Papaya Global Problems & Issues

Multiple Trustpilot reviews report that Papaya Global has forgotten to pay entire teams on payday. One UK team reported this happening more than once, leaving employees without expected funds and creating compliance liability for the employer.

Multiple users report that Papaya failed to update tax codes despite receiving notices from HMRC. This caused employees to overpay taxes, and it took 6 months of back-and-forth and escalation to get corrections applied. Employees owed thousands to the tax office.

Users report that Papaya held deposit returns over a month past the agreed due date and continued withholding credit memos over 45 days beyond payment date without providing any reason for the delays.

Users report persistent data errors like incorrect addresses on payslips with no way to edit themselves despite opening multiple support tickets. Basic employee data like home address and job title updates are cumbersome to process.

Users consistently report unexpected fees including setup costs ranging from $15,000-45,000 that were never mentioned during sales. Transfer fees are calculated and charged without alerting clients beforehand, and onboarding fees appear without prior agreement.

Users report that employee costs end up being 30-50% more than initially quoted. Management fees can be as high as one person's salary. The custom pricing model makes it impossible to know full costs before speaking with sales.

Contracts require a 12-month notice period if you wish to end the business relationship. For companies that struggle to adapt or experience difficulties, being locked in for at least a year poses a major problem.

Users report currency conversion markups of 2-4% that are not disclosed upfront. These FX costs add up significantly for companies making frequent international payments, and the actual exchange rate applied is often worse than market rates.

Some workers employed through Papaya report being completely ghosted without any explanation. Papaya Global stops responding to emails and phone calls, leaving employees in limbo about their employment status.

After initial setup, customer service quality drops significantly. Users describe interactions as 'slow, painful processes' even for simple requests. Support staff often lack specialist knowledge and have to escalate to others, adding more delays.

Users located in the US doing payroll for employees in Asia were assigned customer service representatives in Australia, creating timezone mismatches that made communication difficult and delayed issue resolution significantly.

The setup process can stretch over several weeks, especially for multi-country rollouts. Users describe onboarding as complex and time-consuming, which is problematic for companies trying to move quickly with global hiring.

Many users find the platform challenging to navigate, citing confusing navigation, data not properly fitting on the screen, data overlapping, and difficulties logging in with saved bookmarks. The interface requires significant learning curve.

When system issues occur and users report them with screenshots and detailed explanations, it still takes a long time to fix problems. The expense folder lacks ability to delete uploaded items despite user requests.

Papaya's Employer of Record services rely on local partners in most countries, which affects consistency by region. Users flag high onboarding and offboarding costs along with quality variations depending on which third-party vendor handles their region.