set off the red flag.

Either way, I was impressed with the response time to activate my account again and appreciate the representative helping me to the best of his knowledge and to the best he could. At least the account is active again…