PayPal won't accept my credit union account

February 13, 2022 7:02 AM

I live in the province of Ontario, Canada, and my chequing account is with a credit union that was founded 70 years ago, has around a billion Canadian dollars in assets, and has 12 branches. I have a PayPal account and want to link it to my chequing account, but PP seems to deem it an unacceptable risk.

When I tried to link the account, I first got a message saying I needed "a little extra help", and when I sent a message through the PP Message Centre, the response I got was:

I’m afraid, we do not have the option to run additional authentication on this messaging platform due to security reasons.

Our security program considers a variety of factors at each step. When you attempt to add bank, if there is any potential risk found, our security system will block it from happening.

Thank you for understanding and cooperating in this regards.

My plan is to reply, explaining as above that my credit union is no fly-by-night operation and asking that the matter be escalated. Is this a good idea or is there a better/additional course of action? Does PP have a general problem with Canadian financial institutions that aren't Big Six banks? Thanks!

posted by Epixonti to Shopping (9 answers total)

You are not going to get a one-off exception to whatever has flagged your credit union. They just don't accept all credit unions. You could use Venmo as an intermediary?
posted by DarlingBri at 7:26 AM on February 13, 2022 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I don't know if anything can be done, but you'll probably have better luck reaching a human who might be willing to make an effort for you if you first try going through your credit union (which will probably be able to answer questions like "are other customers able to link their PayPal accounts" and so on).
posted by trig at 7:40 AM on February 13, 2022 [4 favorites]

I am in a similar situation (in the US). I was able to link my debit card even though I couldn't link the same checking account.
posted by Snijglau at 8:07 AM on February 13, 2022 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Seconding that you should your credit union first? They should be able to tell you what they know about this problem and whether they have tried to get around it. If they've tried and have been unable to get on the right side of PayPal, then you're not going to have much luck.
posted by beagle at 8:19 AM on February 13, 2022 [1 favorite]

You could use Venmo as an intermediary?

VenMo doesn't work in Canada.
posted by dobbs at 9:07 AM on February 13, 2022 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Thanks! I will reach out to the credit union and post an update when I have any info.
posted by Epixonti at 9:55 AM on February 13, 2022

Hello-Hope this helps :-)

https://gethuman.com/phone-number/PayPal
posted by LOOKING at 10:15 AM on February 13, 2022

I am in a similar situation (in the US). I was able to link my debit card even though I couldn't link the same checking account.

This will be because of that MasterCard or Visa logo down in the corner. OP should get a debit card for their checking account and use it to set up a PP account. Chances are good it'll work.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:06 PM on February 13, 2022

Response by poster: Update: I spoke with the branch manager and she is having the matter looked into. If I can't get any results that way, I'll try Thorzdad's suggestion to use my debit card. I will update further when I know anything more.
posted by Epixonti at 2:49 PM on February 16, 2022