PayPal dispute - I’m in tears!

[WizardofCoz]

Hi MN,
I feel like an absolute idiot.
I was messing around in apps with my child, one of those dog AI apps. I thought it was free & the site requested 0.10 so I agreed the payment & now they have taken £50 from my PayPal account, stating I’ve agreed to pay £50 a month! I didn’t agree to this.
I’ve sent an email to the organization asking for a refund, and the email bounced back (the email address listed on PayPal) & I’ve put in a refund request via PayPal.
Have just had an automated response from PayPal less than a hour after I contacted them stating the transaction was ‘authorised’ and the money won’t be refunded. I am really low on funds at the moment & absolutely gutted. Also very anxious they’ll try & take more money. Can’t see how to challenge PayPal on this.
-can anyone offer any help or has anyone experienced similar? I’m in bits here :(
Thank You 🫶

You can cancel subscriptions within a time period so should get a refund. It’s a cooling off period (I accidentally signed up to Canadian Amazon prime 🤦🏻‍♀️).

Is it an Apple App Store purchase? Because you could try opening a dispute/refund request via your App Store. Not sure of the equivalent if you’re on Android.

Also try PayPal again - you can escalate a ‘dispute’ to a ‘claim’ where you get a text box to write all the details in. Go to your resolution centre on PayPal to do that. Better chance of getting a human response that way I think.

Thanks both for responding, and for your support.
PayPal just says ‘case closed’ & I can’t see how to escalate things, it says payment was authorized. 😭
I’ve tried to call my bank & have replaced the card linked to PayPal with one that has no funds/no overdraft as worried that cancelling the monthly payments might not be enough.

This has never happened to me before & I’m devastated.

Gutting isn't it. My son somehow, with two or three taps, bought £200 on Roblox via PayPal. (I'm single mum on benefits) I didn't get the money back despite my best efforts. I can laugh about it now but yh I cried. Really hope you get it back. Sorry this doesn't help.

@Whatnowtrevoh my god that’s awful!
Its a nightmare, on the website it states you can escalate a dispute to a claim but just keeps sending me back to a page that says ‘case closed’ - wondering if my bank can do anything, annoyingly they are closed so can’t call them til the morning.

@WizardofCoz
There should be a number on your card for the fraud department - should still be able to reach them by phone as believe they are 24/7 usually. Get the original card cancelled too in case they use the info in other ways. Have a look around on paypal for a way to talk to someone on chat....they were helpful when someone hacked into our PayPal credit and used it

My DH recently got a refund from PayPal for goods that hadn't been received. It was a purchase from a scam website and he did contact bank first and they might have helped but said to try PayPal first. Try your bank if you can't see how to escalate with PayPal. There should also be an option to cancel the subscription within a certain timescale and maybe get refund.

PayPal will refund if you were mislead but having had a look at some of the dog apps they all make it very clear that it’s a subscription service.

You can however cancel it but will lose the first month as already having paid for it.

This it’s technically not a fraud. I did a mental health questionnaire and paid £1.50 for it I didn’t realise by doing so I was signing up to a £30 a month subscription til three months later!

I managed to get one month back.

Have you tried asking the app to refund, not PayPal? PayPal can’t do anything as it was authorised. As PP say, there might be a cooling off time.

Has it shown on your online banking? If it has click through on ‘don’t recognise this transaction’ and it should give you options to dispute this.

it happened to me when I signed up to a £1 offer that actually turned out to be a £30 a month subscription that I didn’t realise and they sorted it out that way.

This may not help now because you need to be sure the subscription is cancelled their end first, but it may be useful at some point if you don't already know about it.

On the Paypal site click on the cog and then the payments tab

Click on Automatic payments

You should find a list of Pre-approved payments which means they can take money in future. You may have a number of those that really shouldn't be there at all and each can be cancelled.

But doing it when you 'owe' money makes you in the wrong so you have to be sure the subscription is cancelled first.

@Cantwaituntiltheyareoverthank you so much - didn’t realise the fraud team operate 24/7 - I spoke to them & they said they can’t see the transaction in my pending on their system… or at all? I cancelled my card & asked for a new one.
The bank seem to think if it isn’t on their system (& I can’t see it on my banking app either) that it hasn’t been taken & now the card is cancelled they said it can’t be taken.
Which has reassured me (this is all so weird) but I’m so anxious I’ve just put a block on my other bank card too.
I feel violated!

Really appreciate everyone’s responses ❤️

PayPal's website is a mess and infinite loops are not uncommon. Have you contacted them via the chat?

Focus on your own bank and find their 24/7 scam & fraud number - or call 159, the number that covers all of the UK's banks. https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2021/09/stop--hang-up--and-call-159-if-you-re-worried-about-bank-scam-ca/

Hi All, you need to be aware that PayPal is setting up Automatic Payments without your approval, giving merchants the authority to request any amount of money, at any time and PayPal will take it from your account without checking with you. Take a look at the BBC news reports from last Wednesday re what happened in Germany. The same thing happened in Australia at the end of last week and here in the UK at the weekend. As a member of the public, we had several automatic payments set up, (14 on one PP account, 7 on the other) with no authority at all. PayPal just set them up at the merchant’s request, no proof of approval by the buyer and no communication to confirm the agreement. Germany had billions of Euros requested by PayPal and the German banks halted all payments, saving an estimated 10.5 billion. We were unfortunately included in this weekend’s fraud, with a merchant setting up an ‘automatic payment’ without our knowledge, then in the night, they got PayPal to plunder my husband’s account. £499 withdrawn, then 2 mins later £1499, then 2 mins £2499 until it was all gone! PayPal just took the lot. We raised a dispute for Unauthorised payments and they found in favour of the seller. We appealed and still they dismissed it. The bank stopped the card immediately and raised a fraud case. This was on Friday 29th. When we checked our PP account, there were 7 automatic payments that my husband had never approved. They were immediately cancelled and the card was removed from PP, leaving only a 99p Apple subscription on the account. Yesterday morning PayPal used that Apple subscription to withdraw £3499 from an account that had already been emptied, putting him into an unauthorised overdraft! We reported them to the FCA on Monday morning, the Financial Ombudsman, etc and the banks are now aware that PayPal is withdrawing money without authorisation from the consumers. PLEASE check your PP accounts. If you use PayPal for purchasing, you will very likely have automatic payments set up that you did not approve and are not aware of. Cancel them and remove any DDs from your bank account too. I requested proof that I had authorised any of my automatic payments and initially PP refused, then sent me the merchant request. No authorisation from me, just the merchant stating they wanted it. They also have no proof of emails that they claim to have sent, (they didn’t), informing me each time one of these payments was set up. I haven’t found anyone yet that has no automatic payments set up without their approval. If you find some, please cancel them and report PayPal to the FCA. What they are doing is illegal.

You need to go into your account and check if PayPal has a Direct Debit set up too and if so, cancel it. They used our 99p a month Apple iCloud subscription to withdraw £3499 yesterday! The bank has recalled it successfully, but how dare they take money, when they knew it was not approved and by using a 99p a month subscription.