Consumer complaint received 2025-09-22 00:00:00
Product: Credit card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Other features, terms, or problems — Other problem
Company: Paypal Holdings, Inc
State: NY

Complaint narrative:
This is a report of a blatant case of what I believe is a predatory, fraudulent " bait and switch '' scheme, perpetrated by XXXX XXXX and XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, respectively, aided and facilitated by PayPal Holdings , Inc. 's via their neglect to help dispute this issue as promised and stated in PayPal 's Terms and Conditions. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, I was inadvertently tricked into purchasing a one-year subscription to XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX from XXXX  when I responded to a large banner ad that appeared directly atop the XXXX  app on my XXXX  XXXX XXXX inviting me to " try XXXX XXXX XXXX free for 14 days '' : despite this promise of a free trial and instead of starting the free trial upon accepting the offer, I was instantly charged {$170.00} for the entire annual subscription, billed to my default XXXX  payment XXXX, a PayPal credit card, on behalf of XXXX, and I never received a free trial as promised. 

Nothing whatsoever anywhere on the three or four XXXX  app pages on my XXXX  screen during this free trial signup process that lasted merely a few seconds indicated any possible reason why the offered free trial would not be honored as promised, and neither does any wording in either XXXX  's Terms of Service or XXXX  's Terms and Conditions.XXXXIn spite of immediately canceling my subscription within minutes after this signup, and then fully exhausting my options to rectify this transaction directly with XXXX, XXXX, and PayPal ( my default XXXX payment method ) despite numerous attempts to receive proper recourse over many weeks and months ever since, all three parties have flatly refused to reverse this transaction and have never issued a refund to this day. 

XXXX  and PayPal firmly deny responsibility and squarely point to XXXX 's perceived liability for this incident as the platform host and billing entity, while XXXX, just the same, point firmly at XXXX  while rejecting responsibility and refusing any refund, and instruct I take up the issue with PayPal, my default XXXX payment method. 

FOLLOWING IS THE MAIN ISSUE I'M REPORTING ABOUT REGARDING PAYPAL : PayPal have assisted me in the is matter in merely a sub-standard, insufficient manner : despite their stated promise to " protect my account '' against fraud and abuse and dispute wrongful charges or fraud on my behalf, PayPal only briefly engaged with XXXX about this case and, when XXXX 's response to PayPal was in fact still pending, already declared the case closed in XXXX 's favor, without any possibility for me to appeal. Additionally, as my available credit on my PayPal credit card that was set as the default payment method for XXXX purchases was not sufficient for the charge of {$170.00} at the time, PayPal pushed this charge through to my regular PayPal cash account for sending and receiving money, where my balance was {$0.00}, instead of returning the charge to XXXX for insufficient funds. This way, PayPal facilitated XXXX to receive the wrongful charge without me even having sufficient credit for that charge, and I believe the push-through of this charge to my regular PayPal cash account - where I to this day have a negative balance, can not send or receive money anymore, and receive threatening phone calls to collect this " debt '' - is at the least highly dubious if not illegal as well ( perhaps evidenced by my regular monthly PayPal cash statements not ever listing the {$170.00} charge pushed through by my PayPal credit card ). 

I have been a loyal XXXX customer for nearly 40 years, having purchased my first XXXX computer in the mid XXXX 's and many computers, notebooks, XXXX, XXXX, and other devices as well as a number of previous and ongoing long-term XXXX XXXX subscriptions ever since. Likewise, I have used XXXX and PayPal, respectively, for several years and had a highly positive perception of them. The incident I experienced and the practice I described is appaling, deeply frustrating, and extremely time consuming, and I find it particularly surprising and especially disappointing that venerable companies such as XXXX and XXXX  and PayPal would engage in a scheme like this against loyal, trusting customers, staunchly denying any fault and remedy for their obviously intentional wrongdoing and planned scheme, and, as for PayPal, denying me the promised protection and to properly dispute a wrongful charge. 

Please let me know if you can help resolve this issue, and if I can provide any other information or documentation. 

Sincerely, XXXX XXXX

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation