Oh come on. He can't "win" by solving one person's problems. Will he give his personal email to everyone who has got his account frozen or large chunks of money taken away by PayPal? I doubt it.
This is a non-solution, which is almost worse than doing nothing at all, because it's active disingenuity.
Did you read the same note I did? He says explicitly that he's new in the CEO spot and would like to use this story as a tool for redoing how they handle holds, and how they deal with customers.
You can't win by solving just one person's problems. But you also can't win unless you start by solving one person's problems. And then fix the system, so that the kind of problem is less likely to recur.
This, IMHO, is exactly the right way to do it. As contrasted with the wrong way, which is for employees to sit in their comfy offices and avoid all direct contact with customers, making up bureaucratic solutions to imagined problems.
We must see the first step. He is trying to stop the bleeding. My guess is that the signs are there that the bleeding has started, it just hasn't hit mainstream yet.
Looks more like he is trying to buy direct outside expertise and opinion, without it being filtered through the company, in return for personally looking after this account. The problem from there on in is whether that person can actually continue to be useful as they will no longer be having the experience of a normal customer and might start being less critical in their approach. Picking someone who is absolutely furious probably helps in this as they are likely to be very upfront about their experiences.
This is a non-solution, which is almost worse than doing nothing at all, because it's active disingenuity.