does anybody have any advice for legal action ?

[beaccountable]

Good evening friends!

Before you continue reading this, if you are a PayPal apologist who is going to try to belittle me and adopt the same condescending tone I've been given by the unaccountable folks who have misled/blatantly lied to me for the past two weeks concerning my account, please move on.

Now, I have a payment on hold. I have complied with all of PayPal's arbitrary requests to get my funds released. I have been given 5 dates and times they would be released, with assurance (this number does not include all the dates and times I've been given without assurance, lol). I have called (and recorded these calls) 7 times over the past 15 days. I have spoken to 7+ "account specialists," who have no authority or helpful information, it seems they just read a script and illicit confusion. I have also spoken to 1 supervisor and 2 managers. In fact, I was transferred to a third manager tonight, who answered, said "one second," and then put me on hold for over 20 minutes, and then hung up once the call center was closed for the night.

Every time I've called, I've been told the hold was placed by eBay. eBay released the fund on July 3rd, and I have called them 4 times in regards to this. Each time, they've said it was released July 3rd. The second to last time I called, the supervisor I spoke to seemed concerned about the number of blatant lies I'd been told by PayPal, and the fact they keep placing blame on eBay, so much so that they reached out to me, and "on advice from their legal dept., in order to assure legal liability is not placed on eBay where it is not due," they offered to file a formal complaint, and have a manager conference call with PayPal (this was why I called tonight, and of course is why PayPal's manager put me on hold for 20 minutes, then hung up on me).

I've been told that it was an eBay hold every single time I've called, and when I refute with evidence I'm given other excuses, including I have to include a tracking number (which I have since the day I shipped it, and which has been displayed in the payment details since July 1st), I've been told it was because the sale didn't have positive feedback (which it definitely does), and I've been told it's a bug in the system. Twice I've been told it has been "escalated" to their "backroom tech team" and that'd I'd receive an e-mail from this elusive "tech team" within 48-72 hours. Well, it's now been almost 7 days since the first "escalation" and 4 days since the second, and I've received no e-mail or call. In fact, the second manager I talked to first said there was no first "escalation" on my file, then said there was no way he'd be able to see if there was when I told him one had been filed and I recorded the phone call, then I said the first manager I spoke to said she could see it and would monitor it, to which he said "Well, it was discarded for not meeting our time standards." So, first he said it hadn't been filed, then he said it may have but there's no way for him to tell, then he said he had access to it, and it was disregarded, because it didn't meet a time standard that no other rep had mentioned. According to him, it could only be filed if the funds weren't released within 72 hours of when they were supposed to be released, which makes no sense, because they were supposed to be released at 12:01 am on 3rd, and the ticket was supposedly filed on the 6th around 10 a.m., more than 72 hours afterwards. When I said this, he said "Well, what do you expect from this call, sir?" in an extremely rude tone. I told him I expect accountability and honesty, to which he said "No, no, you don't understand. What do you expect?" The only understanding I've been able to gain of this, having listened to it again since, is he was alluding to the fact that the company's policy is dishonesty, that he was not going to detour from the deceptive policy of this company, and that he was enjoying frustrating and deceiving me. At this point, I told him I was shocked he had no problem being rude and lying, to which he said "Oh well I assure you, I will listen to this call after you hang up, I will diligently take note of all unacceptable practices by the employee involved in the call (which, of course, was him), and I will take all judicial action I have within my power against this employee. Is there anything else I can help you with?" to which I said I wanted correspondence of such action, to which he says "Unfortunately, we cannot comply with your request at this time sir. If you'd like further help, I suggest you reference our very active online community." My best guess is he's implying I look in these forums, which are full of complaints just like mine.

So, I'm posting here to ask, does anybody know of any additional action to take in this case? I've already reached out to a couple of attorneys in my state (unfortunately, they are both in different counties approx. 3-5 hours from where I live, so in-person meetings will have to wait until I can get a day or two off work to visit them). I already have plans to write the authorities in CA, as from what I've read the CA Money Transmissions Act prohibits holding funds for over 10 days, PayPal is licensed under the act, and claims they can hold funds for longer than 10 days, but the CA authorities disagree and are actively investigating these practices (so, if you have a similar issue, be sure to contact your county and state authorities, as many states have similar laws). I have also called my state and federal congressional representatives, except my US senator, who I'll have to write (and probably never hear back from). Does anyone know of any watchdogs, consumer activist groups, or federal departments I can contact, who have good track records of compassion and action for situations like these?

As a side note, tonight, for the first time, I was told that the money was being held because I don't have a bank account connected to my account. I took off all payment methods after this whole fiasco, because I don't trust PayPal with my information any longer. When I informed the representative that I was going to withdraw the funds as a check and that it is illegal for them to hold my funds because I removed my payment methods (as I was informed by an attorney), someone in the background said "Tell him you misread the information and transfer him." She quickly said "OK sir, I've already informed my supervisor, I mean manager, not even my supervisor, my manager of everything going on and I'm going to transfer you." which she did before I could even say anything, which began the whole incident described above (the manager answered, said "one sec," and immediately put me on hold, where I stayed for over 20 minutes, and then he hung up on me when the call center closed so I couldn't call back).

So, tldr: PayPal has lied to and given a series of false excuses as to why they are holding my funds, has held my funds for 9 days longer than they were supposed to, has given me 5 dates and times the funds would be available, has promised correspondence from management and from their elusive "tech team" to no avail, has claimed to hold my funds for reasons I've been advised are illegal, has hung up on me for no reason, has treated me extremely rudely, and has boldly and unapologetically bullied me for weeks now. I know people claim they hold it for safety purposes, but in reality, they do it for the float, everyone knows it. I'm sure its how they swallow the loses from fraud, etc. Also, I should note, they made a random amount of my funds available. Out of almost 700$ they have on hold, 40$ is available all of a sudden. I have no transactions for 40$, no shipping costs for that amount, and the representative I spoke to today claimed she didn't see it as available on my account. Are they trying to trick me into adding my payment info back on? What could they gain from this? I have never used PayPal before about a month ago, when I posted the eBay listing that started this whole fiasco. The buyer has already left positive feedback, and wrote to me that the item was as-described, has no issues, and believes PayPal should release the funds even! So, they can't being doing this for a dispute on the sale. Why would they want my payment info?

As a final note, can they make charges to a payment method I have removed? I haven't heard of it anywhere, but I almost feel as if they would swindle me out of some random fee they believe they could take from me (maybe I corrupted the script processing unit on one of their Windows 95 "accountant specialist 5000 bots" or one of their "R.A.W.F.O.A.M. bots 35k7iis" (rude and without function or authority manager bots). But all seriousness, can they access a removed payment method, and can they access a payment method for any reason other than a withdraw if I choose to withdraw the 40$ and then promptly remove the payment method?

Sorry for the long post, and thanks for any help! If you're considering posting "Terms and Agreement boohoo", kindly miss me and keep moving, please. This is obviously beyond TSA and basic holds (ref. eBay randomly contacted me, as specified above). Also, PayPal apologists: please click the "Back" arrow, and go onto the next post to try to belittle and/or demean a mistreated customer. I'm not sure if these "volunteers" are paid by PayPal or what their deal is, but I find it hard to believe that their are people in the world who would be scouring the PayPal forums day and night, delegitimizing the countless number of hardworking people treated in a similar fashion, yet somehow, on every post questioning the ethics of this company, one of these "volunteer helpers" or whatever they're called is there within minutes "It's in the TSA, they can do what ever they want crybaby. You're probably doing something illegal or sketchy and they are protecting the rest of us from scammers like YOU boohoohoo." Its disgusting and in the vein of bullying, and whether or not these people are paid by PayPal, the fact is they're posts are never removed by moderators, they have the little line under their username which acts as a direct endorsement by PayPal about their legitimacy to police within this community, and they detract from any hope of progress being made. While my issue supersedes the copy and paste answer they post all over, I'd like to make it clear that I've read many of similar complaints, I've seen these "volunteer" posts on everyone, and it reflects the toxic and hostile corporate environment and policy that is, so evidently, PayPal. They say "PayPal makes it clear that this that and the other," but many of the things they say are "made clear" and "unavoidable" are not. I've explicitly used screen recorders to record the process of creating an eBay listing, signing up for PayPal, etc. and most of this information is not displayed until after a first payment has been made. And many responses regarding TSA and policy are tangential to the threads they are posted on, but still adopt a tone of belittlement towards the poster, again, in order to delegitimize claims that shine a light on the true practice and policy executed by this deceptive outfit, which itself hangs on the edge of illegitimacy.