Filing a complaint against Paypal with the CA Attorney General's Office

A

aptmtb

O.G.
Sep 20, 2006
367
4
#1
Oh, I'm so livid at what Paypal is doing that I'm going to file a complaint against them with the CA Attorney General.

Paypal has frozen my funds and will not release them.

1) I have successfully authenticated with a credit card
2) I have successfully authenticated with a bank account
3) I have successfully authenticated a mailing address
4) I have successfully authenticated a phone number
5) I even posted every post office tracking number for my transactions
6) It's been 2 months since I've shipped the items, there have been NO buyer complaints and the Buyer Protection period has expired

So Paypal wants me to give my social security number or they will keep my funds.

In the Paypal User Agreement, no where does it say you need to provide your social security number.

That is misuse of power and I really, really hope the CA Attorney General (former Governor Brown) does something about this.

Paypal is saying give me your social security number or I keep your money. Social Security number is something I don't give away very lightly with the massive identify theft that is going around.
 
#2
My dad was involved in, or was invited to be involved in, a class action suit brought against them a few years back which I believe included the freezing of funds. Go for it!
 
#3
Done.

I googled Paypal and found a lot of complaints against them and reference to that Class Action lawsuit.

I don't live in California, it is where Paypal is based. From what I can tell, California is VERY proactive in protecting the little guy so I am going to take this as far as former Governor Brown will take it.
 

Attachments

  • CA Attorney General.JPG
    CA Attorney General.JPG
    116.9 KB · Views: 920
#4
If I were you, I would call Paypal and ask why this is required specifically.

Are you signing up for a merchant account, a money market account, or to add Paypal option to your website? According to Paypal's help center, to do any of these, a SSN (or TIN) is required.

Also, this is from the User Agreement:

Withdrawals.

i. U.S. Users. In order to withdraw funds that PayPal is holding in custody for you, you must confirm the email address that you registered by responding to a message that PayPal will send to that address when you have completed registration, and you must register a bank account or credit card with PayPal. New PayPal Users (who have been in the PayPal system for 120 days or less or who signed up for a PayPal account on or after November 14, 2002) are required to complete two out of three authentication steps (confirm bank account, enter Member Number, confirm Social Security Number) in order to withdraw more than $500.00 USD per month. Some accounts, at PayPal's discretion, may have this limit even after 120 days. Some accounts, at PayPal's discretion, may have lower limits until the authentication steps have been completed. Account limits, if any, can be viewed from the "View Limits" link on the Account Overview page.

Also, beware of phishing scams if you are getting this request for your SSN via email. Confirm it is actually from Paypal.

Good luck and keep us posted.
 
#5
aptmtb said:
Done.

I googled Paypal and found a lot of complaints against them and reference to that Class Action lawsuit.

I don't live in California, it is where Paypal is based. From what I can tell, California is VERY proactive in protecting the little guy so I am going to take this as far as former Governor Brown will take it.
Click to expand...

Yikes, there are a lot of complaints out there. Did you see these websites?

http://www.paypalwarning.com/

http://www.paypalsucks.com/

You may want to see if there has been legal action or complaints pertinent to your situation.

Again, good luck!
 
#6
>>> Are you signing up for a merchant account, a money market account, or to add Paypal option to your website? According to Paypal's help center, to do any of these, a SSN (or TIN) is required.


No, I am not. That is why it's so outrageous.

I called their customer service and they read the User Agreement part to me that leaves it open for them to ask ANYTHING of me to unfreeze my funds. I asked them: "so basically, you can ask me my race, my gender, my age, my measurements, my size, my annual income, anything, that is what you are saying".

He was speechless and defensive at the same time. Asking me my race and age must be against the law.
 
#8
Yes, I saw all of those sites. I am dealing with paypal right now. I thought I was protected and guess what. If you buy something and it's SNAD, too bad. (I bought an item off of eBay, the item was obviously USED, and I am stuck with it).
 
#9
I hate paypal, but sadly it's probably the best checkout system ebay has. I just pay with a credit card when I buy off of ebay, so that I can deal with the credit card company in case something goes wrong. Paypal totally sucks IMO.
 
#10
Yikes...I'm not a big Ebayer but to be safe I just deleted all my accounts on Paypal and made sure my account was empty.

Reading the links redney posted and...yikes, yikes, yikes. The fox is guarding the henhouse.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Back