Consumer complaint received 2023-11-28
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service — Mobile or digital wallet
Issue: Unauthorized transactions or other transaction problem — 
Company: Paypal Holdings, Inc (GA)

I have used PayPal to send money regularly to my fianc. Twice, without explanation, PayPal repeated these transactions without authorization at times that the device was not in use. No one else had access to the device or any other device with access to the account or to the account itself. I have been able to verify that at the times these transactions occurred my device ( my phone ) was not in use and was with me. 

These repeated transactions amounted to approximately {$3000.00}. The first time this happened, I had sent 3 transactions during that day : {$300.00} in the morning, then {$500.00} at XXXX and another {$700.00} at XXXX ; these were authorized transactions. At XXXX and XXXX, PayPal repeated the {$500.00} transaction ( twice total ) without authorization and without notification either to my phone or my email. The second time this happened, I had sent 2 transactions that day : again, {$300.00} in the morning, then {$600.00} at XXXX. At XXXX, XXXX, XXXX, and XXXX PayPalagain without authorization or notificationrepeated payments of {$600.00}, {$500.00}, {$300.00}, {$200.00}. 

I reported the issue to PayPal and asked that they provide information about these transactions and how they occurred, since I did not authorize them and since I did not receive notifications about them. They lied and said that I had received notifications but were unwilling to provide any proof ( since this had not happened ). I explicitly requested which device, what IP, and what location the transactions had been made from. None of this information was provided, and lies were offered in place of information. In particular, the agent claimed that the IP address and location were the same for all payments, which simply was not true. The two days of payments took place from entirely different locations. The agent either did not investigate this, explicitly lied, or was horrifically incompetent ( perhaps even illiterate ). 

Illiteracy may be the best way to characterize the quality of all further attempts to clarify the matter. None of my questions were answered, and the agents handling the messages did not give any indication that had actually read my clarifications or questions. They repeated boilerplate responses that had been made before and that I had acknowledged and accepted, and which had nothing to do with my questions. 

Agents insisted that because this was a personal transaction ( not a business payment ), there was no payment protection. I clarified that I understood where the money went and was not looking for PayPal to repay the money, but that I needed to know how the unauthorized transaction had occurred. They ignored this and instead responded simply that they had determined the transactions were authorized. This was known to be false, so their response was not helpful. I clarified that I needed to know why the app was sending money without my input, but PayPal did not acknowledge this at all and pretended that I had personally sent the money ( which, from the start, was known to be false ). 

I made clear that if PayPal was unwilling to provide this information that in my understanding, PayPal was responsible for perpetrating fraud. This was not acknowledged, with agent against repeating boilerplate information. 

From what I can tell, the PayPall app has a serious bug that in certain conditions ( not yet known to me ; possibly having to do with poor network connectivity ) the app will re-send payments that have already been sent. This is a serious problem that PayPal refuses to investigate.