I used paypal to make a rather large purchase from an online retailer. My chosen method of payment was a credit card I had. Although my credit card processor approved the transaction, Paypal determined that there was a certain amount of "risk" associated with my credit card and simply decided not to use the card for payment. Now here is the good part: rather than decline the transaction, it simply canceled my credit card payment and dipped into my Paypal balance to pay for it. My balance was $0, but Paypal decided it was less risky to force me to borrow $16,000 to pay for the transaction using cash than to use my verified credit card. Now there is a hold on my account and Paypal says they will send me to a collector if I don't pay $16,000. I never agreed to pay for that transaction in cash and I have no clue what Paypal thought was "risky" about my card, but if that was the case, it should have declined the transaction altogether. I don't have that amount in cash; the card would have allowed me to pay over 3 years without interest, and that was the plan, and using the card would have yielded a lot of cashback. I would not have agreed to purchase had Paypal told me it was going to do this. Does anyone know how I can get out of this? Does the Paypal agreement really allow for this to happen? Every time I contact Paypal, they take forever, pretend to listen, and then tell me the best solution is to call "this number" - the number is the collections department... So basically they just keep referring me to someone to take payment and have no interest in finding a solution. I don't want to pay cash for it.
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