Consumer complaint received 2019-07-20
Company: Paypal Holdings, Inc
State: MI
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Domestic (US) money transfer
Issue: Other transaction problem

Complaint:
I am contacting you for urgent help with an unauthorized transaction by PayPal. The amount is a total of XXXX XXXX   was taken out of my checking account on XX/XX/2019 and I have contacted Paypal several times by phone and email to no avail. I have also filed a dispute with my bank ( XXXX ) but in the meantime, I need to be refunded that amount as soon as possible given family medical expenses that I am dealing with. 
Here is what happened in detail : On XX/XX/2019, I read carefully on paypal on how to use paypal to wire money to family members within the USA and XXXX. The website said clearly that from one paypal account to another the recipient would get the money within seconds. I wanted to transfer money immediately to my sister in XXXX, since she was visiting our home country within 24 hours, so as to help with a parent 's medical expenses. Thus I initiated a money transfer of XXXX XXXX to XXXX XXXX who resides in XXXX XXXX on XX/XX/2019 ( from one paypal account to another paypal account ). As soon as I completed the transaction, a notification showed up on my screen that read : the recipient " will get the money by XX/XX/XXXX '', so right then I hit " cancel transaction ''. There was no lapse of time. It took me less than two seconds to cancel the transaction and I immediately received a confirmation of the cancellation. I have attached that document. I had canceled the transaction because the website provided wrong info about the availability date of the funds to the recipient, which is the only reason I have accepted the terribly low change currency rate of Paypal from ( XXXX to XXXX dollar ). I chose the " instantaneous '' money transfer for a family emergency and accepted that I will be getting a bad rate, compared to my reputable bank, for instance. Thus, with the conditions changing and a new date given to me after I completed the transcation, I decided immediately that I cancel the transaction. And I did. 

One day after my cancelation and its confirmation, on XX/XX/2019. paypal took the total amount of XXXX XXXX out of my checking account ( my paypal preferred method of payment ). Thus, the withdrawal was not authorized. i had revoked my approval and paypal confirmed the cancellation. 
I thought this would be an easy fix but I was wrong. Online there are very limited options and you can not dispute a " transfer ''. To this day, XX/XX/2019, the money has not been refunded and has not made it to the recipient either. After hours of trying, I manged to reach a representative who lacked basic knowledge of how to look up accounts and history. i was given a great deal of contradictory information and was shown no understanding of the emergency of the situation. The customer service first said they took zero $ out of the account as it was canceled but I had to say that the money is out of the account and my bank confirmed the information, so he kept me on hold a long wait then he said it was and you would be refunded in 3 to 5 business days. I made clear there are many major concerns : the fact that paypal gives you a specific date by which the money will be available to the recipient then it changes the date after the transaction is completed, which deceives the customer, to put it mildly, and that the transcation is unauthorized since the money was withdrawn after I canceled it and I had confirmation of that. I requested that the refund take place as soon as possible. I explained the family situation and I almost had a break down ( I had taken a loan to be able to support my father in his illness ) but he said, that is not something he can do. There is no way to expedite it and that the problem is that I have my checking account as my preferred method of payment, which takes longer for the refund to go through. Again, the website mentions no such thing and it says paypal refunds take minutes to reflect. I asked what is the latest time by which the money should be in my account. He put me on another long hold and came back to say it would take 5 to 10 business days at the latest so " you should have the money in your account no later than the 17th. ". I requested that the customer service escalate the issue but when I asked him if he has documented all the issues that I noted to him, he said he was talking to me and there was no way to record the issue. I was put on hold to talk to a supervisor, allegedly, but the line was dropped and I didn't recieve a phone call back, which meant I had to start over online by requesting help and then dialing the number and PIN, etc. I waited and waited and today, XX/XX/XXXX I filed a dispute with my bank after trying in vain to escalate the problem online through Paypal or over the phone. Please help me get my XXXX XXXX as soon as possible by holding paypal accountable. A customer like me obviously can not. This is urgent and it has already been 12 days. Thank you very much. 
XXXX XXXX XXXX

Company response to consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief