How to verify a PayPal receipt?

[KowloonJames]

Is there any way for third parties to verify that someone's PayPal receipt (email) is legitimate and undoctored?

If somebody wants to prove to me that they've paid X amount to person Y, what could either of us do to confirm they're not stretching the truth?

Thanks in advance for any ideas.

[DPCreations]

Are you asking about documentation that you paid someone or documentation that someone paid you?

[KowloonJames]

Neither. Although from the perspective of the person making the claim, it would be the former.

To explain, I want to hold a raffle which stipulates that entrants must donate a minimum amount via PayPal to a specific cause that I'm not directly involved in. I can't collect the money to pass it on, and I can't verify the donation with the operators of the cause. But I want to be certain that the raffle winner did in fact donate that much, making them eligible for the prize.

They can forward me their PayPal receipt, but they could easily modify its contents before sending it to me, making it look as though they'd donated more than they really did.

So is there any other way for them to prove, or for me to check, that they've made the donation they claim to have made to this third party cause?

[PayPal_Frank · Accepted solution]

Hi KowloonJames,

Welcome to the community and great question!

As PayPal cannot be used to accept payments for raffles or other lottery type offers, advising participants to donate to the recipient directly is the correct way to do this.

But only unfortunately, the only way to verify the donation has been sent would be to some how work with person Y (the recipient) to verify if a payment has been received.  Our privacy policy would prohibit us from sharing information about a transaction involving two other accounts.

There are also other considerations that may worth considering.  For example, if someone sent a donation that was later reversed as it was found to be an unauthorized payment.  This would be another reason to work with the recipient to ensure the payment has been received and maybe we wait for a period of time after the donation has been sent to ensure it was not unauthorized.

I hope this helps! 🙂

- Frank

[KowloonJames]

Thanks Frank, good points.