Odd PayPal payment

[dpd1]

Got kind of a strange one through paypal today... The member name is a .com address, and the email on the account also uses the same domain. PayPal says it's a verified member and the address is confirmed. But the domain shows as being available and there is no evidence of this company anywhere on the internet. The address given looks to be a legit office building. Hmm...

[janharders]

might be that they once had the domain, registered and verified with paypal and now lost (or abandoned) the domain -- or are just in the process of moving it and wanted to feel the thrill of leaving it out in the open for a while ;)

[jecasc]

Probaly they simply don't have a website and they use the domain only for email.

[topr8]

>>But the domain shows as being available

there must be an error here, if the email works then the domain is not available!

i have a domain name just for email, it's quite common.

[janharders]

the question is if the email (still) works.

[Terabytes]

The Domain Name may have expired and they might not know...yet...

happens all the time to people that don't pay attention...

[dpd1]

>>>there must be an error here, if the email works then the domain is not available!<<<

That's what I was thinking... But I'm trying to think if there's a way PayPal checks to see if an email is still valid for an account once it's been verified. Other than the fact you wouldn't get a confirmation email, I don't think there is. Unless I'm forgetting something.

[janharders]

paypal could check if a) the domain is still registered and b) there is a valid (connectable) mx for the domain. actually would be a thing to consider the next time I'm building something.

[sun818]

The domain may not actually be available. Try a different domain checking service. Sometimes they say it is available, but really it is not.

Send a test message to the e-mail address and see if it bounces. They also have command line utilities and web scripts that will check if a domain has a SMTP server that responds. I had a fraudulent payment come in yesterday. I sent a test e-mail to that address and it bounced.

[T_Miller]

Once a PayPal account is setup with an email address, the account is valid even if the email address goes bad.

eBay customers forget (or don't know how) to change their email addresses (as well as street addresses) on their PP accounts alot. But they have no trouble paying...

Might be worth a phone call to confirm. We do it all the time. And have even walked people through updating their PP accounts!

[hurri]

send a email to the email !