Bad service from FNB and Paypal

Monday the 12th of April I woke up to an SMS stating I've made online purchases with my bank card. I'm a Paypal customer and linked my non-FNB bank account to my Paypal. I've been using this service for the past 2 years already and never had any hiccups. Everything changed and turned into a nightmare. Firstly my non-FNB account has never been enabled for online purchases through Paypal neither to top-up my account and only for withdrawals. Someone supposedly hacked my Paypal and enabled all these features to withdraw all my money out of my bank account to do online purchases.

My linked bank always notify me through an SMS or App notification there will be a deduction and I must approve, reject or report it as *****. I received no notifications and the money was taken without authorization. I immediately reported this to my bank and the account was closed. From here everything became a nightmare. The ********* closed my Paypal account straight after doing the online purchases and I was unable to login into my own account. I tried several times to phone the ***** department at FNB and was put on hold and never was able to log any complaints. I went another route and used almost all the mail addresses shown on the FNB website to communicate and since the 12th of April, no one even bothered to respond back.

*** always worked and now it shows this mail is unattended and the app must be used to communicate. Not one of the Paypal mails work either and the ones going through no one gives correspondence back. I've gone through all the steps to open a new Paypal account and link everything like usual. I finally got through to a consultant on Tuesday the 13th after phoning 7 consecutive times and holding on for more than 20 mins each time. He was able to assist me with changing my email and link the new account.

Is everything good? No!! Since the 15th I'm unable to use my Paypal account due to my banking information still showing "pending authorization" I've sent emails to various departments and no one has the decency to reply back regarding this issue. I phoned several times throughout the week and no one will answer the calls and when someone eventually answers the calls and you explain your situation they will stop you in your tracks and tell you they are unable to assist and will put me through to the relevant department. I'm always transferred to the Paypal side and there will always be a voice prompt indicating "due to covid regulations no consultants are available to take your call" then the line will drop.

I'm working online for an income and need to transfer my monies through FNB to my bank account. I'm unable to do so at this point because of all the negligence that happened in the past two weeks. Where's the security offered when it comes to accounts. FNB, Paypal and Capitec bank refuses to reverse these transactions and tells me I'm at fault. Paypal rep**** with a mail a few days later after filing a dispute and rudely said I am the one who purchased online and afterwards closed my account even if the IP address shown wasn't even linked to South Africa but India. I'm an SA citizen and do not stay in India. It's easy to blame a customer for something or say they are at fault.

All I want and need is some kind of resolve. Just activate and link my bank account so I'm able to withdraw from Paypal. Why did it take less than 24hrs the previous time and now it's almost a week waiting. Reply to your messages, emails and employ more staff if they can't handle the pressure of the call centre.

Please be so kind to respond or alternatively, I'll lodge a complaint with the credit ombuds to assist in this matter and to investigate why the security features FNB offers for transactions are failing customers or is this all internal and shrugged off.