advice Help! Funds sent to a wrong PayPal address

Hi

sorry that happened,
but it occurs sometimes when folks try to register or backorder a name, without double the spelling....mostly cuz they are in a rush
.
almost got me a few times.

still, try emailing that person and explain what happened

maybe they got good heart and will do right thing

or try contacting paypal and see if they can offer a solution

Good Luck!

imo...

If Paypal does not help, then sender of the funds would have to do a chargeback. But that could be messy for the buyer.

If it hasn't gone to a real person, the buyer should be able to get a refund from their paypal control panel. At least that was how it got resolved for me, when this exact same thing happened. The buyer should be able to see if the funds have been received, or not. If they have been paid. maybe the buyer could ask for a refund.

I believe the sender would have to open a dispute.

https://www.paypal.com/us/smarthelp...he-payment-is-completed.-what-do-i-do-faq1467

Tia Wood said:

I believe the sender would have to open a dispute.

https://www.paypal.com/us/smarthelp...he-payment-is-completed.-what-do-i-do-faq1467

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Providing the receiver doesn't give it back voluntarily. I think it's always better to ask them for a refund first.

You can try contacting Paypal to see if they can do anything, but if they won't then the burden is on your buyer.

The buyer has to attempt to get a refund from the "seller" and if that does not work because the "seller" is an a$$, then the buyer then has to file a dispute with Paypal.

@hui2000 - can you give us an update. Did the buyer check his PayPal A/C to see if the funds were paid to the address named? If not. Did they request a refund from PayPal (which can be done automatically in PayPal's Control Panel, and is repaid in a minute or two). If yes. Did the buyer contact the recipient of funds, asking for a refund. How did the recipient respond? Paid the refund, or refused to pay or not replied. Did the buyer then file for a refund with PayPal.

How is the transaction standing? I think, because it was your mistake, you should transfer the domain to the buyer, since they have paid to your instructions. And wait for the buyer to try to get the refund from PayPal or the recipient. Who would then pay you to the correct address. There is a lot here depending on the good-heartedness of the buyer. He's embroiled in a mess which you have created.

stub said:

@hui2000 - can you give us an update. Did the buyer check his PayPal A/C to see if the funds were paid to the address named? If not. Did they request a refund from PayPal (which can be done automatically in PayPal's Control Panel, and is repaid in a minute or two). If yes. Did the buyer contact the recipient of funds, asking for a refund. How did the recipient respond? Paid the refund, or refused to pay or not replied. Did the buyer then file for a refund with PayPal.

How is the transaction standing? I think, because it was your mistake, you should transfer the domain to the buyer, since they have paid to your instructions. And wait for the buyer to try to get the refund from PayPal or the recipient. Who would then pay you to the correct address. There is a lot here depending on the good-heartedness of the buyer. He's embroiled in a mess which you have created.

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Hello @stub Thanks for the kind help and guidance. I already transferred the domain to the buyer(4L.com) since he paid but it was my mistake that i mistyped my paypal address. We are trying to work this out with the buyer as he filled a dispute at paypal to see if the funds can be recovered.

I will keep updating the thread incase of any progress on this issue.

Thanks all members who have contributed in this thread, i will keep updating when something new comes up.

I would expect the buyer to win any refund dispute, because there was never any agreed transaction between the buyer and the recipient. It's most probable that the recipient won't even respond to the dispute. What could they even say? Manufacture a transaction? It's clearly a mistaken payment address. There should be no problem getting a refund. And you getting the money. It's stuff like this which is why I ALWAYS check my paypal account at least three times, whenever I give it to somebody for payment Lesson learned.

stub said:

I would expect the buyer to win any refund dispute, because there was never any agreed transaction between the buyer and the recipient. It's most probable that the recipient won't even respond to the dispute. What could they even say? Manufacture a transaction? It's clearly a mistaken payment address. There should be no problem getting a refund. And you getting the money. It's stuff like this which is why I ALWAYS check my paypal account at least three times, whenever I give it to somebody for payment Lesson learned.

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Very true, it's a great lesson i have learned at least checking my email 3 times before sending it to a buyer. I have not had from the buyer yet as he filled the dispute on Thursday so just waiting for what will come up, but i expect paypal will do a refund since no agreed transaction.

First thing to always check for in cases like this, is whether the payee has accepted the transfer. Chances are, there is no such Paypal account and the payment has not been accepted. Then it is very simple to cancel said payment. No need to open a dispute.

In Paypal, you can make payment to an existing Paypal account or to any email address, even a nonexistant one. If there is no such account, Paypal still accepts your payment instruction and attempts to make contact with the payee, sending them an email (to the email address you have provided) with instructions on how to open a Paypal account to receive the payment. This takes a while, especially if the email address you've provided is an invalid one, but the mailserver is set up not to autoreply with a "no such user here" error (as mine is, so as not to provide useful information to spammers!).

I'm always fascinated and mystified by the long winded email addresses used by people for their Paypal accounts

Mine is "[email protected]", where the L's stand for my 6-letter last name. The "a" stands for "Andrew", my given name. Why not make it easy on yourself, when passing it out, and easy on the buyer as well?

And yes, you can use only 1 letter for your email address, although most people don't know this is a perfectly valid email address. This is because most people can't swing it, using a public email provider like Gmail. But we're all domainers here, with domains to spare. Doesn't have to be your last name dot.com. Any short domain will do, as long as you like it and can spare it for this purpose

In the future, instead of giving the buyer your email address (which you might type mistakenly ), ask the buyer for his email address, and send him a paypal invoice. He gets the invoice, pays it and VOILA!

And to make it even more foolproof, don't type his email address into the invoice, copy and paste it. But even if you put the wrong email into the invoice, it doesn't matter because IF that email address is actually another PP account, the account owner isn't going to pay it. And in the end, it does not create a huge burden on you or the buyer like it could using your method.

When I buy a domain, I never send money to the seller without an invoice first. I send the seller my email and tell him to send a PP invoice. This way I can save the invoice as a PDF or print it if I need to for accounting and tax records.

This is the most professional and overall best way to do it IMHO.

EbookLover said:

In the future, instead of giving the buyer your email address (which you might type mistakenly ), ask the buyer for his email address, and send him a paypal invoice. He gets the invoice, pays it and VOILA!

And to make it even more foolproof, don't type his email address into the invoice, copy and paste it. But even if you put the wrong email into the invoice, it doesn't matter because IF that email address is actually another PP account, the account owner isn't going to pay it. And in the end, it does not create a huge burden on you or the buyer like it has using your method.

When I buy a domain, I never send money to the seller without an invoice first. I send the seller my email and tell him to send a PP invoice. This way I can save the invoice as a PDF or print it if I need to for accounting and tax records.

This is the most professional and best way to do it IMHO.

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This is really great advice for my next transactions, thanks so much.

EbookLover said:

...When I buy a domain, I never send money to the seller without an invoice first. I send the seller my email and tell him to send a PP invoice. This way I can save the invoice as a PDF or print it if I need to for accounting and tax records...

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Great advice, thanks

Especially when applied to selling domains as well!

Once again, NP'rs :great: stepping up.
Thanks to all the members that helped.

Peace,
Kenny

BTW: I also remind the seller to make sure he notes in the invoices where it's provided that it's for the sale of WHATEVER.com domain name.

Some sellers might be too lazy and not put that in there, but IMHO it's really not optional. This is business, I don't care if the domain is $5 .

How long does it take to type "For WHATEVER.com domain name"?

As expected, Paypal suggested to ask the recipient to return the amount. So we tried contacting the recipient from the same paypal address email that sent the funds.This was 2 days back so far no reply. Let's see how it goes.

Personally, if I was you buyer, I would wait no more and just file a PP dispute. Let the paypal dispute system do the work. I can't remember how long PP gives the receiving party to answer to the dispute, but the longer your buyer waits, the longer it's going to take to get his finds back. Waiting for people to be responsive and kind when it comes to money is time-consuming will likely result in unfavorable circumstances.

There is a good chance the recipient isn't going to even respond to the dispute so it should be painless.

I hope your buyer isn't too pissed because I know I would be quite irritated of this whole situation.

hui2000 said:

As expected, Paypal suggested to ask the recipient to return the amount. So we tried contacting the recipient from the same paypal address email that sent the funds.This was 2 days back so far no reply. Let's see how it goes.

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So there was a paypal account at the address the funds went to? Quite often, that would not be the case. And the funds would be just sitting in limbo, and your buyer can just request a refund, because they haven't been paid to anybody. Process time 1-2 minutes.

stub said:

So there was a paypal account at the address the funds went to? Quite often, that would not be the case. And the funds would be just sitting in limbo, and your buyer can just request a refund, because they haven't been paid to anybody. Process time 1-2 minutes.

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Are you sure about that? I mean, if send money to an email address not tied to a PP account, the funds still get taken from me?

EbookLover said:

Are you sure about that? I mean, if send money to an email address not tied to a PP account, the funds still get taken from me?

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Yeah. But they don't get paid to anybody, because there is no valid paypal account at that email address. I've had this happen to me. From personal experience. They try to contact that email address, but of course they mostly never get any reply, because it's not even a valid email address, so cannot pay it to anybody. The funds are just sitting in limbo, waiting to be reclaimed. Which takes a max 1-2 minutes. If they haven't paid the funds to anybody.

In case you didn't notice. I was asking a question. Were the funds actually paid to somebody? Which OP implied there was. I was just looking for clarification on that point. Because if that was not the case, the whole thing can be handled by the buyer requesting a refund. A very simple process (if funds have not been dispersed).

EbookLover said:

I can't remember how long PP gives the receiving party to answer to the dispute

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A dispute can be escalated to a claim even immediately. Well PP doesn't necessarily like if it happens immediately, because why didn't we give the defendant a chance to reply. But say the next day is usually okay.

next time use paypal.me