FNB Paypal takes 7 days to resolve

I have been struggling to get a Paypal top-up reversed for a week.

I did a Paypal top-up on the 12th of February to my Paypal account linked from FNB as I mistakenly thought that it would be faster than doing a direct forex payment. I received a message after the top-up was complete that the funds would reflect in my Paypal account in 10 minutes.

I reached out on Secure Chat on Tuesday the 13th as I'm in New Zealand, and phoning with the time difference is difficult and expensive. The Secure Chat experience was quite horrible. The chat seems very buggy and continuously jumps away from the active part of the chat to the chat history. Trying to see the history now is impossible. The service agents were unhelpful apart from copy pasting contact information of the actual contact points. I requested information about the top-up that was supposed to reflect in my account 10 minutes after the top-up which I was told would be investigated.

I received an email on Wednesday the 14th that the that the top-up was done to an incorrect Paypal account. This is false. I reached out on Secure Chat on the same day to inform the consultant that the email address used is in fact listed on my Paypal profile, but not listed as the primary account as I no longer have access to that account. Apparently FNB's secure chat is not secure enough for FNB, so I had to call the next day during office hours (20:00-04:00 local time) to update the Paypal account information.

I requested an update of information on a call to FNB forex/Paypal support which was logged for processing, but I got an email on Thursday the 15th 09:00 saying that the Paypal account information cannot be updated and the account has to be relinked after reversing the top-up and that the reversed top-up amount would be different due to changing exchange rates. I phoned FNB Forex/Paypal support to confirm that this is okay as long as the reversal can be done.

I received a mail again on Thursday 18:00 that the reversal amount would be different from the top-up amount due to changing exchange rates. I rep**** to the mail 5 hours later that this is okay.

I phoned FNB Forex/Paypal support on Friday morning to confirm that the reversal is processed and was told that it is with finance for approval and would be completed that same day. Friday came and went, no reversal.

I phoned again on Monday the 19th to enquire as to why the reversal had not happened and was ensured that it would be completed on Monday. Monday came and went, no reversal.

I phoned again this morning and was told that there was some technical difficulty that the agent was made aware of, but failed to notify me of, the customer waiting a week for a Paypal top-up issue to be resolved. The consultant assured me this time that the reversal would be done today.

I will rather consider a currency partner or Wise for future forex payments. I'm closing my FNB accounts as soon as I can.