Account Limitation: PayPal asking for birth date of NON-ACCOUNT HOLDER

123jen45
Contributor
Contributor

PayPal has put a limitation on my account and asked for a bunch of information they already had for me, and which I have re-supplied. They are now asking for the birth date of the person to whom the shipment was addressed, and who is NOT a PayPal account holder. How is that legal? How does PayPal think they are entitled to private information for a non-account holder?

 

Here's the situation. I placed an order with a pet food supplier and stupidly chose to pay through PayPal. PayPal took the money from my bank account but listed the transaction as "pending" and refused to pay the Vendor. I cancelled the order directly with the Vendor because I couldn't wait to have the dog food  order delayed--my dogs needed it! I asked PayPal for my refund. They told me no transaction would be processed unless I explained what the order was for. I told them it was dog food, which the purchase summary clearly said it was. Then PayPal asked me again to explain what the item was. I told them again. Then PayPal came back and asked me to supply photo ID (which they've already had for me for years).  I supplied it.

 

Now they have asked for the birth date of the person who was to receive the order of dog food -- my husband whose name was on the pet food store account. I will not supply this. He is not a PayPal account holder. PayPal is not entitled to private information for people who do not do business with them.

 

All I want is my money back. PayPal will not answer my messages sent through the online complaint, except with automated responses. They send me emails with one line requesting what they want, but won't respond as a human and answer my questions why they need this information. They will NOT reply to the Vendor's requests to allow the refund to be processed. I can not get an English speaking customer service agent on the phone because I am not based in an English speaking country.

 

This has gone on for more than a week!

 

What are my next steps? Again, I'm not giving them my husband's birth date.

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23 REPLIES 23

LRashee90
New Community Member

This has also happened to me recently. I ordered 3 personalised mugs for each of my sisters in law as a gift and put their names in a message to the seller. The transaction within Ebay failed, however Paypal took the payment three times and Paypal are now refusing to give me my money back until they have received her date of birth. Did your problem get resolved in the end? @123jen45 ? 

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123jen456
New Community Member

Hi there,

 

I received a notice that you commented but have since deleted my PayPal account and recreated another one on the community in order to answer your question.

Yes, I did finally receive a refund for the amount. SEVEN weeks after they took the money out of my bank account. I don't think PayPal would have done it willingly though. I filed a complaint against PayPal with my bank and they proceeded to investigate the charge, I also filed a complaint with the US Better Business Bureau and they looked into the charges for me. Suddenly PayPal was responding to my emails about the refund. I explained again that they are not entitled to the private information of a non-account holder, and I am not authorized to provide such private information for a third-party. The "customer service" rep (if I can call them that) said they would note my complaint with managers and a couple of days later I received a notice that a refund would be processed.

 

Each time PayPal asked me to re-provide information they already had for me multiple times over (photo id, an explanation of the charge, my verified address, etc.) I started uploading just a screen shot of the Cancelled order with the vendor, instead of any other documents. It's so ridiculous, but before I got emails asking if they could help me solve my problem, PayPal's bot gave me a "checkmark" saying the document I'd provided to them had been verified and no longer required. Honestly, PayPal is a garbage system. I believe this is one of their ploys to make money. As long as our money is out of our bank accounts and in theirs, THEY are the ones earning interest on it. When they do this thousands of times over and it adds up to a lot of money for them. Unless people stop using them and delete their accounts.

 

Good luck to you!

 

I'm deleting this new account again so won't be replying to further messages re this post.

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montydog
Contributor
Contributor
This has just happened To me for the 2nd time in 3 years - But what’s even weirder is they are requesting on items sent to the same person and address (my elderly uncle ) they want my uncles DOB. I have sent him a car seat cover And this time a Birthday card paid for on paypal. It’s utterly ridiculous to request their date of birth. I could make it up. It’s so frustrating. What happened on the end with you ?
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KierstenMarek
Contributor
Contributor

I'm still waiting for the supervisor of the person I chatted with to contact me. In chat, they just keep demanding that you give the information and are "sorry you feel that way" about not providing it. Sorry, but I work in health care, my husband works in finance, and you don't give out the date of birth of anyone. It's private protected information. 

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KierstenMarek
Contributor
Contributor

This is also happening to me. My sister asked me to make a donation to an orphanage in Bolivia where one of my nieces volunteered and provided a paypal address. After I made the donation I was told my account was limited and I had to tell them the date of birth of my sister in order to have the limitations lifted. I will not do this. This is private protected information and my sister is not an account holder. I can't believe it is even legal for them to require this information. 

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DiplomatX
Contributor
Contributor

This is crazy. I've had a very similar problem. I made a $5 contribution for the Christmas gift of the office cleaner at our organization. A co-worker was collecting the funds to purchase the gift and asked us to write "Christmas gift for [name of cleaner]" in the description, which I did. PayPal placed a limitation on the account and is asking for the birth date of the cleaner named in the description. Not the birth date of the person I actually sent the $5, but the cleaner. I've written back and forth several times to customer service, and they simply keep repeating the request for the birth date. I'm not going to ask our office cleaner for their birth date, this is surely not legal or ethical.

 

I've filed complaints now with the California Department of Business Oversight (since PayPal is based there), as well as the Virginia Bureau of Financial Institutions. I've also reached out to five media organizations after seeing here that other people are having this same problem, because this is unethical. My anger has also been compounded by the absolute lack of any customer care on the part of PayPal, it is honestly the worst customer service I have ever encountered from any company in my life, and I've seen plenty of bad customer service.

 

I will close and delete my PayPal account when all this is said and done, but they won't let me even close the account until the limitation is lifted. So I still have to go through this process to try and get the limitation lifted without having to go ask the office cleaner for their birth date (which I flat out refuse to do). Beware of PayPal, and find other alternatives. Venmo is owned by PayPal, which a lot of people don't know, so that is not a viable alternative. I've had good luck with Zelle, and I'm also exploring Skrill. 

 

Good luck to all with this problem!

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Gone2TheDogs
Contributor
Contributor

This just happened to me, as well.  I sent money to a veterinarian in Mexico just south of the California border.  It was to contribute to medical bills for a dog brought to them by a rescuer in the area.  He saves street dogs from horrid conditions and death.  He is a friend of a friend, I follow him on Facebook, I know he is legitimate.  The donation gets converted to MXN which may or may not be relevant.  It was funded by my credit card; I had intended to fund it from my bank account but forgot to change from the default.  I am unsure if the funding source is relevant.

 

In the memo, I had put "FOR [name of rescuer] / BLOSSOM [this is the name of the dog to whose medical care I was donating]"

 

I got an email that the account was put in limitation.  They asked for the DOB of the rescuer.  I found this thread last night and called PayPal this morning after a pointless attempt trying to send them a message which doesn't have any way to get you to an actual person.

 

The first rep I spoke with explained that this information is required, that they cannot lift the limitation or cancel the payment.  She said that the recipient would be asked the same question to see if it matches. 

 

I told her that I had almost put just the dog's name in the memo field and I wanted to resolve this issue based on what I would have been asked if I had done that, that I was not asking someone who knows me only through my prior financial support to his rescue efforts on Facebook for his date of birth.  She put me through to a supervisor.

 

This guy told me the same thing but he explained further that this is based on government regulations and that PayPal has no choice.  He further clarified that my account is not limited in any way, only that this transaction cannot go through until it is resolved.  Based on something I saw in their help section, though, I would not be allowed to close the account, which I prefer not to do anyway.

 

He said that if I provided the information requested, then the issue would be resolved pretty quickly.  If not, they would continue their investigation of the transaction without it but it would take much longer, possibly months, before the transaction was either put through or canceled. 

 

So I decided to leave it up to the rescuer as to how he wanted me to handle it.  He said this happens often and it is ridiculous the kind of information that is requested.  He then gave me his DOB.  Since the vet will have to do the same thing and I don't know how quickly he will have time, we'll see how long it takes and whether the transaction is allowed to go through.

 

Anyway, perhaps knowing that this isn't actually PayPal but USG requirement will be helpful information to someone here.   Also FWIW, I got through to PayPal customer service by phone pretty quickly by entering the code given to me while going through the process after clicking "Contact Us" at the bottom of the page (any page, I think).

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montydog
Contributor
Contributor

so weird that the USG would specify this and how on earth would they know it's the right dob? My transaction was just to my elderly uncle but he avoids the internet. It feels like data collection (not normally paranoid ) but this is the 2nd time its happened and over gifts/cards I have sent to my uncle.

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Gone2TheDogs
Contributor
Contributor

Since the recipient has to confirm that same information, I'm not sure that it has to be the RIGHT DOB just the SAME DOB as the one that the recipient provides to PayPal.

 

Sen. Warren is my senator.  I might run this up her flagpole and see what she says.

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