Homeless man struggles to access PayPal donations
This is what happened when big-hearted readers donated more than $7,000 through PayPal to help Seth Tom Davis and his seizure alert dog, Poppy. Nothing. Davis has been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, epilepsy and dyslexia. He has been homeless since Christmas Eve, when his wallet was stolen during a long layover at Los Angeles International Airport. He and Poppy lived in Terminal 6 for three months.
After The Times wrote about his circumstances, readers leaped to help. More than $11,500 has flowed into Davis’ PayPal account and a separate GoFundMe account set up by a generous Orange County couple.
Davis has been trying to get access to his PayPal account since March 31. No matter how many calls or online chats he has engaged in with the company, which had $17.77 billion in revenue in 2019, he still does not have the money he needs.
“We apologize for the frustration this has caused Mr. Davis,” Bernadette Guastini, a PayPal spokeswoman, said in an email. “Our dedicated customer service team is deeply committed to do all they can to resolve this issue for Mr. Davis.”
Part of the problem has been the virus itself. PayPal warns customers trying to engage in online troubleshooting that the coronavirus has lengthened wait times. And don’t bother calling PayPal’s customer service line, which is closed because of the pandemic.
On Sunday, five days after Davis began trying to access his account, a member of PayPal’s escalation team called. She told him that all holds had been removed from the money that had been donated to him and that she had transferred $2,000 to his bank account.
On Monday morning, he got an email: “Our review is complete, and we have returned your account to regular standing.”
However, the hold was still on the account, and the money was nowhere to be found.
The company later confirmed that the $2,000 transfer would take three to five business days to land in Davis’ bank account. And the other $5,000? There’s a 72-hour hold on it. He won’t have access to that until Thursday. Which would be fine, except that on Monday, Davis had $18 on his debit card, $19 in his pocket and lodging for one night. And Poppy had fallen ill.
“I have nowhere to go,” he said Monday morning. “I’m stuck. I need to pay for a place to stay.… [Poppy] is sneezing like crazy. She’s coughing. I’m giving her herbal tea in her water, and honey. But she’s not accepting anything, and she’s sick.”
The GoFundMe account has raised more than $4,600. Davis will get that money, but it arrives in his bank account slowly, in small amounts, as each donation is cleared by the donor’s credit card company. One day, for example, he got $23; another day, $62.
Davis has spent most of his 30 years in foster care or adult protective services. He has survived on Social Security and food stamps. On Christmas Eve, he was f lying from Seattle home to North Dakota, with a layover at LAX. He fell asleep, and that’s when his wallet was stolen. He lost $450 in cash along with his ID. The thief raided his bank account and waylaid his Social Security payments. Because he was away from North Dakota for so long, the lease ran out on his home in Jamestown, which had been subsidized by the federal Section 8 program. His belongings were confiscated.
Davis and Poppy left
LAX on March 26. First they flew to Denver to stay with a friend. But that hoped-for respite fell apart not long after Davis landed.
His plan was to take a train from Los Angeles to Albuquerque, where he’d found an extended-stay motel that he could afford for a month. In that time he hoped to find a new Section 8 apartment.
Davis and Poppy have made it to Albuquerque. But the city, he said, is shut down tight. The only places for a homeless man and his dog, he said, are the parks or the streets.
PayPal has counseled him that, once the $2,000 that was transferred shows up, he should apply for a PayPal card that is linked to his account with the San Jose-based company. That way, he can gain easier access to his money.
They’ll mail the card to him, they said. When he gets an address.
Whenever that is.