Official from Customer Service - you can't trust what anyone from PayPal says - even other agents

dlmerriam
Contributor
Contributor

Literally. You can't ever believe *ANYTHING* or *ANYONE* you're told anywhere at PayPal. That is what I was told on the phone this afternoon.

 

I have been told that if you don't call PayPal - CALL DIRECTLY, IMMEDIATELY, RIGHT THEN - as soon as there's the least little problem and it winds up snowballing, they are not responsible for anything that happens afterward even if it's their system that's not working that caused it to begin with. I have been told that even though the explicit instructions on the site for deleting and switching a bank account have been followed, that there are other steps not mentioned in the instructions that should be taken and I'm responsible for not following directions that weren't even there. I've been told that it doesn't matter who at customer service, agents and even supervisors, says that it's fixed, it's not.

 

What happened? I moved to a new city and switched banks so I tried to delete my old bank account starting on October 30th. I had zeroed it out and they were just waiting for everything to "settle" before actually closing it (I had $1 something in there that had to be spent before they closed it). The site said to go to the bank page and press delete, then be sure to set up a new funding source. But the system kept giving me a "glitch" error message saying to try again later. I kept trying and, in the meantime, put in my new bank information and set it to the primary funding source so it would be covered anyway.

 

On the 4th I get a notice from my old bank that it's overdrawn due to a charge from PayPal. So I call and get the "I'm so sorry" routine, but finally get through to someone who can manually remove that bank account and he does so. Tells me that nothing else will go to that bank account and sends me a letter to go to the old bank asking to reverse the charges, which they do, on the assurance that nothing else is going to come from PayPal. Just needed a couple days for that credit to the account to settle out so they could close it.

 

Three days later I get *another* overdraft notice. Two more charges via PayPal. Call again. Get the sorry routine and "well, they were already in the system. The agent shouldn't have told you that it was all fixed." I finally got through to a supervisor and under his instructions double checked each and every repeating payment and preapproved payment, the debit card, PayPal Credit, everything, to make sure the old bank was gone everywhere. He said this time we had it all and credited me with 1/2 of one of the overdraft charges and I was so thoroughly frustrated and cried out that I accepted that just so it would be over.

 

I was finally able to get the money together yesterday to pay off the rest of the balance with the overdraft fees and spent a couple of hours on the bus getting to a branch of the old bank to bring it back up to zero so they could close it.

 

Then I get up this morning to still *ANOTHER* PayPal charge and overdraft fees. They re-ran one of the charges from earlier to the old bank *AGAIN*. There was enough money in my PayPal balance. There was enough in my new bank account. It was supposed to be fixed, to be over, this time from a supervisor.

More "I'm so sorry." Excuses one after another. Claims that things were in the user agreement that weren't. I had it open to read it right where the agent said she was getting it from. It said absolutely nothing about my situation.

 

I was just officially told that no one a PayPal can actually be trusted. The company does not stand behind what any representative says, no matter who they are. Not even a supervisor. If they told you wrong, and of course there's no way for a user to know whether what they are being told is right or wrong, especially when it's an unusual problem not explicitly covered in the FAQs or the User Agreement itself, too bad. You're **bleep**.

 

Then to add insult to injury, my last repeating payment of the month came out today. Instead of being split between my PayPal balance and the new bank account, how it had always been done before, they took the whole thing from the bank. I had counted on what was at PayPal in figuring what I had available in getting the cash to fix the old account yesterday.

 

I was now told that PayPal can take money from anywhere at any time and change that location whenever they want and there's no way for a user to know ahead of time what they're going to do. Again, too bad. You're **bleep**.

 

I don't know how I can come up with the money to make this latest round of charges.

 

I'm told that no matter what, PayPal will not acknowledge any error, will not stand behind what I was told by their own representatives, will not try to make anything right, no matter how many times and how many people and in how many ways they were wrong *in fact*.

 

I've been with PayPal since I started with eBay, before they even became their own company, almost twenty years now. I've defended them when people were saying not to trust them. The few previous problems I've had were always handled well. This is not the PayPal I've known, no longer worried in the least about their customer service or their reputation. Not caring who they **bleep** over or how. You can't even trust the User Agreement because they can just "interpret" it in whatever way enables them to say no.

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2 REPLIES 2

PayPal_AshleyM
Moderator
Moderator

Hi dlmerriam,

 

I am so disheartened and extremely sorry to hear what has happened regarding your old bank. I'd like to request that you please reach out to us on Facebook or Twitter so that we can look into this. We definitely don't want this kind of experience for our customers, and this should definitely be addressed. Please contact us further so that we can assist in any way possible. Thank you!

 

- Ashley M


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susie_and_son
Contributor
Contributor

I have had the same difficulties after a 20 year history and having purchased over a half million dollars of goods through paypal and sold about $60,000.  It is getting horrible, to the point litigation on a class action basis should be considered.  My early paypal experience was if they'd made an error they not only tried to resolve it in a way that benefited me, but they would also compensate me for the error.  I am not really seeking compensation but I am seeking affirmation that as a loyal, long-term customer, my business is important. Computers work on predictable statistical models, but that's what supervisors are for ... to access difficulties outside those models, being able to consider factors like time the account is open, past problems and dependability of funds available.  In the last two weeks I have spent 17 hours in communication with paypal and the problem ... not one I caused ... is still not resolved.  I have no idea how to contact Paypal through Facebook and am tired of waiting an hour to speak with someone.  Paypal earns millions, if not billions, of dollars a year on their "float" -- the funds they hold for customers until they need to be routed elsewhere.  They have become more and more aggressive at holding on to these funds and less willing to solve problems.  I too have been in tears over this.  I have additional resources to fund the errors but it's still a hassle. I am very sorry you have had to waste time and resources in solving a problem you did your very best to prevent.  BTW I have had the exact experiences you have with representatives quoting fake excerpts from the User Agreement.  What they don't seem to be able to quote is federal law in regard to safeguarding the funds of customers.

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