How to verify email address is a paypal address in order to send surprise funds.

[dougc-3]

Need to verify that my friend's email address works with paypal in order to send surprise funds.  I'm a bit afraid to just try to send the money to his personal email address, but perhaps it would be safe even if it is not the address he uses with PayPal (ie, just not work).  Would it be OK to test it by trying to send money?

[sharpiemarker · Accepted solution]

@dougc-3 

If you send to an email address that your friend owns but is not a confirmed PayPal email address of theirs, they can add and confirm that email address to their PayPal account to claim the money. Nevertheless, PayPal will send an email to inform that a payment is waiting for them.

It’s difficult to look up a contact as people can hide from being searched in PayPal profile privacy settings and it might not always be accurate especially if common name. You can experiment in the ‘recipient field’ with email addresses, names, PayPal @names or user ID, or phone numbers.

[dougc-3]

Thanks very much for the helpful info! I was not aware that I could test the email in the recipient field!  That should solve my problem!