This is going to be long winded. And I hope it is a PSA for some. Wish I knew this shit…
I’ve used Paypal for years. I have an eBay account, and if you have one you know Paypal is the only way to enact a sale, unless you have a storefront, or are a real business and can accept CC. So I’ve had a eBay account going on 20 years, and eBay at one time owned, may still own, and WTF do I know, but for what I do, I need PP.
All those years I was told PP protects me and you and both coming and going and every transaction is, well…covered.
Now PP has TWO ways of transacting a money transfer. One is called “Goods and services”. Such as eBay, Amazon, etc.
The other is “Friends and Family” where you can sends funds directly to, uh, friends or family, and no fee is charged.
In all my years of being assured of my transactions being “covered”, I was never aware of the stipulation, and I use that word like I’m spitting, that if in the course of sending money to either a friend or family member you mistakenly type in the wrong email address………
Get that?
Wrong email address….it’s instantly transferred FROM PP to the recipient on the other end of the email/PP account/Mars.
If you realize your mistake, they say you can undo it, before it becomes “complete”.
When I hit send it went. Boom. Instantaneous. In retrospect, I could not stop it once I hit send.
When I mistakenly did this, I sent money to the wrong person. I could not undo it.
To cap this off, it was the weekend and both me and my son were occupied with other things. Day later, son says no money. I suggest maybe the weekend. 2 days later, nope no money.
Then we realized my mistake.
I called PP, and after a few hours got through to India, where the person in the boiler room read bad english from a script. The script was “No resolution for friends and family transactions. You pay.”
I got her to say I should contact my bank, that is what I should do? “Yes. Bank.”.. click
I brought my bank account up online, no money left my account….I put a stop payment on the transaction, yanked my card, cleared my balance off of PP, and thought…that was close.
Nope.
BOOM. Paypal page shows me in deficit of over $700, I OWE THEM. On top of that, I had an auction payment land there before I could stop it, and they applied that towards my deficit.

So now I call a few more times, get run around in a circle. I go online and try to find a “resolution”. On the PP online site you will see that “Our online community is here to help you”. They have “volunteers” who offer their “services” to folks like me.
HELP. So I sent off my dilemma, and a few hours later, this popped up in my messages. This is what Paypal has working as a volunteer advisor had to say;
Quote;
“The money went to a person to whom you very specifically designated as the recipient. Calling it a mistake does not absolve you of your responsibility to have funds available for sending.
Setting up a stop payment in your bank account sends a signal to PayPal that you cannot be trusted with th bank; PayPal may now remove your ability to use that bank account due to high risk of dispute.
Your PayPal account will remain negative until you add funds. While negative you will be limited to what you can do with your PayPal account.
PayPal is just folloiwng policies.
You are responsible for not verifying the recipient’s email address. You will now have to pay the price for the mistake.”
End quote.

I asked about honesty. How about the other end? Isn’t he/she/it responsible for actions approaching fraud?
I got this in reply, and I quote the actual words;

“This isn’t about honesty; it’s about your paying for your mistake.
The recipient could be perfectly honest and admit to receiving the money. Being honest doesn’t obligate the recipient to do anything more.
If you funded with a credit card you could dispute the transaction as not receiving a product. That would be up to your credit card bank, but it wouldn’t really be honest for you to do so..
You could ask the recippient to give you money or make a deal to return part of it, but the recipient is under no obligation to comply.”
End quote.
Get that? Typos and all…. Sweet, eh? That’s an adviser? I will pay. BTW I know the site this dipstick sells shit from. Should I…..
Now I go on Twitter..Still same old shit. “Friends and Family and all that”… And I send off a few emails to the guy I sent it to, asking him to be honest….hahahahaaa.
Someone on PP Twitter gets back to me, asks if they want me to email wrong addy and ask for honesty….hahahaaaa. Sure.
So I filed a complaint with Business Consumer Alliance This is a very good site to lodge a complaint. You can either speak on the phone or email them. KEEP THIS LINK FOR CONSUMER COMPLAINTS. It got me through….so…..
A few weeks goes by, with me slowly boiling in my own juices…….I get a call. Biff from PP offices/boileroom/moving van in Omaha Ne in the department of Resolutions….
Tells me they received my complaint….via the BCA complaint..(!!!!!! wow they ought to check THAT business model) I’m being recorded. For future reference, teaching, example…Threats?
I hope so. Biff nicely says he has a resolution for me….. I would only owe them HALF of that money. Only half…
We discussed my displeasure, and after a nice exchange about the shitty treatment and no service that I could find with the people who either did not know how to, or were told not to help…How come I couldn’t reach YOU through PayPal?… I ain’t paying squat. In that conversation, he said he had sent a “courtesy” email to the person on the other end of my mistake. Asking for the money back. Courtesy. I told him that was rich. So I guess this is “my” courtesy call”? Sue me.
He will look into it. Yeah. Good one. Love you too. He was nice enough. Like that guy who tells you “It’s gonna hurt” before he sucker punches you…
Later that day, Biff phones me back. (!) Says he discussed my dilemma with his associates. They agreed that my long term use of PayPal was important, they appreciate me… and that they would issue a complete credit of my outstanding negative balance. Ok. What about my $116 from the auction you applied to that? Nope. In his own words, that was “absorbed”. Ah. PayPal is an amoeba. “Timing”. “After the fact”. “Uh.” “Complicated”.
Yes. Very.
So I learned that PP sends money from their account instantaneously, and once you hit send, it’s gone. Regardless of their statements telling me if it was pending I could stop it. I also learned that the only way I got any satisfaction was to go outside Paypal and file a public complaint. That PP could have such a hole in it’s programming, that an incorrect email could be typed in and sent with no prompts, no “are you sure, double check, and if it’s wrong you eat it” explanation….. By design? There’s gold in them hills, boy.
I just had to clean my iPhone and reset from the Cloud. I had to verify about 5 or more times. Passwords, phone number, CC, txt messages….
And looking through the complaints against PP online…….Go do that.
Say no to 10 people, one walks away, you win. So I’m out $116 bucks and a $35 stop payment and a whole lot of aggravation, but now I can deal on eBay. Again…
I think that’s a good thing…..I think….
And in the back of my head all this time I’m thinking……Was that money sent to a dead account? Was it claimed? Where’s my proof they even sent it?
And as I’m ready to end this with a “buyer beware” what comes in the mail? A collection agency telling me I owe the money to PayPal….Here we go….
So I call up the agency in Renton Wa, give them the account # and……..It was called back by PP. “No further correspondence from you then, right?” Yes. You will have to speak to PP……
No. I won’t.
Never leave a balance in your PP account. You don’t need to. And if you MUST send money to friends or family, use Venmo, which allows you to see a photo of who you are sending it to to verify the account. They are owned by Paypal. Surprise.. You can get around them grabbing your contacts, I did.
Now as a final word, it took me longer than I imagined to get this cleared up, and I was very upset. I am going to post something here. I did not call any of these numbers, but if I was still getting the run around, be assured I would be. I found it after my account was reinstated. If you find yourself in a jam getting walked in circles by PP, as I was, I’d try one of the numbers.
Anonymous PP phone contacts
It never ends..