Consumer complaint received 2022-03-10
Company: Paypal Holdings, Inc
State: TX
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Mobile or digital wallet
Issue: Fraud or scam

Complaint:
With great pain, I say that I have been Ponzi scammed using Paypal's platform. I learned the hard way that due to gaps in Paypal's policies, scammers have a free run. Let me share my story with you. I was a newbie investor and signed up for a service that promised better returns. Initially, I had some gains and mostly losses. I continued to follow his investment alerts but started making losses. When I confronted him about the loss, he suggested that I join his private club where my principal/capital will be safe and make XXXX returns in a single day and I would get such an alert once a month. After a lot of discussions and assurances, I signed up for his private club through Paypal by paying XXXX (Scammer asked me to make payment only through Paypal). I received my sure shot 100% signal in XXXX and invested XXXX based on his alert and lost XXXX. When I reached him for compensation as per the agreement, he asked me to arrange for capital again and this time I would receive a stock alert that would recoup all my losses and named it as "core signal", which happens only once a year last time someone made XXXX. I felt all his words to be fishy and reached out to Paypal for help as he wasn't ready to refund the money that I paid. I provided Paypal with all the relevant screenshots of our chat conversations. Paypal upon investigation enlightened me of their buyer protection policy that Financial investments wouldn't be covered and then I understood the reason for the scammer insisting on only using PayPal's platform. Upon further conversations with friends and other family members, I was told that this is a complex XXXX  scheme and reviewed the XXXX XXXX Scheme's red flags. I reached out to Paypal and appealed that this is a XXXX scam and PayPal's AUP policy doesn't allow such XXXX scams or "Get Rich Schemes" on their platform with proof. Sadly, PayPal denied the case stating their policy yet not doing anything. I reached out to the merchant aka XXXX Based Scammer but no response either from their customer care or financial analyst. This is in addition to my previous complaint XXXX  with CFPB)

My questions to PayPal are as follows:
1) As per AUP policy, merchant offer Financial products on PayPal needs pre-approval. Could you please let us know when was this firm registered, Also, as per XXXX, brokers or firms offering should be registered with them - Could you please share their registration no. or XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX? (Link to XXXX XXXX XXXX)

2) I have shared all the info related to Merchant offering "Get Rich Scheme" on PayPal's platform which is a violation. Do you please share the outcome of the investigation?

3) As per Seller Policy (https://www.paypalobjects.com/marketing/ua/pdf/US/en/ua-032122.pdf), it says Payments that are invalidated and reversed - You received the payment for activities that violated this user agreement or any
other agreement between you and PayPal. Could you PayPal explain in my case the transaction cannot be reversed inspite of providing the proof.

4) CFPB (https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/mobile-payment-apps-how-avoid-scam-when-you-use-one), Did you send money through a money transfer app? - Report the fraudulent transaction to the company behind the money transfer app XXXX

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation