Consumer complaint received 2020-07-17
Company: Paypal Holdings, Inc
State: NY
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Mobile or digital wallet
Issue: Managing, opening, or closing your mobile wallet account

Complaint:
My PayPal account was opened in XXXX, in order to make online purchases. My father opened the account for me, in the hopes that he could transfer money to it that I could then use for online payments for games and such. I was about XXXX or XXXX when my account was opened. I don't remember using it much until XXXX when I was about XXXX. During this time I was using PayPal as a way to receive money for my current XXXX endeavor ; XXXX XXXX. I would charge a small fee from clients in exchange for a commissioned piece, and they would pay ( most of the time ) through the " goods and services '' option, that PayPal takes a fee from in exchange for protection. I never once sent this money to my bank account as I didn't have one during this time, and I only used my PayPal wallet for online purchases. A little bit of time passes, and at some point ( if I remember correctly late XXXX or XXXX ) I uploaded my ID and debit card information when I had opened my bank account in hopes of transferring the small amount of money that I had there. Unfortunately, I didn't consider that PayPal would then permanently limit my account, and prevent me from ever accessing it again. This was a shock to me, and I initially tried what I could to resolve this, but according to their customer service, because I had created my account when I was under XXXX ( despite having my parents assist me ) I could now no longer use their service, and could never use it in the future. After this, my next idea was to close my account. I had uploaded my debit card, but because I had such a small amount of money in my account ( < {$1.00} ) I could not remove it. I then tried adding my bank information to get around this, however they ALSO would not let me remove money from my account, and now they have a my bank information permanently stored ( which in my eyes, is a major security risk considering I'm not even using their service ). In fact, the only way to get out the money from my account would be via check, which requires me to pay THEM a fee. Needless to say I didn't go down this route of an obvious scam. I'd like to clarify, that yes, their user agreement states accounts made while under XXXX can not be used, and my failure to acknowledge this when I was XXXX or XXXX is, as ridiculous as it may sound, my fault. However, while using their service, I ended up paying them money in " protection fees, '' or wherever else they felt they needed to take a cut from my deposits and withdrawals. Even AFTER they limited my account permanently, they never refunded the money that they made off of a MINOR. It's clear that they only care about keeping children safe and being responsible when they are at risk of legal action, such as when a user uploads a document to their servers declaring them as a minor. These practices are extremely consumer unfriendly, and they should completely allow users who made accounts while under XXXX to close them and start over. 

Now I am XXXX XXXX XXXX, and have not been able to use PayPal for years. This has been a major blow to me, as I am now unable to offer PayPal as a payment method for my XXXX, greatly reducing XXXX. I also, as mentioned earlier, now have personal financial information stored with a PRIVATE institution, whose security I must rely on despite not actually using their service. For my future careers, goals, businesses, I need access to PayPal again, and it's not fair that they are able to hold my data, and my account hostage, for a failure to acknowledge their user agreement that no longer is relevant to me.

Company response to consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief