Actually paypal does not allow you to sign up for a country you are not physically residing in and if you move out of that country (apart from a short holiday), you are supposed to closed the account and open a new one in the new country. Since Canada is not part of Saudi Arabia or vice versa, Paypal's system probably detected a possible fraud and abuse of system. Since you signed up for a Canadian account, I would assume that you are a Canadian Citizen or Resident. As such, just provide Paypal with all the documentations to proof that and tell them that you are travelling to Saudi Arabia for a visit and send them scans of your passport visa to proof that. That should clear up all misconceptions there. Next time when you travel, make sure you inform Paypal ahead of time as to where you would be and for how long if you plan to use your paypal account. The status for both Countries are very different, Canada is Send/Receive Country and Saudi Arabia is a Send only Country. Thus when you are visiting Saudi Arabia, you should not receive any money.
(Thanks for the great reply!) Yes, I am a Canadian Citizen and visit Canada every once-in-a-while. But the thing is, I don't travel to Saudi Arabia, I live here the entire year. It sucks that you can only send in Saudi Arabia, but what difference does it make to PayPal? I mean, let's just say a Canadian goes visits/lives in another country temporarily, why should PayPal care if access his account from there? Anyways, I've got a question. For my previous account, even after adding a credit card, the account still said that it was unverified. And when I clicked on the link, it told me that I needed to add a bank account for it to be verified, is that true? Also, if I were to open up a new account and immediately add a bank account, would that lower the chances of any problems happening? Thanks.
just dont mess with paypal..add the bank account that they need however you can open another account because we are allowed to get 2 accounts: merchant and personal but with 2 different bank accounts
it's easy for we guys sitting over here to say PayPal should not be concerned from where you login and from which country you are residing at the time of opening an account etc..... There are federal laws and agencies which are monitoring their business activity, incase paypal overlooks these points like your point of access and registration of account, in no time they would be closed down by the authorities like E-gold Hence to avoid all these they have to follow the guidelines, My suggestion to you here is, Simply close the existing account or at the moment, Sign up for an account with Saudi Arabia as your country and get your account verified as per their terms.
In that case that is how it is to be, if you are not allowed to receive, you can try other methods like Moneybookers, Neteller, AletryPay, etc, The best alternative to you would be moneybookers
Go back to canada, go to paypal office, with a lot of courage and say very politely "Do idiots work in paypal" and then when a non-idiot person comes to u, tell him wat happened and hopefully u'll get back ur account
rome - The problem is (haha, there seems to be a lot of those) that it is very rare to find someone using Mooneybookers campolar - Why didn't I think of that before?! By the way, they have offices? Cool. It's weird that they haven't been burned down till now.
people dont burn em down bcz they hav security...and besides, their loosing money if paypal goes down...meaning all of their business...
I know paypal kind of sucks, but it sounds like you were trying to pull a fast one on them. You are a canadian citizen but you live in Saudi Arabia - You don't live in Canada therefore you can't have a paypal account from there. You HAVE to have one from Saudi. Paypal isn't stupid and they see that you are trying to get around their rules because you want to recieve money and can't do that from where you live. Paypal has rules from each different country, they have to follow them. Why can't people understand this - I hate when people come into a forum and start complaing when they don't have a legitimate gripe. You screwed up. You tried to beat the system and got caught. Deal with it.
sheilasultani - that was helpful... Besides, I have a friend that is living in Dubai and he has a U.S. bank account with no problems whatsoever.
There is actually a difference between Saudi Arabia and UAE in terms of the Paypal status. Saudi Arabia is a SEND Only country and UAE (Dubai) is a SEND/RECEIVE country. Besides as you know, all countries which can receive paypal payments allows for the adding of a US Bank account. That pretty much makes a very big difference.
My thoughts exactly. If you have not read the TOS lately, please do. Then ask yourself if you have any rights to your hard-earned money.