To Protect From Theft, PayPal Stole

Naterman
Contributor
Contributor
My name is Nathaniel. Recently a friend of mine we'll call Bob attempted to access his PayPal account but was having trouble. He called customer service to resolve the issue. Apparently either Bob or PayPal believed someone had tried to access his account. In an extremly reckless action, someone decided to TAKE BACK money Bob had already sent to me as a gift. This knee-jerk, thoughtless action removed $120 from my remaining balance and left me with a negative balance of -$160. I am a single father of a beautiful 2 year old son and I live paycheck to paycheck. The absurd action of stealing away that $120 may not seem like a big deal to someone sitting, staring at a screen miles away or to someone in better financial footing. But it injured my ability to care for my child. I counted on $120 I then didn't have. I was also inconvenienced in not being able to send funds to a now negative account. Bob did call PayPal not to long afterward and told customer representatives that these transactions were valid and were sent by him. Yet still PayPal chose to hold them, for a reason they would not tell me. At one point I received a message after Bob called, basically stating that PayPal was aware that the transactions were all valid, but Bob had to call them again to solve an issue not related to these transactions in order to give me my money back. The money was returned to me after about a day and a half of back and forth between myself, PayPal, and Bob. I was at least blessed to have a caring friend in Bob who was upset this had happened. This money should have never been taken from me in the first place. I am not a business. If someone went to the police claiming their wallet had been stolen, the police would not immediately go to every person who had received any money from this person and take it away from them without first speaking with everyone and INVESTIGATING the problem.
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2 REPLIES 2

Shuttershade
Contributor
Contributor

To be honest, when you made the account you agreed to let this happen. Its all in the PayPal User agreement when you sign up. No one stole anything. It was a matter of protecting a customer and you were affected. If it resolved then everything should be ok. Hopefully it wont happen again.

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Naterman
Contributor
Contributor
You're right, I did agree to play by PayPal's rules by using their service. However I'm broadcasting my situation in the hope that I can convince PayPal to change those rules. After reading the forums I can see that PayPal is slanted toward protecting consumers over sellers. But my account is a personal account, and although I'm not sure now if Bob sent this money via friends and family, I assume he did. I say again, I'm not a business so consumer protection doesn't apply here. Bob sent this money as a gift. I go back to my last analogy. If I am the victim of some form of theft or potential theft, more victims should not then be made. Someone tries to steal my wallet in a real world situation but I don't know who. Do the authorities then freeze the funds of anyone who may or may not be involved, or do they investigate it first?
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