Email dispute, semi-legal advice needed!

[viceroy]

Anyone want to give me some semi-legal advice?
It involves a domain name (which I own), it's default email address (which I administer, [email protected]) and PayPal, who tell me that the email address is registered to another account from a few years ago and, as such, can't be added to my account.
They (PayPal) tell me that I'm on my own in this matter and they don't have a resolution service for email addresses. I have contacted the previous owner (in writing, via email) of the name and email and he's apparently not keen to play ball and delete the domain name off his account (he hasn't deleted it when he said he would definitely do it).
Where do I stand in this? The domain was dropped and caught and then bought by me to turn into a site.
Another thought; can he still recieve payments while this email address is registered to his account even though he can't actually use the email?
Thanks in advance guys.

 

[Aegean]

I'm not a legal expert, but my understanding of this is that you are now the legal owner of this domain, so..

1. Immediately deactivate the email address in question.
2. Send a formal request to the person, formally asking them to cease use of the domain facilities, and 'cc' the email to your legal dept.
3. Send a formal email to PayPal telling them what you have done, and request they remove that address from your system as any further use of your domain would be unauthorised.
4. Set up an entirely different email under the same domain for your PP needs, such as [email protected]

If it starts becoming a major problem, take legal advice.

 

[viceroy]

Did the first two when I got the domain...
PayPal have been absolutely useless and I eventually had to call them and they basically said that it's not their problem and they can't remove the email address from their system without the previous owners' authorisation and they're also not prepared to contact him on my behalf. Not worried about using the email for payments just yet, so that point can wait.
Looks like I might have to walk down to the local solicitor and get a letter, a cost I was trying to avoid...
As a note, I think we could all be more careful as to the negative history that good domains sometimes have:-?

 

[mally]

Sounds to me like paypal so step in here, the email address is no longer valid, so how can they refuse

 

[viceroy]

Yep, that's what I thought but the people at PayPal aren't very switched on in this regard tbh... They assure me that only the person who first registered the email with them can delete it. Maybe I'll call them again and hopefully get someone else who's more helpful.

 

[Retired_member41]

Can't you just get someone to send £1 to that PayPal email.

When he's accepted it leave it a few days and tell them you can not contact the buyer and ask them to verify the email address as you believe it's fraudulent.

Paypal are idiots. There are numerous occurrences like this where they do nothing.

In fairness to the other guy he may be getting payments from all sorts of people to that email address and probably can not be bothered incase he loses any of them.

 

[viceroy]

Caz, good idea, might try that. The one PayPal guy that I spoke to got me to go through the 'forgotten password' process but obviously I didn't get too far considering I didn't know the name of his favourite pet, etc. I don't think that they are trying to be difficult, just general ignorance. He kept asking me to just contact my email provider and it took me forever to get through to him that I AM MY OWN EMAIL PROVIDER!

 

[accelerator]

I don't know the answer to this dispute, but I'm thinking that just because you own the domain now, it won't give you any rights to a given e-mail of that domain being used as a username at PayPal. I expect PayPal staff are probably right in saying that the only person who can delete said username is the existing username owner.

It comes down to the fact that a PayPal ac is primarily a username that someone owns, and secondly an e-mail address.

This is just my guess but that's the way I look at it.

Rgds

 

[viceroy]

Yes, it's a bit of a complicated one, even though I can verify that I now own both the email address and domain name and am the administrator of both, they wont budge. I don't think that the email address is a primary address on the previous owners' account, just an additional one... Will have to see what the previous owner has to say when i get round to calling him again.

 

[D600]

Well I doubt you will get anywhere at all with seeking legal action apart from a big bill, this guy having a email on his PayPal account isn't wrong it down to PayPal and their rules. Unfortunately nobody is entitled to have a certain PayPal address its just their system that uses email addresses to accept payments.

Unless its really important try your best if no good stop using that email altogether.

 

[Bailey]

Well I doubt you will get anywhere at all with seeking legal action apart from a big bill, this guy having a email on his PayPal account isn't wrong it down to PayPal and their rules. Unfortunately nobody is entitled to have a certain PayPal address its just their system that uses email addresses to accept payments.

Unless its really important try your best if no good stop using that email altogether.

Yep spot-on. Being used purely as a Paypal Log-on (in effect) and nothing more, You have the control of the email to that address to send it where ever you want surely ??

 

[wb]

Have you spoken to the previous registrant since he said he would definitely do it? How long has it been since that was said?

He may just have forgotten, so perhaps the best thing to do first is chase him up and ask (assuming you haven't already).

 

[safesys]

I'd play the misrepresentation card with paypal: if people are sending money to [email protected] then they likely think the recipient is connected with that email address/domain. Also, there is an argument about breach of terms as they require:

9. Restricted Activities
9.1 Restricted Activities. In connection with your use of our website, your Account, or the Services, or in the course of your interactions with PayPal, a User or a third party, you will not:
...
Provide false, inaccurate or misleading Information;

as per their contract definitions:

“Information” means any confidential and/or personally identifiable information or other information related to an Account or User, including but not limited to the following: name, email address, post/shipping address, phone number and financial information.

 

[viceroy]

Thanks for the replies guys, will keep you updated when I have a few minutes to spend on the matter.
Yes, in the bigger picture, it doesn't really matter to me if he's using the email address to process payments or not (he can't use it to send and recieve mail) but if you have a site and email addresses and stuff, it just doesn't sit right that someone else could be passing off as you at a casual glance.
Another point: in theory, if it is as it looks with this email address thing then one could set loads of email addresses to your paypal account before offloading a great domain name and do all sorts of stuff with them?