Typo'd phone number sending money to Friend—am I **bleep**?

ishygddtXYZ
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Title says it all. Helping a friend pay rent, they e-mailed me their PayPal phone number, but it had a typo that neither of us caught until seeing an unfamiliar name on the Confirmation E-mail. The PayPal “support” chat bot said the transaction can't be stopped or reversed.

 

Does PayPal provision for this at all, or am I thrown to the wolves here?

 

(Obviously, I am trying to reach out to the accidental recipient—but, let's be real: they have no way to know I'm not a scammer. Yes, I can't cancel the transaction, but the recipient has no way of knowing that. For all they know, I'm waiting for them to irrevocably send me a pile of money before revoking the pile of money I allegedly-accidentally sent them.)

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ishygddtXYZ
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Hmm, so a Stop Payment order (if it works) would lead to PayPal gifting some random nobody a thousand dollars due to a literal typo on my part—a typo which I caught within 5 minutes of making it.

 

PayPal would then, I assume, close my account in retaliation, and possibly sue me to recover the money they fronted this random person?

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kernowlass
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@ishygddtXYZ 

 

Would help if you said what it says on the transaction in your paypal account, sent, unclaimed, unclaimed with a cancel option, pending, payment or completed?

Also how did you fund the paypal payment?


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ishygddtXYZ
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It says “Money Sent” right now. There is no option I can see to Cancel.

 

The funding source was a U.S. Checking account. The transaction lists a previous Debit card as a “backup” for the transaction (I'm currently calling my bank to make sure that Debit card is fully cancelled).

 

I don't have any other funding sources on my PayPal account, nor do I have any money currently in my PayPal account. I'm strongly considering filing a Stop Payment order with my bank at this time, since I don't see the transaction on their end yet.

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kernowlass
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@ishygddtXYZ 

 

If its saying SENT then it has successfully transferred to the email address you sent it to that was linked to an open paypal account.

So paypal has fronted your payment like they normally do and paypal take the wait for the funds to transfer from your bank account.

IF you stop that transfer then paypal will put your paypal account into negative and chase you to pay them back again.

 

So I would reach out to that 'wrong' email address and ask them if they would refund the payment for you, they may or may not refuse.

However as the error was on your side then sadly you may have to put up with the loss.


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ishygddtXYZ
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Hmm, so a Stop Payment order (if it works) would lead to PayPal gifting some random nobody a thousand dollars due to a literal typo on my part—a typo which I caught within 5 minutes of making it.

 

PayPal would then, I assume, close my account in retaliation, and possibly sue me to recover the money they fronted this random person?

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kernowlass
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@ishygddtXYZ 

 

I sent a bank transfer once and got the number wrong and it ended up in anothers account, luckily not a lot of money but the bank said my mistake so if the account holder didn't refund I should bear the loss, it happens unfortunately. Since then I check everything very thoroughly.

 

If your account went into negative paypal 'may' limit your account and if you did not clear the debt then they would pass it on to a debt collection agency.

That is how it normally works, if you want to check this all out then give customer services a call?  


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ishygddtXYZ
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if you want to check this all out then give customer services a call?

Indeed and of course, I tried “support” (that stupid chatbot wizard, and their constrained phone-system menu) before opening this thread; they told me that I have no recourse if the recipient won't return the money [which, of course, they have no reason to do considering my situation is physically identical to the scenario which wire fraudsters pretend to be in].

 

Since I couldn't get in touch with a human through either channel, anyway, I'd hoped that maybe this public post would achieve that. 😞

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