Consumer complaint received 2021-02-10
Company: Paypal Holdings, Inc
State: TX
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Domestic (US) money transfer
Issue: Other service problem

Complaint:
I apologize that what follows is somewhat long, but I promise that I will get to the issue that brought me to you guys before this explanation is over. On XX/XX/2021, Venmo contacted me that my account had been frozen, without providing any reason for doing so, and on XX/XX/2021, XXXX XXXX XXXX full last name is not revealed ) contacted me stating that : " While we encourage the use of Venmo, we must ensure all users abide by our User Agreement. After reviewing your account, we have found that your actions and activity have been in violation of this agreement. 

As a result, your account has been permanently deactivated and we regret to inform you that we can no longer offer you the Venmo service. We do not make these decisions lightly, and when we do, it is to help ensure that Venmo continues to be a safe way to make payments. 

I opened a XXXX XXXX XXXX complaint at that point, requesting a full and unconditional restoration of service, and I following with with Venmo to ask why I had been terminated, as I did not believe I had violated the TOS. In responding to my follow-up, XXXX XXXX responded : " We have systems in place that monitor activity on Venmo, but please note that we don't reveal information about our internal systems in order to keep these systems robust. When we take action on accounts as we did in your situation, we do so to ensure that Venmo continues to be a secure way to make payments and that our users are operating in compliance with our terms. 

As stated in our User Agreement, if we determine, in our sole discretion, that you may have breached our Terms, that you or your Account activity present risk or security concerns, we may take actions to protect Venmo and our users.

So at this point, I asked them to completely purge my personal information from their systems, and updated my XXXX XXXX XXXX  complaint to reflect that. My request was sent to XXXX XXXX of Executive Escalations at PayPal. Her response was as follows : " To prevent customers from creating new Venmo accounts, we are declining your request to remove your information from your Venmo account. '' After further follow-up from me, Venmo is now arguing that theyre required to maintain my data. However, given that this statement is quite different from Ms. XXXX 's earlier statement, this strikes me as unlikely the real reason. It's more likely indeed the initial response Ms. XXXX gave, that maintaining that data is a convenience to Venmo. The prevention of signing up again was also the reason Ms. XXXX gave the XXXX XXXX XXXX in responding to my complaint. 

This is why I've come to file a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau about security of my personal financial information, as well as the personal financial information of anyone on that uses Venmo. This practice can not be acceptable. At its core, this entire situation is a company providing a service that requires a considerable amount of personal data, using secret reasons to terminate service, and then using that as a pretext to maintain that personal data. Consumers should not be forced to allow a company to maintain their personal data ( solely for the convenience of the company ) when that company has decided to terminate a relationship, since by electing to terminate that relationship and deny continued use of service, they are forfeiting any permissions previously granted to them for the use of that data. At the very least, such a company should be required to provide explicit quarterly disclosures stating that they will maintain your personal private information in the case of a termination, so that consumers can make an informed decision as to whether or not they want to maintain that relationship themselves. 

I have attempted to persuade Venmo to voluntarily remove my information or allow me to cure any issues they felt were present in my profile, but they continue to decline both, and at this point, the discussions have broken down. In Venmo 's opinion, my personal data should remain on their servers and be at risk of hackers accessing it and be at risk of financial ruin simply to serve as a convenience for Venmo. If people want to take their personal data off of a website, they should be allowed to do so. They shouldn't be forced to forever wear the risk that Venmo 's security isn't good enough and that their data is hacked and they're not in a position to protect it because their service was terminated. This is why I'm now asking for regulatory intervention, because I can not believe that a practice that effectively steals private information and hides behind secret pretexts is in line with any existing financial regulation.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation