EAST POINT, Ga. — An East Point woman says PayPal locked up nearly $10,000 of her money when it deactivated her business account.
“I’m sorry for crying, but I’m just, I’m broken. I’m broken,” Jacqueline Barrett told Channel 2 Consumer Investigator Justin Gray.
When he met up with Barrett at an East Point gas station, she was homeless and sleeping in a U-Haul van.
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“I just fold my two blankets up, and I got a pillow, and I sleep right there,” she said.
A home health aide until her body gave out, Barrett launched a business during the pandemic, reselling jewelry.
Facing eviction and other money trouble, she sold her entire inventory in February to one buyer who made the purchase on her website.
“It’s over $9,720 hit my account; PayPal instantly froze the money. And they said, for security reasons, we’re limiting your account. You can’t withdraw your money,” Barrett said.
PayPal sent her another message the next morning saying that they are deactivating her business account, because “there was information used to create the account we can’t verify.”
But they held onto her money.
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“This is not right. I did business with PayPal since 2021. I had everything necessary. I was a registered limited liability company. I have the Department of Revenue tax ID number,” she said.
While PayPal will not say to Barrett or Channel 2 Action News why they flagged the account, we did find that her business license expired late last year. Barrett said she did not have enough money to pay the yearly registration fee.
PayPal later emailed Barrett that it would continue to block her from the funds in her account, writing “to ensure that you have money in your account to cover any new payment reversals, the funds in your account will be held for a period of up to 120 days.”
But on March 1, Barrett was evicted from her apartment.
“I pleaded with them. I said, ‘What do we need to do to verify this?’” Barrett said.
Channel 2 Action News reached out to PayPal, who says their customer service team is working with Barrett. She tells us they restored limited access to her account, but it was enough that she could refund her buyer’s money, so they could pay her another way.
She was able to move into a new apartment this week.
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