Consumer complaint received 2023-02-23
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:
To whom this may concern, Both my PayPal and Venmo accounts have been permanently limited for no apparent reason. Despite countless attempts to reach out to customer support, I've been told that the decision is final although I know that's not the case as I have read from other people that they have gotten their accounts back due to an error in reviewing. After numerous phone calls with both PayPal AND Venmo 's support phone numbers, I was not able to be helped or told what my violations were and why my accounts were closed due to security reasons. I then escalated a case to the Executive Office on XX/XX/XXXX and received a reply. In the email I received, the representative XXXX told me : Venmo ( and PayPal ) utilizes automated tools to scan transactions and review accounts for potential fraudulent or high-risk activity. On XX/XX/2023, we carefully considered a number of factors that, when viewed together, indicated there was a high level of risk associated with your Venmo account. 

As stated above, it was AUTOMATED thus I believe that several errors were made. I have reviewed the Acceptable Use Policies of both PayPal AND Venmo extensively since my accounts were limited and I am absolutely certain that I did not ever violate anything and nothing I did was against the policies. I would liketo request a thorough review through non-automated means. 

My PayPal and Venmo accounts are fully authenticated and have never had any issues up until now. As I stated before, I mainly use these services to pay back my friends/family, and even occasionally make purchases online that would otherwise not go through on my debit card. As a college student, using these services was essential for me since people often donated to me since I struggle financially and this permanent limitation has caused a severe impact on my life. Everything I do on both services is completely legitimate. I will happily provide context as to what my recent transactionsare to prove that they are not in violation of anything. : My last usages were on XX/XX/XXXX, with a payment sent to my friend XXXX of XXXX as a joke. The other payment I received that day was from my friend XXXX for photocards.Aside from that, everything that is written in the " memo '' section of all my transactions are either my friends ' instagram handles so I know how to keep track of everything, or a random memo that has nothing to do with anything since again, it is between FRIENDs. My most recent Goods and Services transaction was from my XXXX on XX/XX/XXXX, who I actually did sell something to. Aside from that, any XXXX XXXX XXXX transactions are all legitimate and have been from people from different countries where Friends and Family is not an option. 

I have also read that countless usershave gotten their accounts limited forno apparent reason and were able to reinstate them by contacting the Executive Office, and I believe that I fall into this exact same category. I feel as though this is foul service on PayPal 's part as I have been a customer for many years and now my financial situation has changed drastically. This is very shady behavior on the company 's part to close down a longtime customer 's account very suddenly with both 1 ) no prior warning and 2 ) absolutely no explanation of what the violation was. They also stated that they would HOLD the funds in my account for 180 days which is an absurd amount of time. Luckily I had no funds in the account at the time, but the fact that they would hold the funds hostage is very shady.

I even am a cardholder of Venmo 's credit card, which is now virtually useless to me since I can no longer receive or redeem the cashback rewards since it is through Venmo, a service of PayPal. I plan to cancel this card if my account is not restored as there is no benefit in me keeping it and I would no longer want to be associated with it. This decision would in turn negatively impact my credit score SEVERELY, especially since it is one of my longest-standing credit cards that I opened when I graduated high school.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation