Detecting duplicate users

[ijames]

Hello,

I'm contemplating a business model in which User A can get rewarded by helping User B.

My concern is that User A and User B might be the same dishonest person.

So my question is, when I ask User A and User B to connect to their PayPal accounts, will Paypal be able to verify that they are in fact two different people?

I know one person can create 2 Paypal accounts (one personal and one business).

But if a person has two email addresses and two credit cards s/he can set up two PayPal accounts, right? Or does Paypal  verify to Holder's name and birthdate to ensure this doesn't happen? I have read on other forums people bragging about having 3+ Paypal accounts using different email addresses and credi card details.

Any help or advice is much appreciated!

[snowshoe]

PayPal does allow two accounts, one Personal and Premier or Personal and Business.  One can also have multiple Business Accounts providing they have separate bank accounts and credit cards.  (It's not uncommon.)

As for your question concerning User A and User B being one in the same.  There's really no way to distinguish the two, at least there's no built in features or options that do what you have in mind.  It would be a nice feature especially for flagging scammers.  Perhaps a good suggestion for PayPal's security model.

[ijames]

Thanks for your reply snowshoe.

It seems that a good solution would be to verify the credit card Holder's name for both User A and User B. Is this possible through the Paypal API, for instance?

Thanks again.

[snowshoe · Accepted solution]

That may be possible.  Suggest checking out the Developer's Forum, you may find someone who already is doing that.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/paypal

[ijames]

Once again, thank you, snowshoe!

I was pleased to find out that it's possible, more information here: https://developer.paypal.com/webapps/developer/docs/integration/direct/log-in-with-paypal/best-pract...

I appreciate you ponting me in the right direction.

[snowshoe]