Consumer complaint received 2023-01-10
Company: Paypal Holdings, Inc
State: CA
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem with a purchase shown on your statement
Sub-issue: Credit card company isn't resolving a dispute about a purchase on your statement

Complaint:
I am filing this complaint against PayPal and XXXX XXXX XXXX  for not resolving going after a merchant that agreed to and said they would refund me {$39.00} charged by XXXX XXXX  on XXXX XXXX, 2022. Here is what happened, in XXXX, I was looking for online resume services and came across one that had a {$1.00} loo-see trial period. It was set-up like most of these trail offers with what I call ambush business plan where the customer has to make the effort to cancel the account after the trial period - otherwise they automatically charged the following month subscription fee. 

I tried charging the {$1.00} to my XXXX XXXX XXXX debt card several times and the website kept denying saying I didn't have the funds available in my checking account ( untrue ) at the website suggestion, that if I had a Paypal account that I try charging threw that. Well I did have a PayPal account but I had no cash just sitting as a balance, rather I had it linked to - guess what my XXXX XXXX XXXX  debit card, AND, miraculously even though it was using the exact same debit card- the charge went through. I checked out the service, didn't like and cancelled it. 

So I thought, but because I that debit card still linked in my PayPal account, when the resume company charged through PayPal but linked to and the money withdrawn immediately from my XXXX XXXX checking account- I realized that the resume company was trying to pull a fast one. 

I contacted PayPal and through them I had direct access to the merchant and sent them a cease and desist email saying I had cancelled during the trial period- and that they needed to close my account and refund that first month subscription charge of {$39.00}. 

I sent several emails, and when I heard nothing back from the merchant. I opened a charge-back dispute through PayPal. Shortly after initiating XXXX with PayPal, I heard from the merchant and they said they had cancelled the Subscription and would refund the {$39.00} BUT, because I had started a charge back through PayPal, I would need to cancel that first and supply proof that I had closed out dispute with PayPal and send them this cancellation. 

When I was doing as asked, PayPal had a warning alert issued at my request to cancel or close out my charge-back dispute, that in doing so, would NOT be able to revisit this and dispute again. I thought that was probably not true legally but given that the vendor had communicated these instructions with the message center in PayPal- it was ( and still is ) there for all to see ; 1. that they would issue back my {$39.00} 2. that they had told me to expedite refund to cancel dispute with PayPal.

So I immediately sent the cancellation proof to the merchant and asked them to expedite refund as promised if I supplied proof of this.

That was three months ago, and they never answered me again despite numerous attempts.

Since PayPal had stated that I couldn't revisit the dispute, I then went to XXXX XXXX XXXX and opened a charge-back inquiry under the REASON CODE-CREDIT NEVER RECEIVED. I gave XXXX XXXX  all the communications and timeline of events- they issued a temporary credit while they investigated and then to my dismay, they reversed the credit saying that PayPal ( the charge went through them ) responded saying it was a legitimate charge. HELLO I had included in my dispute ( side-stepping the legitamacy of the charge which it was NOT ) and showing the correspondence from merchant saying they would issue a credit- the dipute now was credit ( that was promised by merchant ) never received. 

XXXX XXXX didn't seem to care that the charge back was based on the promised credit never processed, and the back up for that, an instead was focused on the fact that PayPal said this was a legitimate charge. 

So back to PayPal I went and they are saying that they only acted as a third party processor of the charge and that they were NOT involved in this dispute AT ALL, and that I had to take this up with my cc XXXX XXXX XXXX. I tried telling PayPal that it was their response to having gone to my bank and them opening the dispute back to PayPal and because PayPal said - NOTHING ABOUT THE FACT that they had in their own message center - the correspondence from merchant they would issue a credit - and that was supposed to be what XXXX XXXX was investigating- where was the promised credit? 

And so the loop goes on and I am demanding that either PayPal issue the credit and charge back their vendor, or Green Dot bank properly credit my account user the reason code ( they have the original merchant email stating they would. .... Please dear XXXX someone credit me back this money!

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation