Consumer complaint received 2020-05-27
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service — Virtual currency
Issue: Money was not available when promised — 
Company: Paypal Holdings, Inc (KY)

Hi, this is about my paypal cash account which I use as my bank account, I have a paypal debit card and all that comes with it as do many others. I decided to use my direct deposit on my paypal account for the first time for my Economic Impact Payment/Stimulus Check from the Federal Government & the IRS. The IRS says that my stimulus check of {$1200.00} Dollars was deposited to my paypal account on XX/XX/2020. The problem is that I STILL have not received my money from Paypal nor have I heard anything about my money. Paypal has shut down pretty much ANY form of contact with them. When I reached a random person through their messaging system they were no help and keep say it will 2-5 business days before the money goes into my account! Then when I tried to reach out again on the 8th day today I can not get any answers! The person on the messaging system first said ok I will try to help. I think you can check that through your paypal debit card. Do you have your paypal debit card with you? I didnt even get to respond before it immediately XXXX me out of the conversation and said a very strange error message saying that it could not display messages? Seriously?! Ok, so I went back into the messages, I replied to the guy that yes I did have my debit card. I immediately got a prewritten response stating that the messaging center is not available due to Covid 19 and that I need to go into the help center and go under debit card and send an email!!! Are you kidding me! Again, I went and wrote the long email begging for my money and some answers. I then hit send on my email and BOOM, another strange message pops up telling me that due to Covid 19 they are short on staff and that I cant use email that I need to use the messaging system but that it could take several hours to get a response! Magically my email disappeared and I lost everything I wrote again! This keeps happening and I keep being sent back and forth! This is happening to TONS of people and we are all posting on the paypal forums and on PayPals XXXX! We are desperate for our Stimulus money, we all need our money badly. Paypal is withholding Federal Government Economic Impact Payments which is extremely illegal. These are not paychecks as Paypal continues to claim in their responses to other people on here that file a claim. This money that they are withholding from TONS of paypal users is EMERGENCY STIMULUS checks, NOT a regular paycheck. Even when we wait the 2-5 business days we are STILL not getting our money! Then Ive seen some people say that if paypal has finally released the money to peoples accounts they are putting a hold on their money where they STILL cant access their money until they contact paypal which NO ONE CAN CONTACT THEM! Regardless they CAN NOT WITHHOLD FEDERAL ECONOMIC IMPACT PAYMENTS for any reason! How are they getting away with this?! Thousands of us paypal users are being played by Paypal and its not right. We are all being lied to and put off. We are all discussing and trying to figure out if we need to file lawsuits against Paypal and sue them for not only our federal economic impact payments but for pain and suffering as well. Please please someone help us be heard and help all of us paypal users get our money that we desperately need and deserve. Paypal has been advertising Fast & quick federal stimulus payments if you use direct deposit through paypal for our stimulus checks. That is a trap! What are we supposed to do!? We have contacted the president and many others hoping to be heard! When I say we Im referring to all of us paypal users that have fallen victim to this Federal Economic Impact payment disaster/scam with Paypal. I dont know what Paypal is doing or why they are doing it but Im tired of not getting my money or any answers. PLEASE HELP US GET OUR MONEY. Im a single mom of XXXX little ones and I need my stimulus money right now.