PayPal Giving Fund problem

[Victoria-nola]

I made a donation via the PayPal Giving Fund in December. The nonprofit that was to receive the donation has never received it. I have tried to get help via Customer Support but have not yet been successful. Has anyone else had problems with this fund and/or can someone help me get this cleared up?  I am quite distressed that my money has not been properly paid.

[Sheppard1]

I am now seeing a potential problem, as well. My recent eBay sale proceeds were placed in my PayPal account. PayPal pays charities at the end of each month in large lump sums, which is fine...but WHY DOES THE MONEY SHOW UP IN MY ACCOUNT AT ALL. The response I got was nonsensical. Can someone advise me, in case I need to complain:would this be an IRS matter? Federal Trade Commission? Or what? I had planned to do considerable charitable work through eBay. I don't really expect malfeasance here, but certainly incompetence and  the communication with PayPal is terrible. I need a responsible answer.

[stjeromeHL]

Yes, they are completely inept! Do they not have a phone number? I have to wait for hours or days to hear back from them, only to hear "Please visit our FAQ page." It is useless! They tell me to reenroll with a link, but the link takes me nowhere but to my account (which is already enrolled). My charity disappeared from ebay and then reappeared mysteriously 2 days later. I have all sorts of ebay fees now which I was not expecting because my charity was removed by Paypal Giving Fund for no reason. They will not tell me why. I cannot get reimbursed because Paypal Giving Fund will not reply to my email except with random canned answers that have nothing to do with my problem. I have no choice but to use them to help through eBay but it is simply crazy what they are doing to charities. 😞 Why can't they be fired and have someone else take over?

[PolishedArrow]

There is one other thing important to note. I founded a charity. I learned from a friend that she had made a donation to us but we never received it nor did we get any notification of it. It turns out she thought she was making it through paypal but mistakenly got into paypal giving fund. She was able to search and find our ministry there even though we were not entrolled with paypal giving fund at the time. The policies of the paypal giving fund are that if the ministry does not enroll within 6 months of the donation being made, the donation will be given to a different but similar charity. Paypal giving fund is supposed to notify the charity so they can enroll, but it was almost 3 months before I received a letter from them. If the donor had not let me know that she made a donation, I would not have known about this at all. And it took several phone calls and emails to find this information out and to eventually learn that I needed to enroll to receive the funds. If your charity has not received your donation, you might check with them to see if they are enrolled in paypal giving fund. Every charity is listed in Guidestar, and if it is there, Paypal giving fund will accept donations for them. But if the charity does not know about it or does not receive any notification of it in time to enroll, the donation will go to another charity. You can request a refund. I'm not too concerned about paypal giving fund holding the funds for a month and earning interest - they are supposed to forward the donation amount in full without taking out any fees. The interest probably covers the fees and their operating expenses. I am still waiting to receive the donation they accepted for me in December...

[Listeria94-1]

I was wrong! How do I delete my post?

[peggyh]

I had this problem also, but was finally able to reach someone who explained that they only disburse the donations once a month, so depending on the donation date, you may not see it for a few weeks.  I did eventually get my donation.

[peggyh]

I had this problem also, but was finally able to reach someone who explained that they only disburse the donations once a month, so depending on the donation date, you may not see it for a few weeks.  I did eventually get my donation.

[comparably]

Typically Silicon Valley B.S., typical paypal bait and switch hidden as charity!!! What a bunch of self-interested jerks. So paypal lures me to change all of my charities to paypal fund with the offering of no fees (which at this point I doubt, as I no longer trust a world paypal spews), and they then convince me to have all my charities change to PayPal. Hours of time wasted switching by me and my charities, as Paypal then completely changed the process (for silicon valley greed). Originally you could sign up for auto-pay, the only reason you would sign up for an automatic charity payment program. Once I (and my charities) had taken the time to sign up all my charities, the autopay option disappears. Their is no good reason to make the service less convenient, expect that they want you to come to their crappy website more. Who downgrades a product to make it more manual. When speaking to the company they purposely will not answer whether the option is coming back (it is not!). What a bunch of scum bags. Who jerks charities around just to make a few extra bucks. The purpose of PayPal giving fund is to drive people to paypal, not to help charities.

[sandman1318]

On April 28th I gave a $5,000.00 donation to a charity. TODAY IS MAY 20TH AND THEY HAVE YET TO RECEIVE THE BADLY NEEDED FUNDS. I called PayPal customer service and was told I need to contact the "giving fund" but they don't even have a phone! The charity received an email from the "giving fund" telling them they MUST enroll in order to receive the money. WHAT? First of all, why do they have to enroll in anything, after all this time, just to be paid? Secondly, they didn't do so because the email looks like a scam. Thirdly, it does not even say that I donated the funds and makes it sound as if PayPal, out of the goodness of their hearts, have raised money for them. This is totally unacceptable and I am done using PayPal for donations. I'm so happy they're being sued. If this charity doesn't get paid in the next few days, I'll be jumping on the lawsuit bandwagon. They need to get their act together and should be ashamed of themselves. Good riddance to bad garbage!!!

[Rescue55]

Sadly, we are a charity and we have had donors tell us they have donated through the PayPal giving fund and we never received the money.  We have tried to reach PayPal Giving Fund regarding this issue but nobody will respond.  Very sad that a professional company would engage in fraud especially where charities are concerned.  

[jade39snet]

 I donated through Paypal giving fund in December 2016 and specified a charity called "Fisher Center for Alzheimer's Research Foundation". Almost a year later, I dug into my receipt and discovered the fund was donated to a different charity called "Alzheimer's Disease Research Foundation". Paypal did not notify me in any way that they donated that fund to a different charity that is registered with them. So I googled Paypal giving fund complaints and found that there is an ongoing class action lawsuit against Paypal Giving Fund. So my advice is beware when you donate through Paypal.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/02/28/517790137/lawsuit-alleges-that-paypal-diverted-do...