Hey everyone!
I’ve got a situation with my Paxful account. There was this seller dispute because of a chargeback, but it was all a mistake. I contacted my bank to reverse the transaction, and the seller got their money, but Paxful still has my account frozen. They even went ahead and suspended it. Whenever I ask them what’s up, they throw a bunch of reasons at me that don’t make any sense.
It’s been four months now, and I still can’t access my own funds. I’ve sent them countless emails, and they keep saying it’s because of the chargeback. I showed them proof that I fixed it, yet they claim I got scammed with a gift card, which is crazy since I never traded gift cards there. I asked them for evidence, but they just keep ignoring me!
Is there anyone who can help me get my money back?
What country are you in? Was it caused by a bank error, if it's in somewhere like Europe I'd phone up your bank and ask them about it (and if they put the phone down, walk in and demand an appointment) I assume the liability will lie with them if it was them who accidentally charged it back and resent it... You can keep claiming with paxful too though.
Thank you for your advice, I live in US. I have contact my bank but they said since I was verified the transaction so there would be nothing they could do. But the amount of bitcoin on wallet is more than what the transaction for. Because I have deposited my bitcoin in there to sell it but I cannot sell it while they frozen it. The chargeback transaction just $300 but have been rebill back but the amount remaining on account is 0.15 bitcoin which is almost 2k and they want to steal my money. They told me to comeback after 1 year to withdraw it??? it's very unreasonable
Did they provide a reason for the year's delay?
If you managed to charge back a bank transfer once why can't they do it again or was it a different way to pay you used? The statute for charge backs is 360 days afaik at maximum so that could be a reason but I wouldn't trust a site to hold my funds for that long...
yes that's why, could I use anything to recovery my wallet there? or verify I am the legit owner of that wallet and forced them to release those funds? Thanks
baodo159, for a start I suggest you (if you haven't already) read their TOS, especially the parts that can be linked to your case ->
In other words, they can do whatever they want according to their rules, and they don't even have to give you any explanation. They seem to think that you have broken some of their rules, and for now they obviously do not intend to change their decision. If you can afford some legal help (lawyer or legal adviser) that would be best.
What you can do on this forum (if you consider yourself cheated) is to open a Scam Accusations and to present all the evidence by using proper report format. Maybe Paxful will react to that, of course if you let them know.
Unfortunately, no one in this forum works for the bank and they will not discuss it publicly, the support team is the only one that will solve your problem.
Depending on what you understand about your problem, the second party to the disputed transaction reporting that you used deceptive methods, and therefore the support team freezes (not to withdraw the money) your account until it is certain of the matter.
It is better for you to contact the second party (the buyer) to contact the support team that the problem has been resolved and that everything is fine.
If no progress has occurred, do not worry, as long as you can access the account and the funds on that account.
Issues like this where the crypto service isn't responding to your concerns anymore can be solve by taking legal action against them, hire a lawyer and thoroughly explain your situation being centered by Paxful withholding your funds and not contacting you, particularly I don't know if they have broken any law or something or this is just a misunderstanding but usually having to let them know a lawyer is knocking on their doors will speed up the process companies like this always want to stay away from legal issues as it can ruin their reputation by a lot.
just to update, the site is scam and the owner of Paxful have been in jail. I know why they refused to let me withdraw my money
https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoins-correction-could-well-have-shaken-out-potentially-damaging-investors
baodo159, they are not scam generally speaking, but they certainly have some weird rules and arent too accommodating when things like this happen. As for the case you mention, at the top of the article you can see an update that says "the charges against Mohamed Yousseff, Artur Shaback, and Ivan Suhharev were dismissed and their cases were closed on Nov. 14, 2016, according to court documents from the Miami- Dade County criminal justice system"
The owners definitely have a bad reputation in real life, and to me personally they look like some kind of mobsters rather than serious business people. Maybe this is a good life lesson for you, always check everything thoroughly first - and if you knew what you know now, you might not do business with them.
If you look at their score on trustpilot, they are marked as poor, where 51% say they are bad service.
https://www.trustpilot.com/review/paxful.com
With regards to Paxful being a scam or not I'm still in the middle of this since from what I know topics related to Paxful here in the forum are always divided with it. Most of the members saying that they are a scam are the ones who have the same issue with the OP the ones who are saying Paxful is not a scam are members who have no problems with their service or are community managers of it. Even if you look at Reddit you will see no sure answer that their service is definitely a scam, one thing is for sure though their customer service is really slow that's why it doesn't help them in this kind of cases.
I've seen someone didnt get 1million USD withdraw for years on this site. Im sure its a scam, i found a thread about this 1million $ thing back in ~2019 maybe.
But hopefully you get your funds , good luck :/
I have not trust them anymore since they suspended my account and ignoring me like I am the scammer. But the thing here is my money still there, I need to get my hard-erned money before saying goodbye to their site. I have tried many way already even contacted the person who disputed the transaction and they have sent paxful email saying about to unlock my account but they are not. They really just wanted to steal my money or make me waiting 1 year and maybe I will forget about it then they will claim it as un-wanted funds or they will just steal it. It is not fair and too many people still out there giving them money everyday like that. We should do something to take down this business and these people. Please guys, if someone have any idea. They told me to comeback after 1 year to wiithdraw my funds because they will need time for the enforcement law or victim to come and claim the funds but literally the victim who is the seller have already contacted them to tell them unlock my account. This is very wrong and very rude people scamming over our money
It is a P2P site and they act as an escrow and if you trade gift cards and other risky transaction then most of the time you will encounter scammers that might sell you stolen or scammed gift cards in exchange of bitcoin and once you understand that you are scammed at a later time and you really cannot do anything about it will provoke some negative ratings.
Even if you are not a scammer, the charge back make them to feel like you are a one so they want to restrict you from scamming anyone in the future.The same thing happens with loalbitcoin as well but there is an opportunity to unlock if you can provide all the necessary proof like transaction statement of repayment and also the proof of charge back was a mistake by banking side.
You can try your luck contacting Alex077, even though he is a Russian speaking, he definitely understands English.
I'm not saying he will 100% help you, but he promotes Paxful on bitcointalk and cryptotalk forums. Maybe he can somehow help you or gave some contacts to persons that could help you, maybe he knows someone from the team. Just try, no one will punish your or make laught of you for that.