Close my cash plus account but keep my personal paypal account

ERLindeman
Contributor
Contributor

Recently I decided I needed to move my money out of my PayPal Cash Plus account and into a real checking account. After fighting battles with customer service robots, I finally got my balance to transfer and once my acorns investments are withdrawn to my PayPal account and that money is moved to my checking account, I want to close my Cash Plus account and have it be a normal PayPal account that doesn't hold a balance.

https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/ua/cashagreement-full#closing-account

The terms say that I should be able to close my cash account and keep my personal PayPal, but I can't find instructions on how to do that. The "close my account" button seems to be for closing my personal PayPal account and my cash plus account with it. Does canceling my cash plus card close my cash plus account? I couldn't find anything in community posts or PayPal's help docs on how to do this, but they state that I can. Any and all help is greatly appreciated, thank you in advance.

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kernowlass
Esteemed Advisor
Esteemed Advisor

@ERLindeman 

 

To downgrade an account you need to contact customer services.

 

Click on the words "Help / Contact" at the bottom of paypals pages and use the phone option in the blue band at the top OR very bottom of page dependent on what country you are in. Scroll down past the list of help questions and click on 'Call us' bottom of that page. Log in and get the code.
OR
have you considered contacting Customer Service via Facebook or Twitter?
You can send them a personal message from their facebook or twitter pages.
It's: https://www.facebook.com/PayPal and @AskPayPal for Twitter.



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kernowlass
Esteemed Advisor
Esteemed Advisor

@ERLindeman 

 

To downgrade an account you need to contact customer services.

 

Click on the words "Help / Contact" at the bottom of paypals pages and use the phone option in the blue band at the top OR very bottom of page dependent on what country you are in. Scroll down past the list of help questions and click on 'Call us' bottom of that page. Log in and get the code.
OR
have you considered contacting Customer Service via Facebook or Twitter?
You can send them a personal message from their facebook or twitter pages.
It's: https://www.facebook.com/PayPal and @AskPayPal for Twitter.



Advice is voluntary.
Kudos / Solution appreciated.
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joeyaloha
Contributor
Contributor

I also want to close my Cash Plus account. I tried calling the number, but they're apparently closed due to the coronavirus (I guess they haven't figured out how to distribute their workforce to their homes).

 

Is there another way to take care of this now, since the phone lines are closed?

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joeyaloha
Contributor
Contributor

I've tried to do this from the message center, but the staff there are clueless and don't understand the difference between a PayPal account and a PayPal Cash Account (or PayPal Cash Plus Account).

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ERLindeman
Contributor
Contributor
I had the same issue. Useless phone support. Still haven't had the change made.
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joeyaloha
Contributor
Contributor

I finally got this done!

 

It took 3 hours across 3 different chats, because the lower-level agents largely (1) didn't understand that a Cash (or Cash Plus) "balance" account was different than the core Personal PayPal account, and/or (2) thought any reference to a "Cash Account" could only mean a "Cash Card".

 

My initial request to the third agent was as follows: "I would like to close the Cash Plus features of my account, retaining just a basic personal PayPal account." If I were to do this again, knowing what I know now, I might say:

  • "I would like to downgrade my account by closing the Cash Plus features on it, retaining just a basic Personal PayPal account"

 

I then referenced both of these web sites with the third rep:

 

  • https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/ua/cashagreement-full#closing-account
    • "You can close your Cash Account without closing your personal PayPal account"
  • https://www.paypal.com/us/smarthelp/article/what-can-i-do-with-my-personal-paypal-account-paypal-cas...
    • "U.S. personal account holders who want to keep money in PayPal or use other features that rely on a balance need to have a balance account linked to their personal account. PayPal offers two types of balance accounts: PayPal Cash and PayPal Cash Plus. Customers who don’t have a balance account can still use their personal PayPal account to: Send money to someone or spend online using linked banks and cards; Receive money and transfer it to a linked debit card or bank; Split a bill or send money cross-border using linked banks and cards; Sign up for and use PayPal Credit Set up a Money Pool. To use balance features, consumers with a personal PayPal account need to set up a balance account, which will have the same login and password as their personal PayPal account."

I then said the following:

"As described on that page, I would like to: (a) Close my "balance" account (Cash Plus Account) and features, and (b) Keep (do NOT close) my "U.S. Personal Account" on PayPal so I can continue to send and receive money"

 

He seemed to understand from the beginning after reading those quotes and pages and then consulted with with "experts". A half-hour later, he didn't think he could find an option to "downgrade" the account, and thought the only way to do it was to close the PayPal account and reopen it without verification.

 

I asked that, if I wrote to the legal department mailing address in the Terms, could they maybe do it? He then said that he was going to hand me over to the "CIP Team" and apologized for the jargon there. CIP means a "Customer Identification Program" required of financial institutions by the PATRIOT Act and Bank Secrecy Act for compliance purposes so that they can "know their customers".

 

24 hours later, a different agent got back to me in that chat window and knew exactly what to do and asked me exactly the right questions. She asked me to confirm I wanted the change. I confirmed. 20 minutes later I got a phone call from a "PayPal Supervisor" at an Omaha phone number who took care of it for me.

 

He told me he was not on the CIP team and that he was a "Supervisor for Paypal.com" and that there is an option in the system to "Downgrade" the account, and that it asks what kind of downgrade, and that the option is to remove the Cash Plus feature. (He wouldn't tell me the name of the system or internal process and was relatively un-empathetic to the hours I'd spent on this.)

 

He asked me some verification questions and took care of it immediately. After it was done, I refreshed my account page, and the $0.00 balance box disappeared entirely.

 

I asked him if there were some special language someone could use with the front-level customer service agents so they would understand and take care of it, or to escalate it to the right person, and he was wholly unable to help with this.

 

My recommendation for a chat support request:

  1. State the modified version of the "Initial request" above
  2. Send the two links above
  3. Copy-and-paste the language I quoted above from those two links. Include quotation marks and state it's from those pages.
  4. Copy and paste the (a) and (b) language in the request from above
  5. Explain that this should be called a "Downgrade" in the system, and that the option under Downgrade is to remove the Cash Plus feature (or option?)
  6. If they can't figure it out, ask to be transferred to a Supervisor (not to just have them ask their Supervisor)
  7. As a last option with that rep, if they won't actually transfer you to a Supervisor, ask to be transferred to the CIP team (even though they don't appear to be the actual team involved, this process seems to escalate to someone who understands)

Finally, if none of this works, end the chat and try another agent, lol.

 

 

 

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4U6U57
Member
Member

I was able to accomplish this just today.

 

FYI some terminology has slightly changed, as per PayPal Balance Agreement - PayPal US:

 

Please note that these PayPal Balance Terms and Conditions apply to accounts currently or previously named PayPal Cash and PayPal Cash Plus. All references to “PayPal Balance account” or “Balance Account” shall be deemed to include PayPal Cash and PayPal Cash Plus accounts, as applicable.

 

Aside from the name PayPal Cash -> PayPal Balance Account, the wording is identical.

 

Spoke with chat first, who gave some misinformation about it not being possible. If I had not read this thread I would have believed it. Their words:

 

PayPal chat support: Upon checking here, we can only downgrade an account if you are a Business Account, since this is a Personal account there is no way to downgrade your account. If you want you can close this account and create a new one but do not accept the PayPal Cash Plus option.

 

I then requested a supervisor to review, and quoted the Balance Agreement linked above. They advised me to dial in if I wanted faster service, and I did so. I still had to wait on hold for maybe 30 minutes, but the first person I spoke to heard that I had an issue with balance, and redirected me to their "debit card services" (not exactly sure if the name was correct). That person was extremely knowledgeable, and understood exactly what I wanted, in her words "downgrading to a Zero Balance account".

 

She was required to read a statement advising me that any existing auto renewals, etc set to pull from the Balance Account would fail, I would no longer be able to maintain a balance within PayPal, whenever I receive a payment I would have to immediately transfer it into a bank account or debit card, all things I wanted to happen. She was also required to verify I do not currently have a PayPal Cash Card or cryptocurrency holdings associated with my PayPal balance.

 

After I agreed to all that, she did something, and I immediately received the following email:

 

We completed your request to change your account
You're receiving this email because you either changed the type of PayPal account you have, or you requested the removal of certain features.

We want to confirm that we made your requested change. We also want to make sure you understand that the following features are no longer accessible through your PayPal account:

  • PayPal Cash Card
  • Direct Deposit for payroll or government payments
  • FDIC pass-through insurance of your PayPal Cash Plus balance
  • Goals for setting aside part of your PayPal Cash Plus balance
  • Acorns for funding investments, withdrawing funds, and seeing your Acorns balance in PayPal.

We hope the recent change provides you with the PayPal products and services that best meet your individual needs.

 

That and the PayPal balance payment method was removed from my list of payment methods.

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joeyaloha
Contributor
Contributor

joeyaloha
Contributor
Contributor

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