I have a different kind of PP checkout problem that I'd urgently need to report on. My eB and PP accounts are both US-based. However, I've been able to manage them while I was out of the country, until only recently.
Here's what has happened. Since last year PP has been giving me a hard time logging in my account under the desktop environment, by providing me with the WRONG security check method. The system wants to send me the verification code thru my US domestic phone number, which I CANNOT use while I'm away from US soil. There's no other verification methods given to me; especially, no verification thru the email method (ie. receive code via email, which I can complete with ease). However, I was able to access my PP account via the Android phone application. Still nothing wrong on the eB side, but that was back in 2020.
This year (mid-year) I had to switch to another phone to access PP via the phone app. Was able to do so and the app didn't give me any issues. Months later (in late November) when I did the app version update, still no problem -- I was able to log back in anytime I needed. Then in early December, after I've updated the PP phone app again, I could NOT log back myself in; the app popped out the security check screen and kept asking me to verify code sent to my US domestic phone number, again something I CANNOT achieve while still away from the US. I then made the grave mistake of deleting the updated app version and reinstalled with an older one, hoping to be able to lob back into PP, but to no avail since.
Then days later, when I conducted my eB shopping on my desktop environment and tried to check out out via PP, the dreaded security check showed up, with two options: receive a text via the US number, or confirm using PP phone app -- the latter which I CANNOT use anymore, as previously I've deleted the latest PP phone app version and reinstalled with an older version, during which my user data has been deleted, such that the app cannot pair with my PP account info with the phone app, rendering the "verify via phone app" method useless. I even changed my PP password TWICE, but no dice. As for the eB orders concerned, I was stuck and could not check out successfully.
To this day the problem still persists. Before that, this eB/PP checkout fiasco never happened, until after I've updated the phone app in December.
Regarding security check issues, even eB allows users to assign a phone number from any country, regardless of where the user account is originally based in. For instance, my US eB account has a foreign number linked to it, so in case of security check via phone, I would be able to complete such verification. (I only wish that eB would allow for adding more numbers in my profile, so if I need to do the phone verification back in the US I wouldn't need to change the number and such.)
Not so with PP at all. I was once told by PP CS that the login sequence is robotic and all managed by algorithm and such, without possibility of human intervention. Now this is just ridiculous. When algorithm is written by imbecilic and inconsiderate human staff, this is when tragedy ensues.
Anyway I'm going to call PP and complain to them. And because of them, my eB shopping experience has been seriously hampered.
Looking back, I only wish eB and PP were still one single entity. Now PP has gone for the worse, according to many others. What a shame!!
