Consumer complaint received 2024-02-20
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service — Mobile or digital wallet
Issue: Unauthorized transactions or other transaction problem — 
Company: Paypal Holdings, Inc (PA)

For a long time I had my debit pay card linked to my account on PayPal. I wanted to add funds to my PayPal account so I linked my bank account, which is very encouraged on their website. I had my debit pay card still marked as the preferred method of payment, and that did not change. I double checked. 
On XX/XX/XXXX, I placed 2 small transactions on XXXX and selected PayPal as the method, since for some reason the pay card does not allow XXXX transactions, but works with PayPal. The charges were for {$12.00} and {$6.00} respectably. On XX/XX/XXXX I placed 3 small transactions on XXXX and did the same. {$12.00}, {$3.00}, and {$2.00}. Then continued on with my life. 
Several days later I made a deposit at my bank 's ATM since I had no money there and I wanted to make sure some bills were not going to bounce. That was when I noticed that PayPal charged my bank account instead of the Pay card, that was still marked as my preferred method of payment. Those 5 PayPal charges created overdraft fees, and of course those overdraft fees created more overdraft fees, and since I do not have a lot of money created a huge snowball that, and I am not making this up, cancelled XXXX gifts. Not very good for my children or my wife suffering from XXXX. 
But wait! It gets better. When I first found out I called PayPal. ( XXXX at XXXX ) The woman who talked to me apologized and agreed that this was incorrect, and I was told they would be sending me a letter that I could take to the bank and hopefully help to cancel the overdraft fees. ( Would that have worked? I don't know. ) After not receiving a letter, ( e-mail or postal service ) I called back. ( XXXX and XXXX ) They informed me that my complaint had been received and they had just started to review it. I worried I would not be able to correct things before XXXX. Since no more response was given I called back. ( XXXX at XXXX ) This representative told me that PayPal had algorithms to decide what to charge and that since it preferred bank accounts that is what it did. There was little sympathy for the fact that my work debit card was marked as preferred. 
I took this up with the XXXX and several weeks later got a response from PayPal that they did that since recurring payments were done by individual transaction settings that it defaulted to my bank and that is why they did that. They also said the sent the original representative to additional training since PayPal would not create a letter. I pointed out that these were not recurring payments and did not have a place in any of their displays to chose options for it. 
So this brings up the fact that it took 3 representatives before I was told the truth, that being that PayPal will do what it wants when it wants. He didn't know why, just that they did. In summery, the PayPal representatives do not know how the system works, so how am I as a customer supposed to know?

There are no warnings, no popups that explain to the customer their algorithm for charges. I also have not found anything within any readily available documents that might have explained this. Since the first 2 representatives thought that PayPal had made an error, I feel that I am justified in saying that the reasonable person would have understood what I did, that the preferred method of payment would be the one that is used. 
PayPal has been unapologetic about how they do things or explain it to their customers. This borders on credit fraud. I asked for the purchases, but not to where they charged them to. 
PayPal may have cancelled XXXX presents but the spirit of XXXX still lives on.