I've heard and read many complaints from small businesses about PayPal cheating them out of money through bizarre policies and procedures that made no sense, but I hadn't experienced it myself until a couple of months ago.
My entire purse was stolen March 14. I discovered it when I started getting alerts on my cell phone from the first cards that were being used fraudulently. I ended up spending the entire weekend and the next four weeks talking to credit card companies. I tried to call PayPal about the Business Debit Mastercard on the evening of March 15, because that is when I got an alert that it had been used. Unfortunately, there was no number or place to report it.
Did you know that there is no live chat or phone number available on Friday nights to report fraud?
I finally reached someone Saturday morning, March 16. I asked them to close the card completely. I also asked the person who took the report how it was possible that someone had used the card WHEN I HAD NOT YET ACTIVATED IT?!? The Business Debit Card customer service employee whom I spoke to said he had no idea. I asked him to find out and call or email me with the answer. Of course, like most PayPal requests for information, he never did.
Incidentally, every PayPal employee I spoke to after that heard the same question from me. No one could explain how an unactivated card was activated.
Much later, I found out that the thief herself was somehow allowed to activate the card and assign her own PIN to it. I'd had it in my wallet as a backup resource, knowing I hadn't yet activated it. Why was it so easy for a thief to activate it and assign her own PIN? No one at PayPal could give me an answer.
What was scary was that I had my PayPal cash account linked to my Bank of America checking account. Even though I reported the card stolen very early on Saturday morning and asked to have it closed immediately, the thief was somehow allowed to continue using the card all weekend.
The thief ran through the $1,000+ that had been in my PayPal cash account and began pulling money from my BofA checking account!! When I saw the alert come through on my BofA account, I called BofA and immediately put a stop payment on my checking account against ANY AND ALL charges from PayPal. Fortunately, it blocked the more than $500 charge from PayPal. I also went into my PayPal account and removed any links to my BofA account.
I continued getting text alerts that the card was being used and the charges were not declined throughout the weekend! I kept calling, but no one seemed capable of closing the card effectively. How could you allow this? The card was supposed to be closed Saturday morning. Did your person on the phone simply decide it could wait until Monday or Tuesday or whenever????
The resolution team reversed the transactions that did NOT require a pin, but they would not reverse the ones that DID use a pin. Why? They said I must have given the thief the pin number.
This is preposterous. I did not HAVE a pin number assigned. I had not activated the card yet.
Furthermore, the unapproved reversals were right next to approved reversals in the activity log--ALL of which took place more than 100 miles from my house and in the same stores as the approved reversals, at the same time. They were obviously all done by the thief. But your judging committee STUPIDLY insisted I must have activated the card, assigned it a pin, and given the card and the pin to the thief.
HuH? **Tashi, a customer service person in the dispute team of the Business Debit Card Group, said since the person used my pin, which she said was assigned months ago (I didn't do that; I didn't even activate the card!), I must have given her the pin and the permission to use it.
It's not a logical argument. If they believe that, they should not have reversed ANY of the charges--if I gave her my card.
But I didn't. My entire purse was stolen and this thief used every card in it. I offered to send in the police report that shows other cards that were stolen and used in the same stores at the same times as the PayPal charges that were not reversed.
You know what I was told? No, thank you. We don't look at police reports or any other transactions from other credit card companies. We look only at PayPal records.
You don't look at police reports?
This was already the second time the request to reverse the charges was submitted because the first time they wouldn't reverse anything because they had NO information, even though I reported it and gave them all the information they needed. But they couldn't FIND it.
So when they looked at the situation with the needed information, they decided, in their INFINITE WISDOM, this first review counted as "the appeal."
Tashi said there was no one further up I could appeal to. She said I was not allowed to speak to the investigators or to the team that makes the decisions. I told her the decision makers were obviously missing relevant information or they would not have made that decision. So I wanted to speak to someone and at least send in the police report. She said no. She wouldn't even let me speak to her manager.
I told her in complete detail what I believe had happened and asked her to look into it for me. I was about to undergo back surgery and would be out of pocket for a few months. She said there was nothing she could do. I asked if I could pick this up when I had recovered from my back surgery and continue to try to get justice. She said she didn't see that it would do any good, because I was obviously working in collusion with the thief. At least, that's what the judging committee had decided.
Before going to the FTC or the Consumer Protection Financial Board, I thought I would approach someone higher up in the chain who may:
1. Have more than a third-grade education and an IQ above 70.
2. Be open to viewing documents other than navel-gazing at PayPal's own records.
3. Care about having a class action suit brought against PayPal because I know I am not alone in this experience.
I eagerly await your response and your reimbursement of the thousands of dollars I am guaranteed to have reimbursed to me by MasterCard if I was the victim of theft or fraud and which PayPal is keeping illegally.
Sharon <removed>
... View more
