In the 13 years that PayFast has been helping merchants receive online payments, and shoppers make online payments, we have never experienced as many support email queries as we are now. In just 1 month our payment volumes and subsequently our support ticket volumes have more than doubled. This is directly related to the COVID-19 pandemic and the surprising positive impact it has had on the ecommerce industry.
Even though our Customer Support team, which currently consists of 21 experienced agents, are dedicated to helping our merchants and their buyers with their queries as quickly as they can, the sudden doubling of support tickets has unfortunately resulted in a query response backlog of up to 14 days.
Merchant and buyer query response backlog
We realise the severity of this delay for your business and we are doing everything we can to resolve this unprecedented situation. We are out in full force to employ new Customer Support staff and we intend to increase this number even further over the next few months.
Delayed account verifications
Since the start of lockdown, we’ve experienced an unprecedented increase in new registrations as businesses rushed to get online, which unfortunately has led to a backlog of account verifications. Pre-COVID-19, accounts were verified within 2 business days. In our current situation it can take up to 7 business days.
We appreciate your patience until we are able to get back on top of dealing with all of your support queries. We apologise for our delayed response time and a temporary drop in our standards, but we promise that we will get back to you and your issue will be resolved as soon as possible. Please be patient and refrain from sending follow up email queries, which adds to the backlog. We are currently only resolving buyers’ tickets via email, and merchants can leave a voice mail and one of our support agents will get back to you.
The COVID-19 global pandemic was unexpected and unprecedented, and we are all dealing with the impact of it as quickly as we can. In the meantime, please visit our comprehensive knowledge base to see if you can find an answer to your question. Here are some popular FAQs that you can look at:
- What is an acceptable proof of payment?
- Where do I find my proof of payment?
- How do I request a refund?
- Can debit cards be used on PayFast?
- How do I verify my account?
- How do I upgrade my account?
- How do I change my password?
- PayFast integration information
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