Consumer complaint received 2018-09-04
Company: Paypal Holdings, Inc
State: MA
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Mobile or digital wallet
Issue: Unauthorized transactions or other transaction problem

Complaint:
On XX/XX/XXXX, I received notice that we had to finish up our deposit for a lease on a house. I couldn't reach the location, which was in XXXX, Ma and I was in XXXX, MA, 2 hours away, and we had to submit funds to our landlord to secure the home. 

Because I couldn't get in touch with a specific roommate to cover the security money I had, I had decided to use the XXXX application to send money from my account. 

The application, in itself, had to have a glitch, as I bad specifically clicked on the name of the rightful person to receive the funds. 

The issue I have is that the user I was seeking was a user I had already had interacted with payments. Yet it somehow ended up transferring money to a totally different user! 

Seeing this error, I promptly contacted the company to let them know of this error and that I wanted to cancel the payment. I gave them an intense amount of information, the actual recipient, the possible glitch in the application, as well as there was no warning from this app that this user was not a friend. There was no warning. 

Usually if you have not done a transaction with a user, it will put up that warning to prevent you from sending money erroneously. 

That being said, I have gone through an entire week dealing with customer service as they tell me they can't reverse the charge, even though they are holding the money for reversal while discussing the issue with me. 

I received multiple promises from different support and one supervisor named XXXX that if the person can validate my first and last name, than I would Be liable. I find it impossible to even be in this predicament but I agreed because I had no idea who this person was. 

Now, after a week agonizing over XXXX  of a security Deposit needed for a house, I come to find that support had backtracked and said they asked the recipient if he knew me and the recipient said yes. 

I then asked them did he know my first and last name. Again, the support people say he was able to provide information needed but they never specified if this user knew my first and last name. 

They have enough evidence to know that this glitch had enabled an unauthorised transfer of funds yet they have done nothing about fixing it. 

I believe, but I have no idea, what has happened to my money, but I now could be homeless over this incident. Or at least be without a home for some time. The fact that there is no remediation for bad UI being a catalyst for a bad transaction, or even worse a glitch where it doesn't post the correct name, and that the company won't remedy this, has made me extremely hurt and sad. 

I have not slept in two days. I can barely work. And now with what little recourse i have i am going to file a police report and ( probably considered delayed ) a bank dispute over the matter.

There has to be some correction in this. This is too great a sum of money to not have a safety protocol for this situation. And on top of that, there is a nefarious user who is saying the money belongs to them, but now I will have to wait for a police report to detail this person, who could be anywhere in the US. Or even outside of the country. 

I have no idea who this person is and they are going to send it away to them. All because of this app and it's quirks. There is no safeguard to a false transaction, and now so much work I have to do to get my life back whole again, because of just one stupid decision to send money through this app. 

This is a travesty. These systems need to be regulated. The company won't take responsibility and won't at least fix the predicament. I'm at a loss on what to do.

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief