Consumer complaint received 2022-10-24
Company: Paypal Holdings, Inc
State: WA
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Domestic (US) money transfer
Issue: Other transaction problem

Complaint:
My friends sent me approximately {$6000.00} $ XXXX ) on XX/XX/XXXX. On XX/XX/XXXX ( I'm the receiver ), Venmo directly SENT MY MONEY BACK TO SENDER, reversed my transactions WITHOUT my agreement. I was very furious and I contacted them on XX/XX/XXXX and questioned them how they could have the rights to do so. They suggest me to contact my friends again and let my friend pay me through other ways. My friends owed me {$6000.00} and if he no longer responded to me after Venmo reversed payment back to him, I would have to suffer the loss. Im very disappointed as venmos attitude is pretty bad and they are not actively trying to solve the problem for me. 

Based on the customer service, they told me that my account was at high risk and it triggered their alert so based on their policy they have the rights to do whatever. However, when I asked them why my account is high risk and why they think I violate the policy, they refused to tell me! They told me this could not be disclosed. I don't know how several transfer could make my account high risk. I had more transfer on XXXX and XXXX and there are no problem at all. The other horrible part is that I did not get any any notification or request for further infos when they decided to reverse the transactions on XX/XX/XXXX. Im a Venmo customer since XXXX. During the 9 years I never had any problems! I did not use venmo to receive money very often. Last week, my friend sent me around {$11000.00} including the {$6000.00} venmo reversed to him as those are the money he owed me. This is the first time I used venmo to receive relatively big amount of money and it was a one time thing, and Im surprised Venmo moved my money on their discretion without my agreement. The ridiculous part is that I was told by Venmo customer service that " When you initiated your bank transfer, it was flagged for review. It was found that that payment could not be fully processed, so your bank transfer was canceled and the funds were reversed back to the initial sender '' The confusing part is that why it would cause an alert when I'm transferring my money???? This doesn't make any sense. If any bank or money platform can move customer 's money on their discretion how would any one be able to use these platforms at ease. I don't think any of my behavior violate any policy or is inappropriate. Those are the money my friend owed me and those are my assets. What's wrong when I'm trying to transfer my asset from venmo to my bank account? Venmo refused to disclose why my behavior is inappropriate and took away my money without my agreement. When venmo has the concern they did not investigate or ask me for further info, instead they moved my assets at their discretion and they could not provide me an appropriate reason why they could do so. The so called " high risk '' is baseless. 


I was more shocked by their attitude of solving the problem. Now Im contacting my friend to see if he can send me money again and I haven't heard back from his yet, however if by extreme case he no longer responded, i will be suffering {$6000.00} loss and pursue the lawsuit. I think how Venmo dealt with my money is very intolerant and Id love CFPB to get in and help me to push them to get a satisfied answer for me. Id like venmo to reverse their action and return my {$6000.00}.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation