I've now been refunded by recipient! Accidental payment via glitchy PayPal app.

adeo

Typed relative's email address into PayPal app for pay someone. Sent £80 , then later on whilst looking at my PayPal payments realized payment sent to a random person with exactly same name as my relative. I definitely 110% input correct email address but between inputting email address and sending payment something must of gone wrong with PayPal app, either a glitch or something ie hacked or intercepted my PayPal account! But I have no way of proving this! PayPal support online and via phone call just said nothing they can do to reverse payment other than to email recipient and ask for payment back, it's been several days, had no response! I even sent 1p as that's only way to also DM recipient. Still no response! I phoned my bank to ask for advice, the advisor said he believes that PayPal are not being honest with me and that there's definitely a way for them to retrieve my money. Asked me to put a formal complaint to PayPal via complaint section of website. Also after 30 days to contact my bank and make a claim to retrieve my money via my bank from PayPal. Please has anyone any advice on how to pursue this and hopefully get my money back?

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Was this a friends and family payment? 

ashe

F&F is essentially a money wire, it would seem unlikely that when going to send a payment to a relative with the same name, someone hacked you and sent it to someone else, nor that PayPal made an error; it seems on balance of probability you selected the wrong person and if you did select friend and family there is probably little PayPal can do about it to rectify yourself error. if it was goods and services that Is probably different 

2021BJ

adeo said:

I phoned my bank to ask for advice, the advisor said he believes that PayPal are not being honest with me and that there's definitely a way for them to retrieve my money. Asked me to put a formal complaint to PayPal via complaint section of website. Also after 30 days to contact my bank and make a claim to retrieve my money via my bank from PayPal. Please has anyone any advice on how to pursue this and hopefully get my money back?

Is he also a PayPal employee?  If not, how does he know this?

I suspect the person you spoke to either had no idea what they were talking about or was telling you what you wanted to hear to get rid of you.  None of their advice appears to be accurate.

The money has been sent as you requested. The chance of a "glitch" is basically zero, more likely is an errant autocorrect on your phone.  You have no grounds to chargeback the funds from PayPal and this will almost certainly fail.  I'm afraid the money is now gone unless the recipient decides to pay it back.

MattMattMattUK

adeo said:

Typed relative's email address into PayPal app for pay someone. Sent £80 , then later on whilst looking at my PayPal payments realized payment sent to a random person with exactly same name as my relative. I definitely 110% input correct email address but between inputting email address and sending payment something must of gone wrong with PayPal app, either a glitch or something ie hacked or intercepted my PayPal account! But I have no way of proving this! PayPal support online and via phone call just said nothing they can do to reverse payment other than to email recipient and ask for payment back, it's been several days, had no response! I even sent 1p as that's only way to also DM recipient. Still no response! I phoned my bank to ask for advice, the advisor said he believes that PayPal are not being honest with me and that there's definitely a way for them to retrieve my money. Asked me to put a formal complaint to PayPal via complaint section of website. Also after 30 days to contact my bank and make a claim to retrieve my money via my bank from PayPal. Please has anyone any advice on how to pursue this and hopefully get my money back?

Do they share an email address, or did you enter the wrong email address to send the payment to?

adeo

MattMattMattUK said:

adeo said:

Typed relative's email address into PayPal app for pay someone. Sent £80 , then later on whilst looking at my PayPal payments realized payment sent to a random person with exactly same name as my relative. I definitely 110% input correct email address but between inputting email address and sending payment something must of gone wrong with PayPal app, either a glitch or something ie hacked or intercepted my PayPal account! But I have no way of proving this! PayPal support online and via phone call just said nothing they can do to reverse payment other than to email recipient and ask for payment back, it's been several days, had no response! I even sent 1p as that's only way to also DM recipient. Still no response! I phoned my bank to ask for advice, the advisor said he believes that PayPal are not being honest with me and that there's definitely a way for them to retrieve my money. Asked me to put a formal complaint to PayPal via complaint section of website. Also after 30 days to contact my bank and make a claim to retrieve my money via my bank from PayPal. Please has anyone any advice on how to pursue this and hopefully get my money back?

Do they share an email address, or did you enter the wrong email address to send the payment to?

I very very carefully typed the correct email address and submitted, but then something went wrong as went to wrong recipient!

jon81uk

iOS or Android App?

ashe

Sorry but as someone that does PayPal payments daily I just can’t believe it 

you need to confirm the recipient, you can’t just type in an email and it goes to someone else. PayPal interface allows you to search by email address or name, balance of probability suggests you’ve put their name in and not their email. 

PayPal asks you to confirm the details are correct before the payment is sent. 

It also gives you the option to send with protection etc 

MattMattMattUK

adeo said:

MattMattMattUK said:

adeo said:

Typed relative's email address into PayPal app for pay someone. Sent £80 , then later on whilst looking at my PayPal payments realized payment sent to a random person with exactly same name as my relative. I definitely 110% input correct email address but between inputting email address and sending payment something must of gone wrong with PayPal app, either a glitch or something ie hacked or intercepted my PayPal account! But I have no way of proving this! PayPal support online and via phone call just said nothing they can do to reverse payment other than to email recipient and ask for payment back, it's been several days, had no response! I even sent 1p as that's only way to also DM recipient. Still no response! I phoned my bank to ask for advice, the advisor said he believes that PayPal are not being honest with me and that there's definitely a way for them to retrieve my money. Asked me to put a formal complaint to PayPal via complaint section of website. Also after 30 days to contact my bank and make a claim to retrieve my money via my bank from PayPal. Please has anyone any advice on how to pursue this and hopefully get my money back?

Do they share an email address, or did you enter the wrong email address to send the payment to?

I very very carefully typed the correct email address and submitted, but then something went wrong as went to wrong recipient!

Having just played around with the PayPal app, the multiple confirmations one has to go through etc. I just can not see how it magically changed the email from one to another, I can however see that one could have accidentally, very carefully typed, but made a mistake with an email address, so sending it to an incorrect email, eg davidsmith@ rather than david.smith@.

ThumbRemote

ashe said:

Sorry but as someone that does PayPal payments daily I just can’t believe it 

As someone who works in software, I absolutely believe it could happen. Not saying it did happen here, but it certainly could.

adeo, can you clarify how similar the email addresses are? And did you type in the email address or the recipients name?

adeo

ThumbRemote said:

ashe said:

Sorry but as someone that does PayPal payments daily I just can’t believe it 

As someone who works in software, I absolutely believe it could happen. Not saying it did happen here, but it certainly could.

adeo, can you clarify how similar the email addresses are? And did you type in the email address or the recipients name?

Recipient email address, the wrong email address is an Hotmail the correct email address is Gmail.