Pay Pal needs Improvements

A few days ago, I needed to use money in my Pay Pal account, but realized I hadn't yet activated my new Pay Pal virtual debit card. My old one expired in February. That's when the debacle began.

Now let me say here that i love being able to use Pay Pal, and other than the problems i speak about here, it's quite necessary if you do financial business online. But be aware that there are things you need to know if you want to avoid what just happened to me.

To be succinct, this is what i wrote to them when i filled out their customer service survey after the fact:

Pay Pal is a valuable tool for online financial business. But there are some inherent issues that would make me use a different service, if you had a comparable competitor, who surpassed you in these areas. I often write reviews for products and services, and am the author of 12 books, with a degree in Professional and Technical writing; I am also an advanced web user and webmaster. So I feel I am qualified to offer you some insight. Your pages are set up in a counter-intuitive way, and there is no simple way to find a real answer. The BIGGEST PROBLEM you have is your customer service. To say "We care about your call" or to in any way suggest that the customer comes first, is not reflected in your process at all. I spent 45 minutes on the phone suffering through recordings of options I wasn't after, and it always cut me off at the end when I couldn't figure out how to reach a REAL LIVE HUMAN. I was also cut off by two of your reps, and they did NOT understand the content and meaning of most of what I said, though i am quite capable of communicating clearly. I had difficulty understanding them as well--a language barrier. If you hire non-Americans, you should ensure that they can speak English clearly, and understand American language. Additionally, since I called because there was no activation link on my pay pal page, and eventually came across something that said my card had been reported stolen or expired, with no other explanation, I had no idea what was happening. I eventually discovered that since I did not activate my new debit card before the old one expired, I couldn't get to my money. And I had to order a whole new card. And this would take something like 4 weeks. I needed my money RIGHT THEN. So this is not only aggravating, but highly inconvenient and unacceptable in the realm of customer service as far as I'm concerned. Your employees should spend less time on memorizing lines like "How may I help you" and more time understanding what real help is.