It was PayPal upper management. Here's who I contacted via email:
<removed>
<removed>
<removed>
The Media Relations Office
PayPal restricts me from including their email addresses on this thread. However, if you look up executive team at PayPal, you can easily get all their emails. Ultimately, they forwarded my email to a manager by the name of "Gage" who then called me and resolved the issue with me. If you want Gage's direct email, you can reach out to me here[Removed. Phone #s not permitted]/p>
PayPal will not allow me to post any PayPal private emails on this thread, including my own.
And here's the email I addressed to them all:
Dear Mr. <removed> & Ms. <removed>:
I am writing to give you the opportunity to correct a serious problem that has occurred with my account before I take legal action, notify the IRS, notify my stat's Attorney General Consumer Protection Division and the Better Business Bureau. I may very well likely notify the media as well.
On May 4th based on your corporate marketing's messaging about how "easy" it is to cash stimulus checks, I went ahead and used the PayPal mobile app through my cell phone to upload my stimulus check in the amount of $1,200.
Initially the front and back of the checks were uploaded perfectly fine by taking a simple picture and hitting "submit."
What your marketing messaging does NOT tell customers is that you have contracted with a third part vendor called "Ingo" which you have given the authority to make decisions on cashing the stimulus checks. Had I known that before hand, I could have looked up Ingo's track record and reputation (which is abysmal) and would not have used your mobile platform at all.
After uploading the front and back of the stimulus check, I immediately get an email from Ingo stating I now "need to complete the final step" and write VOID on my check and take another picture of the now VOIDED check and upload it.
So I go into PayPal's app again. I write VOID on my check as instructed. I take a picture of the now voided check. Then I go to hit submit and nothing happens. I hit is again. Nothing. And again. Nothing.
I attempted to take and upload the voided check FIFTEEN times within one hour. The mobile app would NOT allow me to submit the check. It continuously looped back to the "take a picture" prompt.
Then after an hour I get a second email from Ingo stating my stimulus check has been declined and will not be funded in PayPal because I did not complete the second/final step in the process.
How can I complete the final step in the process when PayPal's mobile app does not allow for the apparent uploading of a check that has VOID written on it?
Utterly stupid....
So now I have a dead paper check that I can't cash anywhere else because it has VOID written on it. Of course I immediately reach out to Ingo. Their call center is closed until further notice. They don't respond to emails whatsoever and even the chat feature on their website has been disabled.
I can only assume that they have scammed so many people that are calling in giving them hell that they have stopped all contact with customers altogether. Kind of reeks of guilt, doesn't it?
So then I turn to PayPal. I have had NUMEROUS conversations with your customer service staff who collectively tell me to work it out with Ingo, despite me stating repeatedly that they have closed up shop and are not responding to customers and that it's actually PAY PAL'S mobile app, not Ingo's, that I used. So, naturally, PayPal is co-culpable for denying me the ability to upload the proper documentation requested of me.
So you tell me, Mr. <removed>.....
Is this a technical glitch in your mobile app software? Or is this a scam of epic proportions?
How many other customers has this happened to? How many of your customers had their identity and check information stolen from your partner, Ingo, without ever having their checks funded?
I now have to mail the stimulus check back to the IRS with a lengthy explanation about the way your company has severely inconvenienced me and wait for a replacement check to be issued, which could take months.
I want you to do the following:
1) Acknowledge this email by responding to it promptly.
2) Apologize.
3) Explain why this glitch even occurred in the first place and whether your technical team has resolved it.
4) PUT MY MONEY IN MY ACCOUNT.
Otherwise, I am asking the fraud unit of the IRS to commence an investigation, along with my state's Attorney General's Office. And I will most likely bring a lawsuit.
This is not $50 missing here. It's $1,200!!!!!
And you are culpable just as equally as Ingo because YOUR marketing team promoted this check cashing service and it's YOUR mobile app platform used.
DISGRACEFUL.
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