That was very helpful of you Jennifer. I'd let the person who got the message know what you found.

I filed with  consumerfinance.gov  the Government watchdog on Credit and monetary services...it took a while but....I GOT MY MONEY BACK! UPDATE:tonight I could not start the check out proccess with paypal on figcuttings.com, it appears Pay Pal has finnaly taken action.

Here is paypal's response to my complaint with consumerfinance.gov :




Description of Relief PayPal issued a $50.00 credit to you on July 21, 2017, which was applied to your PayPal account balance. Response On April 28, 2008, you created a PayPal account ("Account") at which time you agreed to PayPal's user agreement ("User Agreement"). On January 10, 2016, you sent a $50.00 payment from your Account to the seller (“Seller”). On June 21, 2017, you initiated a PayPal buyer complaint case stating you had not received your purchase. At that time, the Seller was sent notifications via email and the Resolution Center advising them you had disputed this payment and asking for them to work directly with you toward a resolution. The complaint was closed without a refund, as the purchase was not eligible for PayPal's Purchase Protection. Pursuant to the Sending Money & Buying section of the User Agreement, you must open a dispute within 180 days of the date the payment was sent. Your buyer complaint was initiated after the deadline; therefore was ineligible for this protection. More information on this process can be found via PayPal's online Help Center articles. For your convenience, we have included copies with this response. Further, I can assure you that PayPal tracks all buyer complaints and uses the complete data provided by such documentation to make administrative determinations about a seller’s suitability for the service, or to determine if we have concerns of wrongdoing on their part. If we are able to determine a pattern of fraud, PayPal will move administratively to deal with such accounts. Your Seller was escalated to our review team. Due to privacy policy restrictions, I cannot disclose what actions, if any, we took against them. However, I can assure you PayPal will not tolerate fraud or abuse of our customers or policies. Explanation of Closure PayPal's actions in this matter were taken in good faith and within the terms set forth in the User Agreement and online Help Center articles when closing the dispute without refund. PayPal considers this matter resolved as a credit for $50.00 has been applied to your Account; and your Seller has been escalated for further review. We offer our sincerest apologies for any difficulties you may have encountered while using our services. Please feel free to contact me should you have any questions or concerns, or if I can be of further assistance to you.

MONETARY RELIEF AMOUNT

Seems like I've been scammed too! I will be filling a complaint with consumer finance company in hopes of getting my money back too. I called PayPal and they gave me the same response regarding their policy of "180 days". It look like you can still purchase from his website and it is still active. How can this be? Hasn't he stolen enough of peoples hard earned money? Has anyone had success in filling a complaint by email to PayPal?

Maybe a class action suit against PayPal is in order.

I hope he did actually break his foot and I hope all his plants die. If he can't keep up with the old orders than he shouldn't be taking new ones. I hope someone breaks his other foot

According to the new and original provisions of PayPal (and ebay's) user agreement, there is a section that as a user, you state that you will indemnify (hold harmless) PayPal in any class action law suite. Additionally, you DO agree to arbitration to resolve any legal complaint.

In the nature of this complaint, being an individual, the damages you could hold are not that significant to overcome the cost of arbitration. Moreover, to hold PayPal liable, the oweness is on the plaintiff to prove negligence. Arbitration is a VERY expensive process which usually does not award legal fees.

In 2012, the second circuit court overruled provisions of this type, explaining users cannot be held accountable to these provisions being too broad, providing a large, ambiguous indemnification against pretty much everything.

The very next year, in 2013, the Supreme Court took on this case and overruled the second circuit court, enforcing the class action and arbitration provision.

Long story short, no class action lawsuit against PayPal. If you're made out of money, hire a lawyer to file an injunction against PayPal and hope a judge agrees to file a motion requiring PayPal to suspend the users account.

@arachyd - Personally I think a class action lawsuit against eBay is in order way before any such action against payPal.... Think about the scammers that ebay has been advised about over the last several years and yet they refuse to do anything about it. Why? becasue they make money off of scammers and they don't want to kill the goose the lays all those golden eggs. I frankly do not see a similar situation that can be described against PPay... Perhaps they should bar him from using their pay service; I do not see that their not doing so makes them accessories after the fact.... the same cannot be said for eBay....

Not sure what happened to my post, but just like 5 days ago, I tried to check out with figcuttings.com via PayPal and was given this message:

Again, it appears the account has finally been suspended by Pay Pal, about time!

I shamefully admit, I was sold on the "Intention" of this project. Him stating that he breeds Tilapia to support the need of sick father suffering from Liver failure and the warmth being the bi-product of starting the Fig propagation project would help pay the bills for the winter, etc.

It's a sad fact that we all been taken here. The money  and greed took over poor guy's logic and now, I mean, look at us.

There's nothing we can do here, nothing worth the money we lost over trusting a fellow fig grower who started with a very heartwarming cause.

there's one thing we can do though: we can invest a bit more and assign someone with a diplomatic state of mind and with help of a Sheriff Department of his town or county and send them over to Jame's address just to see if he's OK. Collect reasons why he done what he done and open a case against him.
 I would say $50 each person who placed an order would provide more than we need to accomplish this.

Not me. For $50 bucks I know where I can get 7 trees! 😋

It is not working if u order trees but it is still taking order for "cuttings"...I tried it a few seconds ago and it still works.

Blasted paypal...james cut a deal with them...birds of a feather indeed.

Thanks for the update courtney.

Is James saying he is in High School??

Well, that explains it then. He's just really busy in his senior year of HS. Maybe he had to go to summer classes because he wasn't doing well last year with being so busy with the business and all.

Perhaps he had trouble finishing his homework on account of that broken toe. 

I filed a complaint with consumerfinance.gov.  I did not get any money back, unlike the other who posted that they received $50 back.  However, the verbiage was otherwise quite similar.

Paypal is aiding fraud, it is still possible to buy cuttings you will never get from James via PAYPAL...
did you accuse them directly of fraud? They know figcuttings.com is a SCAM, yet the continue sales (cuttings) with a verified scammer.

And if you did, maybe they are doubling down on commiting fraud...in some sates the Attorney general's office can help...

I live in Florida, the AG is useless to cosumers, but in minnesota (where I lived for a while), the AG was very helpful once...

Dan, I see you are in CA, so here is a link

https://oag.ca.gov/contact/consumer-complaint-against-business-or-company

I accused them of plenty. Ha ha. Fraud, collusion, profiting from fraud.  All of which is true, at this point.

Well, he sent another email full of empty promises and posted a couple of videos. I can't even watch the damn boring things. I'm tired of seeing little trees that should have been shipped out last year. I'm tired of seeing 'his' trees. I want mine. I don't want another email unless it's a shipping notification.

I haven't received any emails. Put my order in Dec. 2015

i had asked several months ago if he was taking new orders and he responded last night.  He sent a general email to let me know that he is not taking on new orders.  He said he is working on fulfilling the current orders that he has on file.  So, hang on tight, everyone!  

For anyone who's interested I received this email from James last night: