Consumer complaint received 2019-06-22
Company: Paypal Holdings, Inc
State: FL
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Mobile or digital wallet
Issue: Fraud or scam

Complaint:
On XX/XX/19, I attempted to send {$64.00} to a family member via PayPal. Upon receiving the money, she tried to accept it, only to receive an error message stating, " Sorry, something went wrong on our end. '' from PayPal. She initiated a refund to me for {$64.00}. The money never showed up. I contacted my cardholder who confirmed that PayPal still had the funds and had not released them yet. I contacted PayPal FOUR times to try and fix this problem. 

On the first call, I was told by a rep that Paypal, my cardholder, XXXX, and the U.S. Federal Reserve ALL had my money. Then the rep proceeded to tell me that my cardholder was LYING to me when they said that PayPal still had the funds, despite the PayPal rep telling me herself that the cardholder had the money, before switching and saying it was with the Federal Reserve and telling me to call them. 

Call # 2 to PayPal resulted in me being hung up on immediately after giving my name to the rep. 

Call # 3 led to a conference call between me, the cardholder, and a supervisor with PayPal who kept " assuring '' that PayPal no longer had the funds or any access to the funds whatsoever, and could not do anything to release the funds to me. 

Call # 4 FINALLY led to the truth, with the PayPal rep telling me, " I don't know why the reps you've spoken to keep insisting that PayPal has completely released the funds. ". He then tells me that PayPal could have completely released the funds back to me that day, but because it was now after XXXX on a Friday, there was nothing that could be done until the following Tuesday morning. He also confirms for me that if the reps and supervisor had not continued to lie to me earlier, this all could have been completed in the four hours that I spent going back and forth with them. 

It was during my call to the Federal Reserve ( between call # 1 and # 2 to PayPal ) that the representative there told me, " PayPal is lying to you if they are telling you that we are holding your funds. ". He then directed me to the CFPB to file an official complaint because, " it sounds like they are giving you false information, engaging in deceptive practices and potentially fraud. ". In the call to XXXX, the specialist confirmed that PayPal DID still have access to my money and nothing could be done by anyone " until PayPal fully releases the funds on their end. ". 

In the first three calls to PayPal all they did was contradict themselves, refuse to tell me the truth about my money, refuse to give me any information about who had access to my money, hound me to receive more personal identifying information ( why do they need my SSN to transfer me to a supervisor? ) while denying me information about my transaction ( why am I not allowed to know the authorization code for my refund? ), and waste valuable time instead of help me by being honest and releasing the money needed to resolve a personal family emergency. I still don't have the money and have resigned myself to waiting until Tuesday to see if the money ever reappears, but unfortunately at this point I doubt I will ever see it again. I would not be surprised if any one of the representatives or supervisor that got my personal information has already spent my money. What I went through today was unnecessary, unacceptable, and downright disgusting upon realizing it all could have been prevented if PayPal operated with honesty and integrity.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation