Holy f—ing crap Batman, it took about an hour to reset my PayPal password today!
It all began with a quick search on eBay for an XBOX 360 Elite system. I’ve been thinking of upgrading to the Elite and found out quickly that nearly all the usual suspects like Best Buy, Amazon.com and Target did not have them in stock. What should have been a casual scan of eBay turned into a giant fiasco.

While checking out eBay, I received an email from eBay stating that my account had been compromised and for security reasons I should contact them for support or re-register. After a few quick searches on their site, I found a live chat with a security person at eBay and we were able to quickly verify my identity and reset my login. Things were back to normal, but then my thoughts immediately turned to security risks.

What happened, how much information was at risk by this “compromised” eBay account?

 
Obviously my thoughts turned to securing my financial information and PayPal was first on my list. My eBay and PayPal accounts had similar enough logins that I immediately went about resetting my PayPal password. Here’s where it gets really annoying.

Innocently or maybe naively, I simply logged in and chased down the “edit profile” link to go about changing my password. Sounds easy enough, I’m logged in and have all the information one could ever need to validate my identity.

The process for changing the password required that I verify the checking account associated with my PayPal account. No problem. WRONG! I entered the full account number as requested, yet every attempt was rejected with a “addition information is required” or some other nonsensical error message. This continued until I was locked out of my own account.

Next step, pick up the telephone.

Dial the 800 number and let the real fun begin! A soft spoken female with a mild middle eastern voice answers and we begin the process of verifying I am who I say I am. No problem. Okay, we’ve basically verified that I am the owner of the PayPal account, so let’s reset the password.

Once she finally understand the steps I’ve taken, we end up right back where I began. Logged in and trying to verify my checking account number. We go round and round trying variations of the numbers and after several more locked accounts, resets and attempts - she lets me know that it should only be 9 digits. Okay, well my account has more than that, so we make several more attempts using only 9 digits with the same results. So, in a desperate attempt, I place the PayPal associate on hold and contact my bank to confirm the digits. I was right (and knew my account numbers) - the PayPal tool sucks.

By now, it’s been at least 45 minutes and my patience is thin.

Finally, after being on hold for about 5 more minutes, they ask me to try logging in again. I manage to login and reset my password. Holy crap, that was simple.

But wait, there’s more. It appears the only way they could reset my account was to REMOVE my checking account from the PayPal account. Now I get to reauthorize the account which will take at least three or four days.

Aren’t you glad technology makes life so simple?

/kk