The number you dialled has not been recognised

I used to have a Doro mobile phone but it no longer works. In any case there is no mobile signal round my house. I have a PayPal account which I can log into, but I cannot use it because they cannot check my identity via the obsolete mobile number given in my account details. PayPal has a Customer Support Contact-Us web page, which gives a telephone number, 1-402-935-2050, but ringing it only elicits “the number you have dialled has not been recognised”. I have never used PayPal anyway, but it seems that lots of websites use PayPal to deal with identity verification. I did find a PayPal webpage where they offered to ring me back. But when they did, the phone simply squawked; I presume that this is because their system is only for mobile phones and not for landlines. So how do I cancel my PayPal account?
Perhaps there are others among the ancientry that resent their increasing isolation. It turns out that without a mobile phone I cannot even park a car or charge it up if it ls electric. Something must be done!

Remember to prefix the number with zero! Or + from a mobile.

But they do have a UK customer service line: 0203 901 7000

Or ever better – Freephone number available from local landline only: 0800 358 7911

Thanks. I actually managed to talk to a human, and have cancelled my account.

No such dialling code as 0203.

What? 0203 and 0207 are inner london dialling codes.

0203 and 0207 are inner london dialling codes

0203 used to be the Coventry dialling code. (IIRC it went through an intermediate 01203 before the current 024)

From a quick Google search, some places say it’s not a valid code (02039 in particular), while others say it is heavily associated with scam calls. Maybe it’s some sort of virtual number that exists but isn’t really associated with a place (like the 07s used to be a long time ago)?

Anyway, what we’re discussing and scam number? Checks out…

0203 is a valid London-wide prefix that was added by Ofcom as the 0207/0208 numbers were getting used up. It’s not like the earlier ones – inner/outer London – but covers the whole area. UK Freephone numbers /should/ be reachable from UK mobiles at no cost to the caller, but do cost the recipient a bit more than landline callers per minute so they might have asked for mobile access to be disallowed, but I wouldn’t expect that from Paypal.

If you did want to call the US number (the one starting 1-402) you would have to prefix it with 00 (or + which adds the 00 or the local equivalent code for you) from outside the US and its territories in order for the UK network to route the call internationally. I assume you were looking at paypal.com instead of paypal.co.uk as their ring-back service should work.

Speaking from many years of technical telecoms experience.