Consumer complaint received 2023-08-17
Company: Paypal Holdings, Inc
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Mobile or digital wallet
Issue: Unauthorized transactions or other transaction problem

Complaint:
I'm looking to address a problem whereby PayPal charged the wrong account for a transaction. Despite my preferred card for payment being a credit card, my bank account was automatically charged instead. 

After I selected 'pay with PayPal XXXX on the seller 's website, I did not have a chance to choose which PayPal XXXX to be charged with as I usually do. Instead, PayPal automatically charged my bank account with the purchase, which was in foreign currency ( Euros ; I live in XXXX and my bank account and credit cards operate with CAD ). I have no idea how this happened because the bank account is not my default card. 

Because of PayPal 's error, I was then charged an insufficient funds ( NSF ) fee ( {$45.00} CAD ) from my bank because I didn't have enough for the amount in my chequings account since I was not expecting it would be charged for this purchase. 

I was also charged the amount in CAD based on PayPal 's conversion rate of XXXX CAD = XXXX EUR. This is higher than the XXXX mid-market conversion rate at the time of purchase ( XXXX on XX/XX/XXXX ) : XXXX CAD = XXXX EUR. Had I been able to select the preferred card on my account, which is an XXXX XXXX credit card with no foreign transaction fee, then I would not have had been charged at this subpar conversion rate. 

Had I been able to select the proper credit card to pay for the transaction, I would have paid, according to the mid-market conversion rate at the time of the transaction listed in my previous message, ( i.e. XXXX CAD = XXXX Euros ) = {$64.00} CAD. Instead, because my debit card was incorrectly charged using PayPal 's conversion rate ( XXXX CAD = XXXX EUR ), I paid {$67.00}. 

I have repeatedly requested to multiple service agents at PayPal via Customer Service to correct this error by doing the following : 1. Refund the {$45.00} CAD NSF fee. 
2. Refund the difference between what the amount charged based on PayPal 's conversion rate ( {$67.00} CAD ) and what I should have paid if PayPal had not made this error ( {$64.00} CAD ) = {$2.00}. 

As an alternative solution, I have also proposed that PayPal fully refund me the original charge for the transaction, then charge my preferred credit card as I had originally intended. 

PayPal 's representatives have not taken responsibility for the issue. They instead told me to request a refund from my bank for the NSF fee. This is not a problem my bank should be responsible for, and consumers should not have to waste time addressing a problem that PayPal should be responsible for fixing. 
I have not contacted the Resolution Centre because my issue did not fit into one of the prescribed problem categories. Also, there have been a history of complaints
reported in the PayPal Community forum about incorrect accounts being charged that the Resolution Centre failed to resolve by denying consumers ' claims. This adds to the seriousness of the issue regarding PayPal 's lack of responsibility and unacceptable customer service. 

Examples of this issue reported by other consumers : XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation