Class action suit against PayPal?

D

David Phillips

New Member
Jurisdiction
California
PayPal must make multi-millions of dollars a year from interest on payments that don't go through. They insist I have to wait 7 days for a failed transaction before the money is returned to my account. I want the interest they are going to earn from my $2,000 for 7 days. This must happen to many thousands of people. Is this a valid reason to file a class-action lawsuit? What are the chances of success? How do I find a hungry lawyer who will take this on for a share of the judgment against PayPal?
 
David Phillips said:
PayPal must make multi-millions of dollars a year from interest on payments that don't go through. They insist I have to wait 7 days for a failed transaction before the money is returned to my account. I want the interest they are going to earn from my $2,000 for 7 days. This must happen to many thousands of people. Is this a valid reason to file a class-action lawsuit? What are the chances of success? How do I find a hungry lawyer who will take this on for a share of the judgment against PayPal?
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No, it's not. Why? Because you agreed to it when you signed up.
 
Frankly, it'd likely be legal even if you didn't agree to it through PayPal.
 
David Phillips said:
I have to wait 7 days for a failed transaction before the money is returned to my account. I want the interest they are going to earn from my $2,000 for 7 days. This must happen to many thousands of people. Is this a valid reason to file a class-action lawsuit? What are the chances of success? How do I find a hungry lawyer who will take this on for a share of the judgment against PayPal?
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If you invested $2,000 for 7 days earning interest of 1.9%, after 30 days, your $2,000 would only be $2,000.74.

(For 30 days, your $2,000 would be a mere $2,003.17, using an interest rate of 1.9% .)

Savings interest rates are extremely low in the USA (in fact in some countries banks charge you to hold your savings), especially on small amounts of money.

These days to bankers, $2,000 is small money.

If you had $2,000,000 to invest, you could negotiate a much higher interest for 7 days.

On $2,000, you're lucky to receive 1.9% interest.

Discover Bank & Ally Bank offer interest rates of about 3% an any money you save.

Again, 3% interest on $2,000 still won't yield you that much over a 7 day, or even 30 day span.

No lawyer would be interested in pursuing a class action lawsuit against anyone for the limited amount of money involved UNLESS you pay the lawyer a retainer of at least $25,000 (higher in more populous urban areas).
 
David Phillips said:
Just because I agreed to it, does that mean it's a legal practice on PayPal's part? Can't they still be challenged?
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It's legal unless some law says it isn't. And there is no law, federal or state, that says that Paypal has to pay you interest on the money for the period it holds it. That is instead a matter left to contract between the parties. If your contract with Pay Pal does not say that Pay Pal must pay you interest on it then you are out of luck.
 
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David Phillips said:
PayPal must make multi-millions of dollars a year from interest on payments that don't go through.
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Not entirely sure what this means ("payments that don't go through" what?), but why do you think this is the case?

David Phillips said:
I want the interest they are going to earn from my $2,000 for 7 days. This must happen to many thousands of people. Is this a valid reason to file a class-action lawsuit?
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You really want to make a stink over less than 50 cents?

If something illegal or unlawful were happening, it might be reason for a class action suit, but I can't conceive why you think something illegal or unlawful is happening. Do you have reason to believe that something is happening that isn't permitted by the Paypal user agreement?

David Phillips said:
What are the chances of success?
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Zero or some negligible fraction above zero.

David Phillips said:
How do I find a hungry lawyer who will take this on for a share of the judgment against PayPal?
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A class action suit of this sort would only be filed by a law firm that regularly handles class action cases. A "hungry lawyer" isn't going to have the money needed for this and isn't likely to have the first clue how to handle something like this.

David Phillips said:
Just because I agreed to it, does that mean it's a legal practice on PayPal's part?
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Everything is legal except that which is expressly made illegal by some law, and no law makes what you've vaguely described illegal. This is entirely a matter of the terms of the user agreement.

David Phillips said:
Can't they still be challenged?
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Anything "can be" challenged, but there's no legal basis to challenge anything here (as far as I can tell from what you've written).

P.S. Over the past 10-15 years, I've used Paypal countless times without any cost to me. If, in the course of the many transactions I've done using Paypal, the company has earned some small amount of interest on my money, I'm perfectly fine with that since I've never paid one red cent to use the service that Paypal provides.
 

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