I had similar problems when I had someone from Vietnam working for me (she had worked with me here at a larger corp, then went home and worked for me.) I was a

I had similar problems when I had someone from Vietnam working for me (she had worked with me here at a larger corp, then went home and worked for me.) I was able to break through to a human on the US phone number, got the account unlocked, and then made sure my Vietnamese employee did everything through a NAT/VPN setup that gave her one of my US IP addresses. The phone support wait was long, but I haven't really had any trouble since. Of course, I don't really let money build up in my paypal account; I'll spend it on hardware or move it to my bank account. it's pretty rare there's more than ten grand in paypal, and usually it's more like one to three grand, so that might make it easier.