Bad guy is going to get away with it if I can't get some help!

[gillespieddl]

I sent funds in the amount of $270 on December 19th.  Realizing within hours I'd sent to a similar (but incorrect email) my funds were sent to a complete stranger, who seeing and opportunity, quickly accepted the funds and has since disappeared.

For almost 4 months, I've gone through Paypal's prescribed processes, including:

• Paypal dispute resolution process
• Paypal security process
• Bank dispute resolution process
• contact the individual who accepted the funds to ask for the money back
• Paypal directly contacting the person (multiple attempts, no response)

I've searched on Google and have seen that seemingly HUNDREDS of other people have had this happen.  There has to be a solution. 

I KNOW there is a HERO somewhere within Paypal who can fix this! Where are you?!

(What if this had been $2,000,000?  Would Paypal care then?) 

Desperate,

Don

[kernowlass]

@gillespieddl

Unlikely anyone can help you.

But how did you SEND the funds, was it send money > goods / services OR family / friends.

Also what did you open a dispute for ? Was it non receipt of item?

[gillespieddl]

Good question. It was it was payment for services from a friend. Not knowing there might be implications if I selected personal or services, I selected personal. But regardless the funds never made it to that person, so that person's protections shouldn't extend to the third party stranger who erroneously received and accepted funds that weren't theirs.

[gillespieddl]

I was told to open a dispute by PayPal so really I just did what I was told and thought that would remedy the issue. Really the dispute is the entire payment was an error and I notified PayPal of this fact within 24 hours.

[DPCreations]

There is no option to send as personal; you select either goods/services or friends/family.

I assume you sent as friends/family to avoid any potential fees for the recipient.

I assume you were the one who selected the email to enter and that you were the one who reviewed the email address before selecting to send.

PayPal cannot protect you from your own mistakes.

[gillespieddl]

A business model, which offers no safeguards to the consumer within a reasonable period of the transaction and offers anonymity for those receiving funds when things go wrong, is a flawed model. If I walked past an ATM and took out $20 and that same ATM spit out$2,000 erroneously, would I not be criminally prosecuted if I were to accept that cash and walk away? I somewhat appreciate your candor but feel you are being a bit snarky and unprofessional. If it were your money, your fault or not, I have a feeling you'd be a bit more passionate about getting it back.

[kernowlass]

@gillespieddl

No one on here needs to be professional as we don't work for paypal, this is a user to user forum.

Also if you used your online banking and sent a payment to someone and got the account number wrong and it went to someone else then your bank cannot guarantee that you would get that money back again.

They would not be able to dip into someones bank account or force them to return it, they could ask for the customer or the customer could use private legal action to try and recoup it but the banks actions just like paypals are limited.

The onus is on you to double check the email address or account number is correct really.

[sharpiemarker]

PayPal will fix errors that they made, according to their policies but they didn't make this one.  Friends and Family payments are not covered.  You've seen hundreds of people on Google with this problem because that many people make errors when sending money.  PayPal didn't make the error.  They sent it upon your authority to whoever you named was the recipient.

Here, read the User Agreement on how your account and seller/purchase protection programs work:

https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/ua/useragreement-full