asked to confirm dob of sub merchant he refuses payment on hold

[stevehb2]

Booked a parking space in Birmingham through a parking company for a private drive, paid via paypal all appeared to be well space reserved etc,

However received an e mail from paypal stating the £6.74 payment is on hold and they needed further information to release payment, info required was the date of birth of the sub-merchant.

Been in touch with the sub-merchant who refuses to give his date of birth (in fact i dont blame him) stating just who the hell do paypal think they are !!

Sent this information back to paypal who are adamant they need this guys date of birth, so things are deadlocked.

I am all for fraud prevention but creating all these issues for £6.74 just dont seem worth it, in fact seriously considering closing paypal down too much trouble,

Anybody have any thoughts ?

[PayPal_JonK]

Hello @stevehb2,

Welcome! I'm sorry to hear you're running into some issues with a recent payment. If PayPal is asking for some specific information from the seller to release a payment, normally that payment wouldn't be able to be released without that information. With that in mind, if you don't receive the good / service you paid for, and the merchant is unable to refund the transaction, I'd recommend looking for the option to Open a dispute. 

Best wishes!

 - Jon K

[stevehb2]

Please allow me to explain further, i purchased a parking space in Birmingham through a parking company, the then in turn make the owner of the space aware that the space on this persons drive is booked on a given date for a set time.

Paid via paypal to the parking company who accepted the transaction and agreed the space was confirmed.

2 Days later i receieved an e mail from Paypal stating the payment for £6.74 was on hold until i provided further information, the information required was the owner of the drives date of birth.

As it is important to retain this booking i contacted the parking company to give me the owners date of birth, they flatly refused stating G.D.P.R. rules, i therefore made a trip to Birmingham to ask the owner of the drive his date of birth so paypal would action the payment, I was met with "who the hell do paypal think they are" i therefore didnt obtain the required date of birth, so i am at stale mate.

I therefore entered a dispute explaining this only to receive another e mail stating they required this persons date of birth, which clearly i cannot obtain.

Nobody appears to want to help, i have tried to phone and all you get is a bot that sends you round and round in circles, paypal customer care is zero as far as i am concerned, do they really think i am going to continue to jump through hoops to please them, what an awful waste of space this company is.

[PayPal_JonK]

Hello @stevehb2,

Thank you for that clarifying information! I understand how frustrating this situation must be. Unfortunately it does sound like the transaction would not be able to progress further without that information. I would recommend trying to work further with the merchant and PayPal's Customer Support teams for further assistance. You can reach Customer Support by clicking Contact at the bottom of the PayPal website. They're also available through Twitter direct message or Facebook instant message.

Good luck!

 - Jon K

[stevehb2]

Thank you for your reply, however your comment about working with the merchant is not going to work as they clearly state under GDPR rules they cannot/will not divulge the information.

As for contacting the sub-merchant he has already clearly told me he would not tell me his date of birth and in all honesty i dont blame him, further to this if i travel to his address it costs me £10 in fuel to pay a payment of £6.74.

Is there no one at Paypal with an ounce of common sense to see this situation they have put me in ?

My resolution to this problem is to now cancel the transaction and has soon as it has been processed i will close my paypal account down having been a customer for about 20 years.

Paypal have driven me to take this action through their petty rules, had i been able to talk to someone and explain my situation this could have easily and sensibly been resolved.

I will be more than happy now to see the Paypal account closed, there are many more payment platforms out there now and hopefully they are more customer focused than bury your head in the sand Paypal.

A most unhappy ex Paypal customer.