Consumer complaint received 2026-05-18 00:00:00
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service — Mobile or digital wallet
Issue: Unauthorized transactions or other transaction problem — 
Company: Paypal Holdings, Inc
State: ME

Complaint narrative:
I tried to make an online purchase at XXXX.com with my credit card, but it failed every time. The only other option was to try via their PayPal option, which I hesitated to do, because I had been scammed by PayPal before, a fact that was confirmed by law enforcement, although PayPal refused to admit their fraudulent scamming behavior, even though law enforcement proved their culpability. But even though I had no PayPal account, I thought I would go ahead to try to make the purchase that way as guest, but the purchase failed. Yet, I received an email from XXXX, my credit card company, saying I was charged {$200.00} by some unknown other person, XXXX something or other, with only a partial name shown, and for an amount of {$200.00} that was in no way the amount of the failed purchase I had tried to make. This looked like some kind of scam. Then I got another email from XXXX saying this unknown XXXX person was charging me {$230.00}! Also no connection with the failed purchase or amount that I had tried to make. Unfortunately, when I tried to contact someone to stop this charge, there was absolutely no contact information of any kind on the pondprosdepot.com website. And when I tried to reply to the email from the XXXX person. XXXX returned my email reply, saying there was no such email address. So I tried going to my credit card company, and they showed that the failed purchase and charge for {$200.00}, then {$230.00} was from PayPal, with no other contact or entity shown for this fraudulent charge. So I tried calling the phone number, which turned out to be a PayPal number. I talked with the PayPal representative, who took all of the information, and promised that PayPal would investigate to confirm, and refund my fraudulent charge to my credit card. I then contacted my credit card company online, and submitted a dispute for the fraudulent charge. Within the hour, I received an email from XXXX saying that I was responsible for the fraudulent {$230.00} charge! This was very odd, as XXXX has never responded in such a way to such a fraudulent charge dispute. So I submitted another dispute online with XXXX, but I received no response. I then started investigating on my own, and found that the XXXXcom website has a very bad reputation, and was not a recognized business, and had a very poor reputation. I found numerous very poor reviews by people who said they had been scammed and lost money by XXXXcom. In the meantime I started getting solicitations, one after the other, from a XXXX XXXX XXXX, or XXXX, telling me to complete more so called purchases for {$200.00} to a third entity, the XXXX, So I submitted complaints to the FTC, CFPB, XXXX, and the Maine Attorney General. Each said they would contact pondprosdepot.com, the XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, or XXXX, person, and they would then contact me with their response. But no response from these fraudsters was ever received, so I have received no response from these fraudsters, the FTC, CFPB, BBB, or the Maine Attorney General, because these fraudsters have never responded to them or to me. So I called XXXX to submit a verbal dispute over the phone, and again I gave XXXX all of the fraudulent information, and the promised to investigate and contact all of the parties, but they also have not received any response from these fraudsters, or fraudulent people, so they have not replied to me on over a month. Today, XX/XX/year>, I received an email from PayPal about my so called account, and of course I was not able to see it or login to it, because I didnt have a PayPal account. So I set up a PayPal account thinking that I might then be able see wha theyre doing. When I finished and logged into it, lo and behold, this charge and my dispute with PayPal was shown. So I tried to contact PayPal about it, I got a bot, that just said the same thing over and over again, in an endless loop without any resolution, so I asked for a representative, but the representative insisted I had not submitted a dispute with PayPal, even though the unresolved dispute was right there in front of me on their website! And she said she could not refund the fraudulent {$230.00} charge, that I needed to contact my credit card company to get refunded by PayPal. I told her I already did that, but that PayPal is the one who fraudulently charged the {$230.00} to my credit card, so they needed to refund that fraudulent charge. She kept insisting the could not do so, that I needed to contact my credit card company so PayPal could refund the money. When I repeatedly asked her why, or how, or what I needed to tell the credit card company, she gave me no answer at all, just that I needed to contact my credit card company, with no direction on what to tell them. Finally, she said she would escalate this to her superiors, and when she did, she disconnected us. I am fed up with PayPal, their fraudulent vendors, and their total failure to resolve this clearly fraudulent vendor or vendors, and PayPal 's apparent preference to protect their fraudulent vendors, rather than protect their victims, especially when they claim in their advertising that they will act to protect their customers, as they have completely failed to do here in this situation. All I want is to be refunded the fraudulent {$230.00} charge to my credit card. And to try to prevent PayPal or their vendors from continuing to scam people.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation