PayPal Credit Card Complaint

PayPal Credit card department,

Unsolicited issuance of credit card New York

My complaint is with the PayPal Credit offering ( formerly known as Bill Me Later ). Earlier this summer, I apparently accidentally signed up for this line of credit '' after trying to pay with my usual credit card on my PayPal account. When I was paying, they asked for my birthday and last four digits of my social ( which I just assumed were generic security questions websites use to verify identity ) - but apparently they were asking because I did n't realize the option for PayPal Credit '' was n't just my credit card. They then took all my other info they had saved to make a hard credit request which dinged my credit score - apparently this is what happened anyway. This is what PayPal explained to me afterwards. I only knew I opened


spoke with someone from PayPal again, they ( finally ) basically explained that they have an option on their website when paying to use PayPal Credit '' instead of PayPal '' which I apparently selected on my account. I said this is evidently not clear. I actually asked how this was permissible - I never signed anything saying they were allowed to do this check or given other info to them. They said they had my electronic signature stored '' elsewhere as part of my account and that they used that to authorize the line of credit. So by just filling in my date of birth and last - digits of my social security during checkout ( which I assumed was a security check ), they took all my other info and used it to authorize the account. I closed the account, but my biggest issue is that this actually went against my credit report as a credit inquiry which will stay on there for two years. Personally, I consider this intentionally ambiguous website design to trick customers into signing up for the line of credit.