Debit authorization issues delayed my order.

A few moments after I submitted my order for an Inspiron 1520, I received an email from Dell that said:

"While processing your order, we were unable to obtain authorization from your card issuer for this purchase.

Please contact your card issuer for assistance by calling the customer service phone number provided on the back of your card. When the issue is resolved, call us at 1-877-819-3355 with your Order Number(s) for further processing."

Now I did use a debit card and I know that there is usually a limit as to how much you can be charged with when using a debit card, but my daily limit is $3,000 and I only spent $1,080. Likewise, I'm using a Paypal debit card and $980 of the $1,080 is in my bank account which acts as a backup source of money (I don't trust having that much money in a non-FDIC insured account) and it itself has a limit of transferring $1,000 from it a day, but that is another moot point since I'd only be taking $980 (I already had $100 in my Paypal account).

Now things are a bit more complicated since I'm moving in a few days. I put the shipping address as the one belonging to the new house, but since I had not changed the address belonging to my debit card, I used my current address under the billing information. Dell.com has apparently been undergoing maintenance ever since last night and apparently doesn't list my order under the "Order Status" so I'm not sure how accurate all of the information is, but while the correct billing address appears under the main "Billing Information" field when I view my order details, when clicking the "Change Billing Address" link it displays my new shipping address which was not associated with my debit card at the time.

Basically, my question is this: does anyone have any idea as to what the problem could be and which side is responsible (I'd rather not deal with calling Paypal assuming this is a problem that can be solved with Dell. Also keep in mind that I have yet to be contacted by PayPal and I imagine I would have been if they did not authorize the order because they thought that it was suspicious)? If not, is there a way to cancel my order online? I'd like to try ordering again, this time simply using PayPal and seeing if that'll work.

 

Did you setup your bank account as a back-up funding source linked to the debit card? This has to be done on the debit card profile page on Paypal's website, in addition to setting up your bank account as a usual funding source for paypal funds.

The only other reason why it would not go through is if it were a POS transaction involving cash... but that certainly isn't the case.

 

IIRC when you enter your shipping address, it is stated that it has to match your billing address, probably to make sure it ships to the card owner. This is a pretty common policy for ordering things online, and is my guess as to why you are having trouble.

 

Of course. I've been using PayPal this way for over a year now without any problems.

EDIT: "IIRC when you enter your shipping address, it is stated that it has to match your billing address, probably to make sure it ships to the card owner. This is a pretty common policy for ordering things online, and is my guess as to why you are having trouble."

I guess that sounds like something that would come up (I take it to mean that I would only have to call Dell to change my info?) though I've ordered literally hundreds of items online that ship to addresses that are not connected to my card (especially during the holidays).

Incidentally, why even bother giving me the option to enter two different addresses if that's the case?

 

Well I just got off the phone with a rep and even after changing the address it still wouldn't go through.

Is it possible that paying with PayPal directly will fix this problem, or will I probably receive the same error?