Some years back I set up a PayPal account, thinking it would be useful for selling some software plugins I’d made. As it turned out I never used it, having decided to give the plugins away for free, and eventually forgot my password, but remembered my username.
Later, when I discovered an actual use for PayPal (perhaps selling or buying through eBay) I filled out and submitted the “forgotten password” form on PayPal’s site. No password-containing e-mail ever arrived in my inbox. I assumed that I must have set up the account with an older e-mail address, but couldn’t remember which address I’d used.
So I thought, “Well, I’ll just set up a new account”. Of course, I quickly found out that I can’t do that because PayPal won’t allow two accounts to use the same bank account. So I just decided to forget it, since having a PayPal account wasn’t a life or death matter.
Recently I’ve made a few shareware purchases using my debit card, via the vendors’ PayPal accounts. And what do you know - PayPal recognizes my e-mail address and says, “You have a PayPal account!” and invites me to log in (though logging in wasn’t necessary to make the payments). By this point, I’ve forgotten my username as well as my password, but now PayPal has shown me that I opened the account with my current e-mail address. So I went ahead and clicked the “Forgotten username/password” link and once more filled out the form to have the info sent to me.
And once more, no e-mail from PayPal arrived. I carefully went through my spam folder, just in case the filters had caught it. Nope. Nada.
What’s wrong with those people? Why does their e-mail never arrive?
My next step would be to telephone paypal and explain the situation to them. I’d be surprised if they couldn’t sort you out there and then on the phone.
edit: Assuming you don’t have to go through a nightmare telephone menu system… but there can’t be any of those worse than SKY TV.
When I had trouble with ebay I got telephoned by PayPal all the way from America, the guy was quite helpful (in so far as what was within his powers to do)
Since there are consumer laws protecting credit card purchases and (apparently) no laws protecting electronic bank withdrawals, I tried to change my PayPal account to charge against a credit card. I wish I’d kept notes, but it was exceedingly difficult, and after about three days of trying different things, I just canceled my account. In the confusion, I ended up receiving e-mails at addresses I’d never given them and somehow going back through the process of having them make the two tiny deposits in my checking account. (For some reason, my account password was not the password that would allow me to change my bank debit info.) Finally, I ended up adding money to the account so I’d have a non-zero balance, then closing it & asking for an automated refund. For some reason, I couldn’t manage to close the account when it had a zero balance. It sounds odd even as I type this, but for the life of me, I can’t remember the exact steps. IAC, except for the six or so hours that I spent on this endeavor, I still have the $0.13 they deposited!!!