Consumer complaint received 2021-04-19
Company: Paypal Holdings, Inc
State: MA
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: International money transfer
Issue: Other transaction problem

Complaint:
Below is a description of what happened which I posted to a PayPal community thread here. It did not happen just to me XX/XX/XXXX It happened again with a recent transaction : the transaction ( again, to the animal rescuer in XXXX but to his personal PayPal account, not to his veterinary clinic 's PayPal account as the first transaction ) but a day or two later, the transaction went through without a request for further information. 

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- - I sent money to a veterinarian in XXXX just south of the California border. It was to contribute to medical bills for a dog brought to them by a rescuer in the area. He saves street dogs from horrid conditions and death. He is a friend of a friend, I follow him on XXXX, I know he is legitimate. The donation gets converted to XXXX which may or may not be relevant. It was funded by my credit card ; I had intended to fund it from my bank account but forgot to change from the default. I am unsure if the funding source is relevant. 

In the memo, I had put " FOR [ name of rescuer ] / XXXX [ this is the name of the dog to whose medical care I was donating ] '' I got an email that the account was put in limitation. They asked for the DOB of the rescuer. I found this thread last night and called PayPal this morning after a pointless attempt trying to send them a message which doesn't have any way to get you to an actual person. 

The first rep I spoke with explained that this information is required, that they can not lift the limitation or cancel the payment. She said that the recipient would be asked the same question to see if it matches. 

I told her that I had almost put just the dog 's name in the memo field and I wanted to resolve this issue based on what I would have been asked if I had done that, that I was not asking someone who knows me only through my prior financial support to his rescue efforts on XXXX for his date of birth. She put me through to a supervisor. 

This guy told me the same thing but he explained further that this is based on government regulations and that PayPal has no choice. He further clarified that my account is not limited in any way, only that this transaction can not go through until it is resolved. Based on something I saw in their help section, though, I would not be allowed to close the account, which I prefer not to do anyway. 

He said that if I provided the information requested, then the issue would be resolved pretty quickly. If not, they would continue their investigation of the transaction without it but it would take much longer, possibly months, before the transaction was either put through or canceled. 

So I decided to leave it up to the rescuer as to how he wanted me to handle it. He said this happens often and it is ridiculous the kind of information that is requested. He then gave me his DOB. Since the vet will have to do the same thing and I don't know how quickly he will have time, we'll see how long it takes and whether the transaction is allowed to go through. 

Anyway, perhaps knowing that this isn't actually PayPal but XXXX requirement will be helpful information to someone here. Also FWIW, I got through to PayPal customer service by phone pretty quickly by entering the code given to me while going through the process after clicking " Contact Us '' at the bottom of the page ( any page, I think ).

Company response to consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief