Consumer complaint received 2020-12-04
Company: Paypal Holdings, Inc
State: GA
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Mobile or digital wallet
Issue: Fraud or scam

Complaint:
This is urgent as thousands of U.S. consumers are being impact in the peak of holiday shopping are being frauded. 
The scam this site, a/k/a XXXX, is running is very widespread and somewhat sophisticated. They are trading under several names, but " XXXX '', " XXXX '', " XXXX '', " XXXX '', " XXXX.XXXX  '', " XXXX '', " XXXX.XXXX  '' appear to be more prevalent. They advertise certain brand products that may have a retail price of {$50.00} to $ 500+ dollars at an attractive discount, then, 4-12+ weeks later, ship a completely different product to show a tracking number delivery. Examples range from people buying appliances and being shipped little plastic toys to just garbage being placed in the parcel. I think they intentionally delay the shipments ( despite customers paying for expedited shipping ) hoping customers forget about their order and to get past the statutory dispute periods on many credit/debit cards policies. The merchant has exploited a process loophole in PayPal 's fraud resolution procedure - when the order is disputed by the customer, XXXX provides the tracking number as " proof '' it was delivered. It seems like PayPal 's resolution specialists don't look at the photos of the contents of the parcels compared to the actual items ordered. 
Requests to the merchant to send the correct product, issue a refund, or provide a means to return the incorrect items sent are met with only template responses that do not in any way answer the questions or concerns posed - the responses are all generic. All inquiries seem to receive a delayed response of 5-10 different templates offering anywhere from 5 % to 50 % refund in exchange for keeping the product - none references anything about the issue or anything specific about the order. I think they have a bot auto-responder on a timer and not even a real customer service person reading the email. 

Regardless of the template, all of the responses say something along the lines of it costs a bunch of money to ship it back to XXXX which often exceeds the dollar value of the order and the customer is responsible for the shipping and also risk for the product in return transit - they request the customer " keep it or give it away as a gift '' in exchange for a nominal credit. They ship from a U.S warehouse in California, but demand the product be returned to XXXX ( not even a real address in XXXX ) at the customer 's expense. The email addresses used are all XXXX webmail providers and not a URL of the actual company. There is no phone number to reach them and the US warehouse address is a third-party XXXX fulfillment center that handles import/export orders. 

Take a look at the hundreds of examples in the PayPal Community threads. XXXX searches will reveal thousands of consumers being scammed ( many using PayPal as the means of payment ). This appears to be happening to PayPal customers in XXXX as well. Some U.S. consumers are even alleging certain front-line employees at PayPal may be in on scam which is why the dispute resolutions are not working and the wide-spread scammer is not being shutdown. 

This represents both a SIGNIFICANT LEGAL AND REPUTATIONAL RISK FOR PAYPAL. 

https : //www.paypal-community.com/t5/forums/searchpage/tab/message? XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief