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Negative Account Balance
 

Hello.

Recently, I acquired many prepaid debit cards from a rebate program. Wanting to pool the money from the cards together to make a bigger purchase, I created a "Donate" button through PayPal on a family member's account and transferred the money over to the account. I made the purchase immediately after.

A couple of days later, PayPal limited the account and put a hold on the transferred funds, forcing the balance under -$500. PayPal filed disputes under my name against every one of the the transfers I made through the "Donate" button, but did not touch my purchase. I received emails stating that the funds will be refunded to the debit cards if I did not respond to the disputes. Basically, PayPal thinks that my family member scammed me (which looks plausible since we have different last names).

My real address and real phone number are on the PayPal account, and the account is registered with my family member's real name. The account is no longer verified ever since I removed the bank account information (which is now invalid) last year.

I am planning to just let the transfers be refunded to the debit cards, and just toss the PayPal account. This works out well because my family member has abandoned the account a long time ago and I no longer have a use for this account (I rarely use PayPal). Also, I'll have taken PayPal short for over $500. However, I don't know if PayPal will try to collect the debt.

Is it safe to do nothing and gain $500 or should I change the personal information to something invalid first? Is there a better solution?

Thanks for your time!