I'm guessing you've effectively tried this already out of sheer frustration, but have you tried swearing at the automated phone system?

I know that sounds bonkers, but some companies set up their phone trees to give people to a customer service rep if they swear at the phone tree. When I had T-Mobile, I had to do that in order to do anything to my account, since their phone tree couldn't understand me. So I'd call up, calmly say *bleep* and get connected to a live person.

(Granted, Paypal seems to be dedicated enough to terrible service not to have this option, but I figured I'd mention it. Just in case.)