...And PayPal does absolutely nothing.
😐
In January of 2023, our family lost absolutely everything. After facing the ramifications of Covid, enduring a lay-off, losing loved ones and everything else we endured, losing our home and everything we have worked so hard to build for our three children, our lives were left completely upended. We have been struggling for nearly a year to maintain a hotel, having lost all personal property and documentation, and we are in a bad place. We have contacted nearly 500 churches and organizations for help, to no avail. And after finding it difficult to find a place to rent after an unlawful covid eviction, we decided to try to purchase a camper for our children to finally have a place to call home.
After making contact with a pastor of a church of less than 20 people, and speaking with him in depth about our family's circumstances, he offered to help take out a $4,000 loan on our behalf to help us towards the purchase of a used camper. It was not easy to get the loan, and we almost didn't —until we put our vehicle (the only thing we have to truly keep us safe) up for collateral to receive the loan.
So we did.
Here enters the dishonest woman who reached out to us via Facebook with an offer to sell us a camper for $4,000.
While she was originally kind, through text and by phone, her tone would change over time as we communicated for nearly a month while trying to receive approval for the loan.
After we received the funds, she would insist that we pay a deposit to secure the camper. Because we faced technical difficulties providing her the $2,700 deposit that we'd agreed was acceptable for her to deliver it to us, and because we were threatened that it would be sold after she was made aware of our circumstances, we provided the deposit via Cash App, rather than PayPal as we had planned.
The day before the camper was to be delivered to us, we received a text message that said that it has been stolen. But when we asked, there was no proof of a police report provided.
She then told us she was unable to send us the refund via Cash App, as she was at her weekly limit, so she would send it via PayPal.
She then paid us $2,700 to our PayPal account via GOODS AND SERVICES; Less than two hours later, she opened a dispute, and half an hour after that, she changed the reason for the dispute. PayPal placed the funds on hold to 'conduct an investigation'; and closed the case in her favor before allowing us to provide them any documents we had to prove that she was never in fact a buyer. They then released the funds we were rightfully owed to her account.
We have made numerous calls, made multiple requests to appeal; we have filed a police report and an online complaint with the IC3 gov website; and we have provided this and all the screenshots of our communications to PayPal.
And PayPal's only response is to tell us there is nothing they can do because we cannot give them a shipping number for an imaginary item that we never sold this person.
Despite providing them substantial evidence that she used their platform to scam us out of $2,700 we paid her for a camper for our children, after nearly two years of facing home insecurity.
Have you ever experienced anything like this?
Do you have any solid advice?
Please don't leave mean-spirited messages. We have endured enough bullying in sharing our circumstances and seeking help. We just want to be home. 😔💔
Please consider visiting my family's Givesendgo campaign to read our story. You can find it by searching Help and Hope For New Beginnings.
Thank you, sincerely.
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