Sadly you can easily and trivially bypass the VIP token by providing a credit card number or a few other identifying details. It's worse than the SMS loophole. And another reason why I'm trying to delete my Paypal account. ;-)
Thanks! I didn't realize that was possible either. I just switched my paypal account to use google authenticator instead of sms, which besides being more secure, is much more convenient since I don't get cell reception in most of my apartment and have to put my phone near a window to get the sms.
You can use a tool such as https://github.com/dlenski/python-vipaccess to use google authenticator/freeotp etc. to access paypal.
That said... I believe you still need a mobile number enrolled to enable a token.