Payment sent to wrong email address, paypal wont help

[gabegordon39]

I sent a payment to my friend today for 130 dollars. However, the payment ended up being sent to another person with the exact same name. I blame this mostly on paypals system when directing payments via name, instead of email. I selected the correct receiptant, however It ended up going to a person with the same name. I reached out to that email address and informed them of the mistake and opened a dispute. Paypal says, since the payment is already completed, they can't do anything. They apparently are making the case I authorized a payment to someone I don't even know? I know this is not true, as they can easily see something went wrong, and debit the incorrect account.  They immediately closed the dispute and did nothing.  Is this the normal in this case?  Looking in their helps docs, they say if this helps, its easy just file a dispute to get your money back.  But then when you file a dispute they dont do anything.  Any advise out there?

[kernowlass]

@gabegordon39 

Sounds as if you used the friends/family option?

If so then you would not be able to open a dispute apart from one citing an unauthorised transaction but that would be automatically closed as you did authorise the initial payment.

Try reaching out to the recipient and asking them to refund buy you can't force them to as it was a 'gift' of money because you used family/friends.

You could also try a chargeback if you used a credit card but again they may decline as it was not a purchase for goods/services.

[gabegordon39]

I'm sorry, no matter what paypal policy is. Its ridiculous and borderline illegal, for paypal not to correct an obvious mistake. These are ach transactions and not immediately cleared. They were notified of the mistake/system issue within  a few hours of the transaction. This was easy to fix, however, paypal feels using their system for money to be stolen from their customer base is totally acceptable. This is a joke, as well as paypals "customer service"

[kernowlass]

@gabegordon39 

You're welcome.