Is PayPal Safe to Use Online?

PayPal.com sells itself as a financial tool of convenience. The PayPal wallet is essentially that – money in a digital wallet, ready to use for online purchases. When you use your PayPal balance, or a bank account or credit card linked through your account, www.paypal.com provides a shield to protect your financial accounts. But does the shield work as well as promised? Is your money safer when you are using your PayPal account?

We researched the user reviews on PissedConsumer and other online review platforms to find out if the PayPal app is what it seems.

Number of PayPal reviews – 3.9K

PayPal rating* – 1.6⭐⭐

Claimed losses – $9.8 million

Issues resolved – 20

Successful calls – 6%/13.3K

• How to contact customer service?
• Is PayPal safe?
• PayPal reviews: What do consumers say?

How to Contact PayPal Customer Service?

PayPal customer service features heavily in many of the online reviews. Frustrated customers leave PayPal reviews about their experiences hoping that customer service will help resolve the issue. In many cases, company customer service has already been involved with issues, but customers are still frustrated with that experience as well.

Fortunately, PayPal customer support is available in many different ways. You can contact PayPal customer support by phone, through the company’s website, through the app, and various social media platforms.

Before you contact PayPal support, be sure to log in to your account. You will see more options for contacting PayPal customer support once you are logged in.

Contact PayPal by Phone

It is possible to contact PayPal by phone. The PayPal phone number for account holders in the United States is 1-888-221-1161. The PayPal phone number for customers in the UK is 020-8080-6500. Finally, guests and PayPal account holders outside of the US or UK can call the international customer number for PayPal at 1-402-935-2050.

Before calling the phone number, log in to your PayPal account, if you are able. Once logged in, you may be given a special code when you visit the contact us page of your account to accelerate your call to the PayPal contact number. You can find the instructions for how to contact PayPal at the bottom of every page in your account.

You can call the company during the PayPal customer service hours. If you want to reach a customer service representative by phone, call during PayPal customer service hours from 6:00 AM (Pacific Time) to 6:00 PM. These PayPal customer service hours are valid 7 days per week.

Contact PayPal by Email

If you prefer to keep a written record of your communication, you can also send a PayPal customer service email about your concern. To send an email, you can use the PayPal address, service@paypal.com. You can also use the form available through the PissedConsumer website to send a message to PayPal through our easy online form.

Contact PayPal Through Chat

PayPal does not advertise the email option as clearly as it does the chat feature. This may be the simplest way how to contact PayPal. To use the PayPal chat feature, simply click on “Message Us” at the bottom of the Contact Us page once you are logged into your account.

A chat box will appear, and you can send and receive messages to have a written conversation with a representative once you have gone through the question and answers with the automated PayPal assistant.

Contact PayPal Through the Resolution Center

Another way how to contact PayPal is available through the Contact Us page: the PayPal Resolution Center. If you have a concern or issue, you can report it through the Resolution Center. Your issue will be investigated and communication will be stored in the PayPal Resolution Center as part of this process.

Contact PayPal Through the PayPal Community

The PayPal Community is a series of forums where other users support each other with concerns and questions. Official moderators from PayPal monitor the forums and provide answers and support for customers as they respond to posts and threads.

You have the option to post your question or concern in the PayPal Community. There, other users can find your post and reply, and you might get a response from the moderator with additional answers as well.

Contact PayPal Through Social Media

Finally, if you would prefer to interact with PayPal using one of your social media accounts, this is also a possibility. The company maintains a PayPal Facebook account (PayPalUSA) and allows for instant messages from customers through its Facebook page.

The better solution would likely be to contact PayPal through its Twitter account @AskPayPal. There the company addresses concerns and answers questions posted by users as tweets. PayPal Support on Twitter offers customer service in multiple languages as well.

Is PayPal Safe?

When handling money online, you want to be assured that your funds are safe. So, is PayPal safe? You want your bank and credit card accounts protected, and that is what PayPal.com offers. But is PayPal safe? The best rule of thumb is to see what others have said about their experiences with the PayPal customer service and the app.

According to PayPal reviews on PissedConsumer, more than 1460 reviewers have left a combined rating of 1.6 stars out of a possible 5. This overall concerned sentiment is echoed by the PayPal reviews on the Better Business Bureau, or BBB.com, where there are more than 14,000 PayPal complaints at the time of writing. It seems there are many wondering: is PayPal secure?

Within the collection of reviews on PissedConsumer and other sites, you will find more than a few PayPal complaints and troubled customers worried about a loss of funds.

In one video review left on PissedConsumer.com, a customer explained that she paid a PayPal invoice for a purchase made at an online retailer. When she tried to return the ill-fitting items for a refund, she discovered that they would "document the seller's account" but would not refund her purchase.

She explained in her PayPal complaint that “I contacted PayPal and sent them over 12 emails between me and the seller proving that I followed the refund instructions and even sent the photos.” Ultimately, PayPal did not refund her money.

This reviewer is not alone in her negative experiences with the PayPal app. According to another consumer's review (#2168023), the app “doesn't protect customers, only scam artists.” In his post about PayPal scams, the reviewer noted that his account was hit with a “service/transfer we didn't authorize, we notified paypal and we only received 100.00 of the 200.00 we were scammed out of.” In an unrelated experience, the same reviewer tried to initiate a refund for items he never received.

According to PayPal FAQs, the company is aware of how many issues may arise between customers and potential fraud. There is an advice page in the FAQ section dedicated to helping customers spot PayPal scams and protect themselves.

PayPal Reviews: What Do Consumers Say?

While PayPal is one of the most popular online financial software options available, not every customer has a good experience. It’s natural to wonder “is PayPal safe” when you are dealing with bank account details and your money. It’s a bit more concerning when you see the wide range of PayPal reviews online.

Customers contact PayPal for a number of reasons. They also leave a wide range of PayPal reviews on our site and other online review platforms.

Many PayPal.com complaints on PissedConsumer and other sites including the Better Business Bureau explain issues with refunds and trying to dispute charges with the PayPal resolution center. In a number of these complaints, customers explained that they have contacted customer service through the PayPal phone number, but have not found a solution. Many of the complaints included:

• Customers with authorized charges are not refunded.
• Customers seeking refunds for items that did not arrive.
• Customers contacting customer service multiple times with no resolution.

There are also many complaints online about customers trying to cancel payments for items they did not receive or payments that they did not authorize is a large source of complaints through PayPal reviews.  Many of these reviews indicate:

• Customers contact the resolution center but do not get money back.
• Customers paid for items that were not delivered.
• Money was sent to the wrong vendor or charity and not refunded when requested.

Finally, it’s not hard to track down a PayPal review about the status of someone’s payments. There are many PayPal reviews about trouble accessing or withdrawing funds. Among these reviews about trouble with bank account woes, several customers have left feedback about trying to get help from PayPal customer service. Several indicate it is hard to speak with a person, even when calling the PayPal phone number.

Since PayPal.com is a financial website, almost every PayPal review online is about money. These specifically include:

• Requested refunds not being delivered.
• Requesting refunds for items that never arrived.
• Money being sent to the wrong account and not being refunded.
• Accessing bank accounts for deposits and withdrawals.
• Frozen accounts and losing money.

In her PayPal review, one customer had her PayPal account locked. The company requested additional information from the customer, and after she provided the requested information, PayPal decided “they no longer wanted my business because of potential risk.” The customer’s account was frozen, and she was told by PayPal that “they were going to hold my PERSONAL FUNDS for 180 days for charge backs and returns to my buyers.”

When she tried to contact PayPal and explain that the funds in her account is her personal money, including money from her deceased grandparents, she was contacted by a PayPal representative. The representative told her “PayPal was going to keep my 8.847.17 regardless of anything I said or did.” She explained that up until this incident, she had not wondered, is PayPal safe?

You want to feel like your money is safe and secured when you are using a PayPal account. PayPal.com goods and services promise security, but many people aren’t convinced. Quite a few feel they are not getting the protection promised for their PayPal fees, and are leaving complaints online.

Do you have questions about this payment tool, you can get answers on the PayPal Q&A page. If you have had personal experience with PayPal, feel free to leave your review on PissedConsumer.

*The company ratings on the PissedConsumer website are calculated using a mathematical algorithm that evaluates the information in the company’s profile. The algorithm parameters are: users’ rating, the number of resolved issues, the number of company responses and more. The PissedConsumer algorithm is also subject to change in the future.