Consumer complaint received 2024-03-28
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service — International money transfer
Issue: Money was not available when promised — 
Company: Paypal Holdings, Inc (FL)

I'm writing today because I have several complaints concerning the unfair and deceptive way that PayPal conducts its business with the public and more specifically with me. 

The complaint concerns two money transfer transactions initiated on the XXXX of XX/XX/2024. 

Instead of dispersing the funds to the recipients in a timely way the funds have been put on hold and the recipients have not been able to receive the money because the company has classified the status of the transfer or the payment as pending for no apparent reason since every time I speak to them it's something different. I have enclosed a copy of the two transactions by way of attachments to this message. I've also enclosed copies of correspondence from the bank showing that the money was removed from the bank account no later than the XXXX and yet the people don't have their money today because of performance failures and other deceptive conduct committed by PayPal.

I fund my account with a little bit of cash usually about {$500.00} that I also link the account to some other sources of money which for exceed the amount that I have in the PayPal account.

Our routinely makes small transfers under the friends and family feature to people in other countries. None of these transfers exceed 25 % of the balance in the account at any particular time. 

Usually when I place the transaction it tells me that the funds are going to be available in 2 to 3 minutes to the recipient. 

If the funds are not going to be available in 2 to 3 minutes to the recipient I don't place the transaction. Generally I will select another source of funding to see if it changes the availability time and if it does then I'll use that source if it doesn't I will simply not place the transaction. 

Lately I've noticed that for various arbitrary and capricious reasons PayPal elects to deceptively tell me that the transaction processed and will be available in 2 to 3 minutes to the recipient and then they place holds on the money at the recipients end and don't allow the recipient to retrieve the funds for anywhere from 7 to 30 days or more!

When I call PayPal about this or message them each time I speak to an employee I get a different misrepresentation or a contradictory representation about why this is being done. There seems to be a corporate culture of acting deceptively towards consumers and disseminating wrong or misinformation or just false information. 

I've been told that because some of these transactions come out of a checking account that it takes that long for it to clear which is absolute nonsense. Using the automated clearing House those transactions can be cleared in 48 hours and many of the transfers that I do are routinely sent out immediately that way without any holds at all.

There seems to be no logic or consistency with the way PayPal applies it's so-called policy on ACH transfers in each x because many of them go out immediately and people have their money and others don't and there's no variables that are different between the transactions that are processed immediately in the ones that are delayed for no apparent reason. 

When discussing this with PayPal I'm getting different misrepresentations depending on who I'm discussing it with. I'm told that it was processed as an E-Check well that doesn't have much credibility as far as an excuse because they're processing a lot of other ones with that same method and they're making the funds available immediately because there's more than adequate funds on deposit in the account to cover them if that payment method was denied. In other words there's {$100.00} worth of payments going out for ACH processing while there's a {$500.00} plus balance in the account so if there's a problem with the ACH items they've always got recourse against the account but they're telling me that they've been doing me a courtesy to process other transactions this way so I'm curious why they extend the courtesy on some transactions and not others and why they untruthfully disclose at the time of the transaction that the transaction is complete and that the recipient will have the money in XXXX to XXXX minutes and then they put a pending hold on the transaction at the other end for XXXX to 30 days this is completely inconsistent and arbitrary and makes no sense and the fact that they come up with multiple contradictory reasons for doing this is outrageous. 

I was also told by one representative to call the bank where the money was being taken out of the account and tell them to expedite the transfer. Anybody in the financial industry or the banking industry knows that that is not the way the system works and my calling the bank where my money is to have them expedite an ACH transfer is not practical because that's not the way the ACH system works and it would have no effect on the final settlement of the transaction. Giving consumers such frivolous advice is deceptive and dishonest and serves no purpose other than to justify the dishonest acts of PayPal towards consumers.

PayPal Representatives have also implied that they use some kind of secret blacklists or secret databases to deny access to their services. If they're using such databases in the United States to deny access to services that could be a de facto form of credit than their violating the Fair credit reporting Act and they need to disclose the fact that they're using those databases and identify the databases so that consumers can obtain copies of the information about them in those databases and challenge it for accuracy. The use of blacklists in the United States involving provisioning of credit based financial services is illegal. Do they create blacklists based on people 's race or ethnicity or sex or political persuasion or do they use demographic or economic variables that tend to discriminate against people for prohibited reasons? We don't know. Are they based on hearsay or information that was obtained in violation of the law? We don't know.

Another employee told me off the record that PayPal was having a liquidity problem and if that's truly the case I'm curious why that information is being withheld from consumers and from the public and I'm wondering if the securities and exchange commission knows about this since PayPal is a publicly traded company and I'm wondering if this is an event that requires reporting to the SEC but also if they're having liquidity problems they should basically not be in a position to defraud consumers because of those problems or conceal information about those problems from consumers who are expecting instantaneous transfers of funds to recipients who need them.

I was also told by another PayPal representative that the company system for processing the payments was not working and another representative told me that they never advance money to recipients on ACH debits from checking accounts which is completely false if you look at my account you'll see that 90 % of the transactions that I initiate are ACH transactions and the funds are delivered immediately.

The company is acting dishonestly and deceptively in the way it conducts its business with the public by giving all of these frivolous and fictitious excuses to consumers to justify their own inconsistent and deceptive behavior and business practices. 

Another complaint that I have about PayPal is that I'm unable to document anything because PayPal 's app has disabled the ability for consumers to take screenshots of their transactions in order to document what they're doing and have evidence to back up their positions in disputes with the company. I'm unable to take a screenshot of just about anything on the PayPal app including but not limited to transactions, disputes, messages with the company involving account issues, and like I said just about anything else that I would need to back up my position. In a way it's sort of like preemptive spoliation of evidence by preventing somebody from gathering evidence to back up anything or documenting a position or otherwise being able to provide supporting documentation in a matter involving any controversy between the parties.

I have questions PayPal about this and been told that it was for security reasons and I'm wondering if it's for their security because it certainly not for my security and there's no benefit to me at all for that policy. The policy only serves to prevent consumers from documenting their transactions in the event that they encounter a problem with PayPal or some matter related to a transaction involving PayPal it basically serves to interfere with the ability to collect evidence which would support the position of a consumer in a dispute or controversy with the company.

It seems to me that PayPal has gotten away with engaging and unfair and deceptive abusive Acts against consumers for decades and not much has been done about it probably because they impose a mandatory arbitration clause on customers and because government agencies don't seem to take these complaints that seriously.

I've been damaged because my recipients don't get timely remittances and I'm induced fraudulently into making the remittance on the belief that they're going to receive funds in 3 to 5 minutes based on what appears on the screen when I place the order. I'm also further damaged by the fact that I'm not able to cancel these transactions after PayPal has arbitrarily placed a 7 to 30 day hold on the disbursement of the funds to the recipients and claims to have no way to cancel the transaction! My recipients are damaged because they don't receive the money and I don't have access to my money for a prolonged period of time due to pay pals unfair and deceptive and dishonest and probably unlawful policies. It disparages my reputation personally or as a business person because it makes it appear that I'm not able to perform my obligations or promises or that I'm under some kind of investigation or scrutiny for some issues related to financial fraud concerning my accounts. 

It's unlawful and unfair for me not to be able to cancel the transaction and not to have use of my funds if PayPal is unable or unwilling to perform the disbursement in a timely way and I can tell you that 7 to 30 days is not a timely way.

I can't imagine that with all the technology available to PayPal at their disposal that they can not cancel or rescind a transaction where the funds have not been delivered to the recipient and they have the right to cancel the transaction within the time frame that they're putting a hold on the funds. It's a complete XXXX XXXX as they say or a contradiction. Also it's an affront to the rights of consumers to take such a frivolous position. The other thing that doesn't make sense is that they have 500 % of the amount of the transactions on deposit in the PayPal account to cover them for recourse in the event of any problems regarding the ACH payments and their one side overly complex and confusing consumer unfriendly terms of service/ contracts of adhesion that they impose upon consumers certainly gives them the ability to deduct the money from funds on deposit in their accounts. In other words there's no risk to them whatsoever.

It also seems absurd to me that they claim that they can't cancel a transaction when they've done that many times before. They have the ability and they have the technology to instantly cancel a transaction especially since they haven't dispersed any money to the recipient and they've put a hold on the transfer so it's disingenuous and dishonest to tell consumers that they can't do that when in fact they can. I'm beginning to believe the employee who told me that there were liquidity problems because it only makes sense that they need to use my money to bolster their liquidity and if they can do this to hundreds of thousands of customers then it prevents them from having a liquidity problem or having to disclose to the SEC or any regulatory body or to the public that they have these liquidity issues.

In my case the two most recent problems I have with them involving pending transactions involve money that they've already collected and my bank has already paid the money to them and I will attach exhibits showing that the money has already been deducted from the bank account while the transactions remain pending and they refuse to cancel the transactions so that I could have the money available to me to utilize for finding another way to get it to the recipients in a timely way. They've exposed me to one other problem because I've had to take money from something else to use another service to get money to one of the recipients and I have no guarantee given PayPal 's dishonesty then I will ever see the money from those transactions again and it's not my responsibility or the recipient 's responsibility to deal with this it's PayPal 's responsibility and they certainly do have the means and method for canceling a payment on an ACH transfer in fact I've had them do it a number of times so their policy is somewhat arbitrary and capricious and inconsistent and very unfair and very deceptive to consumers.

I was able to screenshot a list off the main page of PayPal but when it comes to individual transactions or messages or chats or other things the app is blocked for screenshots which makes absolutely no sense at all except to serve the interests of PayPal against and above that of their customers when matters in controversy present themselves. 

Also I'm noticing that I get charged XXXX cents for those transactions most of the time or a little more and now PayPal is telling me that I should pay up to {$5.00} for the same transaction to use a credit card or a debit card and of course that enriches the company through a pattern of dishonest conduct because they're charging more fees or higher rates for transfers from credit cards or debit cards then they are from ACH transfers from checking accounts. It seems to me that it's very deceptive because not only is the rate differential substantial but I have no guarantee based on their conduct that should I pay those rates and select those methods of payment that they will timely deliver the money based on their prior patterns of conduct and based on things that I read on the internet from other consumers that have been aggrieved by their deceptive business practices. They don't enjoy a good reputation among consumers but unfortunately PayPal seems to have a monopoly on certain parts of the peer-to-peer money transfer business on the internet.

In one case involving an unjustifiable delay and dispersing money to one of my recipients I am informed that a person was evicted from their apartment because of the fact that the payment was not available when it was intended to be delivered to the recipient. I am also informed by another person that a medical condition that wasn't treated escalated into a more serious medical condition because the funds that were meant to provide help to XXXX XXXX XXXX were not available in in the time that I was told they would be made available when I placed the transfer that I then could not cancel when I was further advised that it would be more than 30 days to complete a transfer for a very small amount of money. 

I read thousands of complaints about this company money involving the same issues and I can't understand why they're still in business and why a substantial penalty in the billions of dollars hasn't been imposed against this company by the United States or an agency of the United States since they engage in systemic fraud against consumers on an epic scale. 

It's my belief that should the law wow that this company is a candidate for a corporate death penalty based on all the fraud that they're visiting on consumers not only in the United States but around the world.

PayPal 's customer service is horrible and their employees routinely make dishonest and frivolous representations to customers in the course of their business with the public. They seem not to have a consistent position on anything ; you can talk four different representatives and get four completely different and contradictory excuses for the same service failures. It seems this is more of a corporate culture and not a failure to supervise or negligence in hiring or supervision but maybe it's all the above it seems to me that it's more intentional by design of a corporate culture than it is negligent. Also I can't help but notice that most of the employees are in another country where perhaps dishonest conduct is tolerated or looked upon as standard operating procedure when conducting business with the public especially in the United States. Many of these people by the way can't even XXXX XXXX very well they can barely understand what you're saying and you can barely understand what they're saying.