Consumer complaint received 2022-07-12
Company: Paypal Holdings, Inc
State: CA
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Closing an account
Sub-issue: Can't close your account

Complaint:
On XX/XX/2022, I attempted to open a Venmo account, with XXXX. I have other XXXX accounts. 

On XX/XX/2022, I received a poorly formatted and suspicious email asking me to click a link and submit personal information for violating some User Terms, however no information was provided. See email below : Hi XXXX, Your Venmo account has been frozen due to recent activity that appears to be a violation of our User Agreement. 
If you would like to reactivate your account, please submit a picture of your unexpired US government- issued photo identification via our Document Upload Form, linked below. This is required to ensure you are the legal account holder. 
Acceptable forms of ID include a driver 's license, state ID card, US passport, US XXXX, or green card. The name on your photo ID should match the name registered to your Venmo account. 
You can find our Document Upload Form here : https : //help.venmo.com/hc/en-us/requests/new? 
ticket_form_id=XXXX XXXX XXXX. 
For your privacy and security, please do not reply back to this email with your documents. Once you submit your information through the above link, we will review your case and reply with more information regarding your account. 
Thank you, Team Venmo So, I logged into the Venmo site to verify if this was a valid message from them. I contacted support on XX/XX/2022. They were also acting really evasive and not answering my questions and kept urging me to click the link. I asked them to close my account, because I felt uncomfortable with them collecting my personal information, under the guise of me committing some sort of rules violation, and they refused to close the account. I was denied to close the account. I told them that I wanted to close the account, and all of their responses just tell me to click the link. I am not doing that. They will not speak to me, close the account, or offer me anything other than the option to click the link and submit my personal information. That isn't going to happen. 

I have requested them to close this account, and they don't have any right to collect my personal information to do so. I feel they are trying to extort my personal information in order to comply with my account closure request. In addition, they have not specified what sort of account activity I have performed that is against user terms. I feel that this is a scam to gather more of my personal information and has nothing to do with any violations I have allegedly committed by merely attempting to open an account. 


You have a new message from Venmo regarding request # XXXX. To respond, simply reply to this email. 
Hi there XXXX, XXXX here with Venmo Purchase Support! I'm sorry you're running into this issue. I'll be more than happy to help you. Allow me to take a moment to check your account. 

I see that the Account Specialists sent you an email on XX/XX/2022. 

Once you have replied to that email with the information they requested, they will be able to further assist. 

If you are unable to locate that email, just let me know, and I can escalate up a new ticket for you. Please note, that replying to the Account XXXX who is already working on your case is the fastest way to get in touch with the Account Specialists. 

Please let me know if you have any questions regarding this process. 

My Best, XXXX XXXX | Venmo Support THIS EMAIL IS A SERVICE FROM VENMO.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation