Should I be suspicous? Merchant refuses to use paypal.me link and demands email address

[tommiyau]

I have a merchant that is refunding a transaction. They refuse to use a paypal.me link stating that the link does not work and they are not valid paypal payments. The merchant is demanding the account email address for payment. Should I be concerned about this demand? I have used paypal.me links without  issues and find it an odd statement that the merchant states they do not function and wants the email address. Should I be concerned?

[sharpiemarker]

@tommiyau 

The merchant is acting weird, pass on the purchase. How did you pay in the first place that made the merchant want to refund you?

What country is the merchant from? Not all countries have PayPal.me though.

[tommiyau]

This is a warranty return payment in Australia. The merchant has now changed from the link does not work to it is company policy they they must have the paypal account name and are not permitted to use the link. This just continues to raise awareness and concern with myself. This discussion has been going for over a week for what would have been a 10 second task which means they are deeply invested in recovering paypal accounts rather than issuing the refund.

[sharpiemarker]

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@tommiyau wrote:

This is a warranty return payment in Australia. The merchant has now changed from the link does not work to it is company policy they they must have the paypal account name and are not permitted to use the link. This just continues to raise awareness and concern with myself. This discussion has been going for over a week for what would have been a 10 second task which means they are deeply invested in recovering paypal accounts rather than issuing the refund.

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I see. You can give them the “@username” of your PayPal.me link if you do not want to give them an email address and the merchant does not want to use PayPal.me link.

I do not know how honest this merchant is, as one way to scam you is to send you a goods and services payment for the warranty refund payment and then later file a PayPal dispute charging that they did not receive item to get their money back and you would not have a tracking number.

You may consider mailing a candy bar with a letter (since letters might not be trackable with your postal service)to the merchant acknowledging the refund payment and referencing the PayPal transaction ID number with tracking number. Be sure to get a copy of the letter, too.

[tommiyau]

They also refused the @username as well. Seems a place to absolutely stay away from in future. This is a rather well known site but obviously very suspicious behavior. I'm going to refrain any further transactions with them in the future and consider changing and/or limiting my paypal account in future.