Consumer complaint received 2023-05-09
Company: Paypal Holdings, Inc
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Mobile or digital wallet
Issue: Managing, opening, or closing your mobile wallet account

Complaint:
To whom it may concern. 

My full name matching my passport and ID is XXXX XXXX. 
I live in XXXX, XXXX and I want to complain about a very concerning problem related to the payment service PayPal offered at XXXX On XX/XX/2023 I was permanently limited from PayPal, for absolutely no reason. 
The day before that, I was asked to verify my bank statement and passport or ID, which I successfully did. A few hours after, my account got permanently limited with the message below : " You can no longer use PayPal ( Ref ID - XXXX ) " They stated that I got permanently limited due to a User Agreement violation, however they were never able to state which specific violation was breached, no matter how many times I asked them. The first agent that I contacted, told me that the reason I was permanently limited was due to my passport being expired. I was surprised, and I apologized for this inconvenience. I kindly offered to provide any other documents that are up to date such as my XXXX passport or ID. I provided my ID and my latest bank statement of my linked bank account, which shows proof of my address. They stated that they forwarded my request to the relevant department, and that it would take up to 72 hours for them to examine it. Weirdly enough, not even 10 minutes after, they rejected my appeal. Even though, I did nothing other than follow their instructions and made sure that every single document is up to date. 

They stated that my complaint was forwarded to the relevant office. I kindly asked them for the reference number or ID of my forwarded complaint, they have failed to provide this, even though I made it clear to them and requested for the reference number for over five times, with no response from them. 

My available balance is XXXX EUR, and this whole balance is solely a payment from my cousin. It is unacceptable for them to state that I will have to wait for 180 days to accept a single payment from my cousin, not only that but they do not even state the reason! 
I believe that I should be eligible of withdrawing my balance, as they have no stated reason behind this limitation. I want to clarify that this is the first time that I verify my information to this app. I am not even registered for more than 5 months and this is the kind of treatment that I get from them. 

I believe PayPal acted in bad faith as a payment company, they have failed to offer the promised service. I believe that I was deceived and scammed by PayPal and I want to complain about this corrupt acts done by the payment company PayPal. I have tried to resolve this issue friendly with them many times but they always reply with canned and useless responses done by bots. PayPal failed to provide the advertised payment service. 

I understand PayPals need for holding funds for credit card chargeback purposes, however a review of my account history will review that I am not a seller and I am solely using my personal account to accept payments from friends and family. I never had any chargebacks. I feel that any reasonable person would conclude that holding my entire balance for 180 days is excessive and my be viewed by some as punitive or as already stated, an unnecessary abuse of power. 

Simply because we agreed to their ToS and policies when signing up, it does not give them the right to enforce whatever the term they want with no explanation, with no DUE process and without proving the user guilty. They never allowed me to explain whether my activity is in violation of their user agreement. They are taking advantage of a consumer by including in an agreement terms or conditions that are harsh, oppressive and excessively one-sided so as to be unconscionable. 

Thank you for your time in looking into this matter.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation