Tuesday, 12/16/08
A few weeks ago I bought a shiny US Robotics V.90 modem on eBay, as the one connected to the office's space-age phone system had failed. (By space-age, I mean I'd think was designed in the 60s if it wasn't running OS/2.) I would have appreciated being able to have the modem delivered to the office, but the seller would only ship to "confirmed" Paypal addresses, which for me was home. So I lost a day on the delivery, and had to stay home to sign for it.
Persuading Paypal to accept my work address as valid consists of them sending me a letter via US Mail with a code in it. The code, when it arrived last Friday in one of those tear-on-three-sides security envelopes, was twenty digits long. "This seems excessive," I observed to myself as I typed it in. That was not the end of the process. Entering the code delivered me to a new page, containing a portly barcode, which Paypal instructed me to fax to an area code in Omaha. Fax! And I'd thought the US Robotics modem was obsolete technology.
But I did it, naively expecting that some friendly robot would read the barcode and I'd get the confirmation email within the hour. Four days later, that email arrived:
This message confirms that we have received the documents you sent to PayPal. [...] We review documents in the order in which they are received and generally require 3 to 5 business days to process these documents. Once we process your documents, we will contact you about the status of your PayPal Account.
So much for friendly robots -- but wait! The followup arrived a scant four minutes later:
To confirm your alternate address we need additional information.
- A valid photo ID (driver's license, passport, or military id).
- A copy of a utility bill or a credit card statement or a bank account statement.
If the address is your place of employment, please send a pay stub or business card showing your name and the alternate address you wish to have confirmed.
When submitting this information, please make sure your name and the alternate address you wish to confirm appear on the statement.
What, no notary? I don't think I'm willing to jump through that many hoops without a wetsuited trainer tossing fish into my mouth. Meanwhile, it'll be far less work to briefly change the billing address on one of my credit cards, which Paypal idiotically trusts. 10:23PM «
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