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There’s something sneaky about PayPal.

Today I made two payments thru PayPal. The first one was around $380, and the second one around $35. I received the PayPal receipt for these two transactions, but there’s something sneaky about the two emails. The first email (the one with $380 payment) indicates that my postal address is unconfirmed, while the second email (the one with $35 payment) indicates that my address is confirmed!!!

Voila, sneaky, isn’t it? At first I thought my address is unconfirmed, but after reading those two receipt emails more closely, I start to doubt there’s something wrong. I’ve been using that particular credit card several times with PayPal since 2003, and there’s no reason my address is still NOT confirmed. I speculate that PayPal wants to avoid its Buyers Protection Policy!!!

I’ve informed PayPal today, and hopefully they’ll give me some good answers, otherwise this posting will stay as it is right now here till problems are solved.

Ok, I did a search on my previous transactions upto this February. This unconfirmed vs confirmed problem already existed!!! But…there is a trend: The higher the amout for the transaction, the LESS likelihood that the address is confirmed. This seems to prove my observation.

For amount < $30, the address is virtually all confirmed.
For amount > $30, about 90% chance the address being unconfirmed !!
For amount > $100, the address is all unconfirmed !!!!!!!

Update July 20, 2006

Ok, it’s been 2 days since I emailed PayPal, and they still haven’t replied to me. I emailed them again today, and let’s see how much more they can drag on!

Update July 21, 2006

Ok, below are the email replies from PayPal.

Email #1:
Whether or not your address is confirmed will not in any way effect your Buyer Protection Policy.

Ok, good. But it creates inconvenience and confusion. Some sellers don’t ship to unconfirmed addresses. How am I supposed to know if my address is confirmed when the status keeps changing back and forth between confirmed and unconfirmed??!!

Email #2:
A Confirmed Shipping Address is an address at which you receive your credit card statements, and is checked by our automated system to verify the billing address of the card. Also, in general, most Non-U.S. addresses cannot be confirmed at this time.

Well, this doesn’t explain why my address is confirmed in one occasion and unconfirmed in another.

Update July 27, 2006

It’s been a week since my last email and PayPal still hasn’t answered my key question: why is my address confirmed when the transaction is small (less than $30) and becomes unconfirmed when the transaction is large?!

I sent another email to PayPal today, and they’d better give me good answers to the above question and for being late!

Update July 29, 2006

Below is PayPal reply.

PayPal now offers customers in Canada the opportunity to have a temporary confirmed address for transactions to sellers in Seller Protection Policy eligible countries including the United Kingdom, United States and Canada.

A temporary confirmed address is approved on a transaction by transaction basis. Having a confirmed address on one transaction will not guarantee a confirmed address for any future transactions. You will be able to view the shipping address status on the transaction details page after the payment has been sent.

Note: A fast and easy way to confirm your address is to check the credit card billing address versus the address listed on PayPal account. If your billing address passes our verification system, your street address will be permanently confirmed. It has to match letter to letter for the system to accept it.

Ah…not good enough. My billing address always matches. Having to go through this uncertainty when transmitting a payment will place unnecessary pyschological burden on the senders because people won’t know for sure whether their addresses are confirmed or not until after sending a payment. Very sneaky, isn’t it?

Once Google sets up a better online payment system, I will NOT use PayPal any more!

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