Consumer complaint received 2020-10-21
Company: Paypal Holdings, Inc
State: TX
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Domestic (US) money transfer
Issue: Fraud or scam

Complaint:
My complaint is with PayPal. I have tried rectifying this issue tirelessly since XX/XX/2020. PayPal customer service has been outsourced and most likely to robots. You can not speak to a live person. You have two options : 1 ) file a dispute about an exact transaction or 2 ) start an online chat for anything else. When you start the online chat, it pushes you a bunch of useless articles. Over an entire month, I have been fighting this robot system. Every now and then, what appears to be a human, sort of responds but mostly it's more of the same ... ..articles and generic talk. 

Here is the story. My account was hacked. Point blank. PayPal even admitted that my account had been hacked. Hackers upgraded it to a business account, and it appears they tried to apply for a PayPal Debit Mastercard. Before knowing this, I transferred money to a  friend & that friend alerted me to this issue b/c the incoming email they got from PayPal said, " you have received money from " XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX  ''. My account name is not XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, my account name is my full name. Also, when I logged in, my entire PayPal interface was written in XXXX. This is when I requested help from PP and began the indescribable journey. However ; I realized no one can help me. I forwarded the email containing " XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX '' to XXXX but no answer. I embarked on 100s of useless conversation in the online chat feature. 

On XX/XX/2020, I finally got a decent message back from what appeared to be a human. At this point, I was demanding a call from an agent. This person said that indeed, my account had been hacked and they corrected the weird name and downgraded it to a personal account again. Here is the ticket # they issued to request someone call me. No one has ever called as of XX/XX/2020 ( Ticket ID : XXXX ). However, you can imagine that simply 'correcting the hacker 's actions ' was not going to leave me feeling comfortable. Especially now that I have gotten a taste of what PP has to offer for customer service. So, next problem. I want to completely quit PayPal and delete my account but they won't let me. 

XX/XX/2020, about two weeks after this all started, I got an automated email from PP saying " we need information from you for the PayPal Debit Mastercard you applied for ''. I never applied for a Mastercard. The email from PP had a case # in it and I verified the case number against my account so I know it is a legit case # within PP. Someone has actually applied for a MasterCard in my name and PP is requiring me give them info to clear this request. This is more of the same and I stressed my concern over this new email to the chat feature but the robots are incapable of having a complex human conversation so it went nowhere. 

Getting hacked is a part of life, I'm not as concerned about that as I am the inability of PP to help a customer or the level of extortion they are engaging in. This is the main reason I am writing. I will do my best to explain this but PP has left me with nothing but assumptions b/c only robots talk to me. My account has gone into " Limitation Mode '' b/c of the hacker 's actions. I don't know if it has to do with the hackers applying for a credit card or what may have caused the " Limitation ''. All I know is that you can NOT delete your account with PP until you clear the Limitation. Here is what they require to clear the Limitation : 1 ) Upload my photo ID, 2 ) Provide proof of my address, 3 ) Provide proof of my SSN. 

I'm not about to provide even more confidential information to a company I have zero trust in and operates by robots. I have yet again been down the rabbit hole of exhausting battles over chat to explain this situation. I demand to close my account and the robots keep saying " you can't close your account until you have cleared the Limitations, have a good day! ". They are unbelievable. The last message I had, the agent said point blank " you have no other options. '' This is a version of extortion. PP is requiring me to give up information on myself to close my account ( an account which is linked to my bank account ). I have since placed a stop payment on my linked bank account & will freeze my credit report. As it stands today, this account will never be closed unless I provide the items mentioned above. I will not do it. 

I need some serious help from anyone who will listen to me. I have tried every single avenue I can think of. Thank you.

Company response to consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief