Identifying vendor on credit card statment

[jsteinhauer]

If I have a credit card statement, and a paypal vendor appears as, say, "PP*MDAPAYMENTS" is there a way to identify that vendor?

[DPCreations]

You should have a receipt for the purchase so you know where you made the purchase.

The vendor name would be established by the vendor.  The vendor may not even sell online.

You could try a Google search.

[jsteinhauer]

Thanks

I've tried Google, and it's a rather complicated matter following a death in the family.  My wife is charged with filing an amended tax return for 2015, postmortem, and she does not have access to the Paypal account on which the payment was made, only the credit card statements documenting withdrawal of the funds.  The original return claimed some Paypal payments as tax deductible, but there are no receipts other than the credit card statements.  We were hoping it would be easy, but it's not, and there may need to be an attorney involved, which is simply more expensive.  We did manage to identify some of the sellers as guitar dealers, clearly not tax deductible in this situation, but this last one stands out as unidentifiable, and it's several thousand dollars.

[DPCreations]

Even if did find the vendor, you problably wouldn't have access to someone else's receipt.

Why not just phone PayPal customer service and ask what stepts you would need to take to find details, such as what type of court order would be required as you would be looking for a transaction belonging to another party.

[jsteinhauer]

Understood.

But, if it's not something that looks like a charitable donation or a business expense, we don't need to pursue it.  Like guitar and auto part sellers.  The deceased may have had some cognitive problems in the final years, and it looks like he was doing some funny things on tax returns.  The survivor may be liable for this, if the IRS decides to audit, but still needs to retain as much money as possilble, being elderly and on a fixed income.  An amended return may lead to penalties, but we want to avoid accusations of fraud.  We are just trying to be diligent, and trying to avoid attorney fees, if possible, but a lawyer should be able to handle this without difficulty.  It's not a Paypal problem at all, but they have private information that a deceased person did not leave us access to, and I don't personally want to deal with the legal details.  There is a living person that may have the information we need, but that story is much more sordid, and I will not discuss it here.  A lawyer can handle that, too, if necessary.

[DPCreations]

I think I understood your predicament even without the last explanation.  I think your tax implications are well-founded, also.

I hope you can find the necesary records.

[Whac-A-Mole]

find the transaction in your Paypal  activity history  based on date and dollar amount,it may jock your memory what you have bought from him

[DPCreations]

It's from a deceased person's account.  It may have been a credit card purchase.