Consumer complaint received 2022-10-15
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service — Domestic (US) money transfer
Issue: Money was not available when promised — 
Company: Paypal Holdings, Inc (IL)

Paypal is a scam and are liars. They will not release money after double charging an exorbitant amount that was not clearly disclosed. 

My husband and I had our wedding postponed due to the pandemic. We more or less eloped on our original date in XXXX, and finally celebrated with family and friends this XXXX, almost two years later ( pre-pandemic wedding deposits dictated that we had to go through with a reception at some point ). 

We elected to register via our wedding website on XXXX, which was apparently a huge mistake as they are part of this scam. As a registry we said if people were inclined to give a gift to please donate to the honeymoon fund. PayPal was then suggested by XXXX and linked to set up to allow people to buy gifts like donations to flights, food/drinks, and excursions. 

PayPals misleading and predatory advertising says that to transfer money online you can Send and receive money the fast, fun, and secure way. Connect with friends. Make donations. 

First off " fun ''? They should be embarrassed. 

Second, I now see that if you scroll through that impossibly long page claiming how great the service is there is an intentionally vague footnote that fees apply. What it DOESNT say is that they will take almost 10 % of the money sent to you AND NEVER GIVE YOU THE REMAINDER. 

They start by taking 4 % (! ) of every transaction that people donated. Our wedding wasnt huge or extravagant in any way, but it still ended up being super expensive which was a cost we bore on our own because we dont have millionaire parents like the entitled people who would shrug this off. 

IN ADDITION TO THAT they debited my linked XXXX account 3 % of every transaction as well so every time people gave us a gift, my account was automatically drained more and more. 

THE MAIN PROBLEM : after bleeding us for a service they now will not release my money so we can use it to book the honeymoon. They are perfectly fine taking money from my XXXX account for every gift, but they conveniently dont have that MAJOR BANK as an option to release the funds to. How is that legal? They obviously can use that account to take my money. 

I tried to use my husbands XXXX account over and over but it conveniently crashes or throws an error every time I try to complete the transfer. We have done a ton of troubleshooting but we cant move the money. I have been trying for months now. 

I CANT EVEN LOG IN to my account anymore on an XXXX computer. I have to use the app on my phone which is what crashes. Their tech is conveniently set up to prevent that. Their website has a confusing mandatory pop up window asking nonsensical questions about my business even though I have a personal account which I can't answer to move forward. This is an abusive practice. 

Im sure they are making more money off of our funds which is why they make it so hard to release it, and then block the release when we jump through their predatory hoops. After deceptively ripping us off with what was supposed to be a convenient, easy, and fast way to let people give gifts so we can celebrate our marriage, they are now feasting off our wedding gifts while we sit here watching flight prices go up or get sold out. 

Im heartbroken and so surprised that such big name companies like Paypal and XXXX are allowed to operate this way, and are such scams in the first place. Please shut them down because they will not help me with the basic service they are supposed to provide. 

I want my money released to me and my side of the fees returned because they are definitely profiting off of my money every day they hold it and there is NO REASON it should be difficult to move it out to use it.