Consumer complaint received 2025-06-25 00:00:00
Product: Debt collection — Other debt
Issue: Attempts to collect debt not owed — Debt was result of identity theft
Company: Paypal Holdings, Inc
State: CT

Complaint narrative:
On XX/XX/XXXX, th 2025 I received a call from a person who stated they were tech support for paypal & Venmo. I accepted the call and believed it was legitimate because my son had been having problems with his account, and told me I would be receiving a call and to please answer so he could get his account back in order. The man who called me said he needed me to cooperate and answer some questions so that he could get my sons account straightened out. He told me first he needed me to verify who I was before they could have me as a verifier from my sons account. He asked me to go to an app on my phone called log me in plus rescue then he told me to type a number XXXX. He said he needed to use this app to mirror my phone and established that I am who I say I am. Once I logged into that account, he then asked me to proceed to my PayPal account. Once I did this, he asked me to click on my profile and then he read my account information aloud and asked me if each line was accurate and up-to-date. This included my full name phone number address email And payment methods. He also inquired if I had a Venmo account as well as a PayPal account or any other kind of cash app. At this point, I began to get uncomfortable and he said to me this is the only way to reconnect my sons account with mine And that I was a trusted verifier. He then asked me dont you want to help your son? So we continued the call for a while and then he said they would have to do a couple of mock transactions and told me to write decline limit and nothing would be taken from any of my accounts. It was just to reestablish the connection from me and my son at this point I was very anxious. We began to have words and at one point my husband entered the room and the man disconnected .later that day I went to my PayPal and Ive realized five transactions in a row had been written on my account and they were for thousands of dollars. The total amount came to what was the total amount was {$13000.00} .I immediately contacted Paypal and told them what was going on and that I did not authorize any of these transactions. The first person I spoke to told me that we needed to change my password, and some other information to keep my account safe. Later that evening I noticed a payment was pending on my PayPal account for {$1000.00}. And it was being charged to my credit card. I immediately called paypal again and told them I did not authorize this - I called my credit card company and told them what was going on, and they put a lock on my card, and opened up an investigation, while also is issuing me a new card. The next morning, I checked my PayPal account to see that three transactions were going through. Two of the transactions were directly to my personal bank account. Again, I notified Paypal and then I went directly to my bank. I also informed them what was going on. I had to change all my banking information and open up different accounts. I had been on the phone for several weeks with Paypal trying to resolve this. They kept telling me that the charges looked fine and they didnt see any third-party interactions on my account. They also said the money was going to my sons account and I have sent him money before. I agreed with that fact, but the amounts I have sent my son were typically only {$50.00} occasionally {$100.00} because she was doing some work for me. I told them I have never sent thousands of dollars to anyone in especially not performed five transactions in a row on the same day. The final person I spoke to at Paypal told me I was a victim of what is called social engineering where people create fake accounts that look very much like the real thing with only minor differences. I was also told to report this to IC3 and I did that. I also reported it to all three credit bureaus that I was a victim of fraud and social engineering. I also reported it to. identity theft.gov. By that time I had plenty of paperwork and my bank had done an investigation as well as my credit card company and found the charges to be fraudulent and charged them back to Paypal. I have letters for all of this and photocopies of all of the transactions I presented them all to Paypal in a hardcopy form and mailed it directly to Paypal at their XXXX XXXX office. I wrote attention fraud dept/ resolution center. Paypal continue to tell me that these are my charges. After many many phone calls, I finally gave up on trying to get this resolved with them. I tried to close the account. They will not allow me to close the account because I have a negative balance they have accepted the fraud letter from my credit card and taken off the XXXX $ off debt.total, but Ive now sent this case to XXXX XXXX XXXX international collection agency and are trying to collect {$7900.00} from me. I am struggling so much with this and dont know what else to do. These are fraudulent charges and no matter how much I send to the PayPal company they refused to accept what happened to me. I have been with Paypal for 3 to 4 years and never ever made transactions like this on my account. I have been told by them they have no fraud protection for friends and family, and since the money went to my sons account, but then was immediately sent to some other cash place that I am liable. They are also now trying to collect the XXXXXXXX XXXX from my son that my credit card company said was fraudulent so now they want him to assume the XXXXXXXX XXXX debt. I have a very good credit score, I have very little debt even though I have a lot of credit available to me. I am a responsible adult and would never try to use money in this way. I hope you can help. I know there are many others that I have seen on the web who are also dealing with these kind of issues through Paypal. These accounts seem to get hacked quite often and Paypal takes no responsibility for them or offers no protection for their users.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation