Consumer complaint received 2022-09-13
Company: Paypal Holdings, Inc
State: CO
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Mobile or digital wallet
Issue: Fraud or scam

Complaint:
I received the following message on Friday, XX/XX/XXXX : You can no longer do business with PayPal After a review of your account activity, we've determined that you're in violation of PayPal 's Acceptable Use Policy. As a result, your account has been permanently limited and you won't be able to conduct any further business using PayPal. This is permitted under the PayPal User Agreement sections Restricted Activities and Actions We May Take. You must remove all references to PayPal from your website ( s ) and/or auction ( s ), including removing PayPal as a payment option, the PayPal logo XXXX and the PayPal shopping cart. 

If you have funds in your PayPal balance, we'll hold it up for 180 days. These funds may be used to satisfy any obligations you may have under the User Agreement and Acceptable Use Policy, including potential liabilities to third parties and to PayPal for each violation of the Acceptable Use Policy, including monetary damages. After that period, we'll email you with information on how to access any remaining funds. 

If there are chargebacks that result in your account balance falling below zero, you will need to settle the amount owed to PayPal to avoid further action. 

Customers who are permanently limited for violating the Acceptable Use Policy are not permitted to use PayPal services and are not permitted to open new or additional PayPal accounts. 

You can find the complete the PayPal Acceptable Use Policy by clicking Legal at the bottom of any PayPal page. 

We regret any inconvenience this may cause. 

I then received the following message on Monday, XX/XX/XXXX XXXX XXXX, Your Venmo account has been frozen due to recent activity that triggered some security alerts. 

You may have received a separate email from Venmo with more information. If you have questions or want to reactivate your account, please contact Support here. 

Thanks, Team Venmo Also on Monday, XX/XX/XXXX I received the following message. I did not submit a request to Venmo, nor did I have time to respond the the previous message, which arrived 22 minutes earlier. 

You have a new message from Venmo regarding request # XXXX. To respond, simply reply to this email. 
Hello XXXX, We have recently reviewed your usage of Venmo 's services, as reflected in our records. Due to the nature of your activities, we have chosen to discontinue service to you in accordance with Venmo 's User Agreement. As a result, we have placed a permanent limitation on your account. 

We ask that you please remove any and all references to Venmo from your website and social media accounts. 

You may transfer the remaining account balance to your bank account but you will no longer be able to access your Venmo account. 

We thank you in advance for your cooperation. If you have any further questions, please reply to this email. 

Sincerely, Team Venmo Here is my complaint : I have conducted no transactions on PayPal that violated their Acceptable Use Policy. I have only one PayPal account, which I have used infrequently since XXXX. I have never had another PayPal account besides this one. I have checked the transaction history for my PayPal and associated bank accounts and see nothing unusual. My transactions are all legitimate and do not violate the Acceptable Use Policy. Therefore, I think this is an instance of either fraud or faulty algorithms flagging my account. Either way, I contacted PayPal yesterday ( XX/XX/XXXX ) and have not yet received a response. 

Related, in spring XXXX, my Venmo account ( but not my PayPal account ) was permanently suspended for violating their User Agreement. However, this was reversed after I complained and my account was eventually restored ( otherwise, it could not be suspended again now ). I contacted CFPB for this problem as well ( complaint ID XXXX submitted on XX/XX/XXXX ). 

With both PayPal and Venmo ( for which PayPal is responsible ), these companies are unfairly smearing my digital presence and damaging my ability to conduct legitimate transactions. 

Thank you

Company response to consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief