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Caution when using PayPal: Old email addresses may be "hidden" on your account

JudyS

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Here's an unexpected problem that you may encounter if you have a PayPal business account -- PayPal sending your customers old email addresses for you, which don't show up in your Profile and are hard to change. This could be a problem for anyone who has changed email accounts since they first set up their Paypal business account.

Here's what happened to me. I did a rental transaction with a customer to whom I had rented before. The money never showed up, and we eventually figured out that it had been sent to an old email address that I haven't used in years.

When I asked my renter where she had gotten that email address, she said PayPal sent it to her. She forwarded me the confirmation from her previous transaction with me, and sure enough, there was the outdated email address, listed as my "customer service" email. None of *my* emails from PayPal ever displayed this address, so I didn't know it was still on my account.

Of course, I wanted to remove this outdated email address from my account. But, this email address wasn't listed in my Profile. After rifling around in my account, I could see that the old email was listed as part of something called my "Customer Service Message," but there was no way to change the email address in that section of my account.

I searched Paypal's online help -- nothing.
I called them and got their automated help -- nothing.
I waited on hold and eventually spoke to a support rep -- she couldn't figure it out, either.

I waited on hold again and was transferred to a higher level of support. He told me how to change the "customer service" email. Log in, go to Profile, then select "My Business Info" from the drop down menu. On the "My Business Info" page, scroll down to "Business Information" and click the "Update" link on the right-hand side of the screen. This will take you to a page entitled "Review your information." Some of the information will have a "change" link next to it. "Customer Service Email" does not have a "change" link next to it, but if you scroll down to the very bottom of the page, there is an "Edit" button. If you click the Edit button, it will take you to the screen where you can (finally!) change your customer service email address.

Unfortunately, Paypal would not let me change my customer service email without giving them a lot of new information, such as my date of birth, the nature of my business, where I did the majority of my selling, etc. All the fields on the "Business Information" page must be fully filled out before PayPal will accept a change to the Customer Service mail address. (I guess if you didn't want to give PayPal this information, you could make stuff up for most of this information, although maybe giving a fake date of birth could eventually cause problems.)

In this case, no one else was using the outdated email address that PayPal sent my renter, so she was able to just cancel the first transaction and re-send the money to my current email address. However, if someone else were now using my old address, they would have been able to get the money and we would have had a serious problem. (There is at least one thread on TUG about money being PayPal'ed to the wrong person. I can't remember if the money ever went to the right person, but I know it was a problem.) Luckily, my old email address was something fairly unusual (as opposed to say, JohnSmith @ Yahoo.com.)
 
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davidvel

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This seems to be a big glitch. If the email was tied to your account to allow a payment (even if buried deep down under customer service), the payment should have shown up in your account. With paypal accounts being tied to emails, it should be impossible for a single email address to be tied to more than one account.

Did PP ever tell you where the money went, or why it didn't show up in your account?
 

JudyS

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This seems to be a big glitch. If the email was tied to your account to allow a payment (even if buried deep down under customer service), the payment should have shown up in your account.
I agree that, because my old email address was still part of my PayPal account, the money sent to that address should have gone into my PayPal account. I was pretty shocked that this didn't happen.

With paypal accounts being tied to emails, it should be impossible for a single email address to be tied to more than one account.

Did PP ever tell you where the money went, or why it didn't show up in your account?
I believe PayPal can send money to any email address, even an email address with no PayPal account. (PayPal certainly can receive money from email addresses that have no PayPal account. In fact, if a renter has a problem with their Paypal account, such as PayPal refusing to allow them to use their account because they have not yet provided their bank information, I just send them an invoice at a different email address, one that has no PayPal account.) I don't know if Paypal has a glitch where the same email address can be on two accounts. But even if they don't, I think anyone who was now using my old address would have been able to go and withdraw the funds.

As for where the money went, PayPal probably sent a notice saying "Joe Doe just sent you money" to my old email address. No one ever signed in using that email and withdrew the money, so it didn't really go anywhere.
 
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davidvel

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I've always worried about giving my email for people to sned money, as a small typo would really mess things up.
 
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