PayPal phone support refusing to help me after PayPal double charging me for 17 transactions

Joshdw
Contributor
Contributor

Hello,

 

first of all I would like to thank anyone who takes the time to read this.

I am currently quite annoyed after having spent just over 1 hour on the phone with customer support, and three different people, having to explain the situation three seperate times and get the same answers each time.

 

My Situation:

 

Two weeks ago I went on a trip to Paris. Since I had seen an advert for Google Pay and it's contactless payment system I thought I would try it out, and was impressed to see that I could link it to my PayPal account. So I did just that, and it worked great in most places. No need for cash or anything just show your phone and paid.

 

I always made sure to select PayPal balance as the payment method, as I had more than enough in there for the whole trip.

 

I used the feature at least 17 times.

 

Cut forward to today, 11 days after the trip, I get 24 emails from PayPal at 3:00 in the morning, 7 of which are in this style:

 

PayPal has made a transfer between the balances in your account due to the following reason:

Our policy of converting negative to positive balances.

The following transfers were made:

Negative balance : -334,05 EUR Covered From : $379,45 USD

 The rest in this style:

There wasn't enough money in your bank account ending in **** to cover the below payment you sent.
Transaction Details
As a result, we debited the amount from your PayPal balance.
Your account has also been charged 3,00 EUR, that your bank charged us as processing fee.

 

So my account is currently at about $1k USD positive Balance, and --51 EURO negative balance.

I have 7 "USD to EUR" conversions in my account today, that amount to a total of about $470.

 

The issue is that, whenever I paid for something, it would always get removed from my balance. I made sure of it. When I bought something, my Paypal USD balance would decrease.

Now PayPal support is saying that it is impossible to pay via contactless with PayPal Balance and that it always charges your Bank account. And thus, it would try to charge my bank and it got declined so it removed it from my balance. And add 3 euros debt to my euro balance for said failure (10 days after the purchases!)

 

When I attempted to explain to them that the Payments were always made with my paypal balance (and it even says so in the transaction's details: "Paid with paypal balance"), they say that it's not true and that it charged the bank. They said I need to show them proof it says PayPal balance, but the website wouldn't let me upload the screenshot (I tried multiple browsers, multiple devices, all wouldn't upload the image, even though it was under the size limit and was a correct file type). They offered me NO help to upload the proof, saying I have to print it and send the screenshot BY POST to their headquarters in Germany. That can take upwards of 4 weeks she said. She even said I should try Help Chat, by going into Contact Us. I tried that but there is no option for it... I offered to send them the screenshot by email or fax she said that doesn't exist anymore. So she basically told me she can't help me and said bye.

 

I do not understand what is going on. For example, one transaction, I paid 63 Euros at the Louvre gift shop. In my activity it clearly says it was paid using PayPal Balance. Today the Currency Conversion charged me it again, plus 3 Euros for failure to pay by bank. So for a 63 Euro transaction I've paid 129 Euros now. Repeat this for the 17 purchases I made there. It adds up quite quickly.

 

They offered no support on figuring out what the issue is, or why I am being double charged 10 days after the trip. One of the reps even said I was hacked because "You didn't make those transactions today? You need to change your password and I will forward you to technical support."

 

I am lost. Please help. It's a lot of money.

Login to Me Too
6 REPLIES 6

kernowlass
Esteemed Advisor
Esteemed Advisor

@Joshdw

 

Paypal can't 'convert' funds to another currency if you use your paypal balance, they can only do so if you fund the payment via a card or bank account.

So if you were paying euros and had USD in your paypal balance then it couldn't use that balance.


Advice is voluntary.
Kudos / Solution appreciated.
Login to Me Too

Joshdw
Contributor
Contributor

Then how is it possible that my USD balance was decreasing while I was making purchases?

 

Thanks for the reply

Login to Me Too

kernowlass
Esteemed Advisor
Esteemed Advisor

@Joshdw

 

Sorry no idea on that one, thats weird, was it for the same / equiv amount OR could it have been a subscription that went out or a withdrawal to your bank account?


Advice is voluntary.
Kudos / Solution appreciated.
Login to Me Too

Joshdw
Contributor
Contributor

No they are definitely duplicate/double charges on the purchases. It basically charged my PayPal Balance twice, the first time for the original purchase, and the second time for all the purchases again converted from USD to EURO balance. No response from PayPal support yet either.

Login to Me Too

Zack1414
Contributor
Contributor

similar situation to me - but a little different. I've been having a dispute with them about a negative balance - my balance is now GBP 0.00     Euros 519 - I have never ever used euros do I called them and they told me its just PayPal 'doing the books and I still owe the money' 

Login to Me Too

Joshdw
Contributor
Contributor

@Zack1414

Sorry you're going through the same thing. After a ton of mailing, calls, they decided to keep replying with standard copy/paste replies. They basically stole the money and refuse to give it back claiming their system isn't wrong.

Hope you have better luck than I did!

Login to Me Too

Haven't Found your Answer?

It happens. Hit the "Login to Ask the community" button to create a question for the PayPal community.