PayPal payout fails to some accounts

Question

I am trying to send money to a person's PayPal account via PayPal rest-api. The payout api processed without any error, but in the webhook I receive, it shows that the payout has failed and the recipient did not receive money.

I thought the problem is with the recipient account and tried to simply send money through PayPal(not payout rest-api). The recipient was able to receive money.

I am attaching the webhook response I get when it fails

{
"batch_header": {
    "payout_batch_id": "5CUYYX9GRXXXX",
    "batch_status": "DENIED",
    "time_created": "2021-07-30T09:03:36Z",
    "time_completed": "2021-07-30T09:03:39Z",
    "time_closed": "2021-07-30T09:03:39Z",
    "sender_batch_header": {
        "sender_batch_id": "6318914d-8506-4182-be21-xxxxxxx",
        "email_subject": "You have money!",
        "email_message": "You received a payment. Thanks for using our service!"
    },
    "funding_source": "BALANCE",
    "amount": {
        "currency": "USD",
        "value": "1.00"
    },
    "fees": {
        "currency": "USD",
        "value": "0.00"
    }
},
"items": [
    {
        "payout_item_id": "APW3A3DKHDXXX",
        "transaction_status": "FAILED",
        "payout_item_fee": {
            "currency": "USD",
            "value": "0.00"
        },
        "payout_batch_id": "5CUYYX9GXXXXX",
        "payout_item": {
            "recipient_type": "EMAIL",
            "amount": {
                "currency": "USD",
                "value": "1.00"
            },
            "receiver": "[email protected]",
            "sender_item_id": "2014031400XXX",
            "recipient_wallet": "PAYPAL"
        },
        "time_processed": "2021-07-30T09:03:39Z",
        "errors": {
            "name": "UNDEFINED",
            "message": "Sorry, an error has occurred. For help, please contact your account manager or our Customer Service team. You can also try sending the Payout after sometime.",
            "information_link": "https://developer.paypal.com/docs/api/payments.payouts-batch/#errors",
            "details": [],
            "links": []
        },
        "links": [
            {
                "href": "https://api.paypal.com/v1/payments/payouts-item/APW3A3DKHXXXX",
                "rel": "item",
                "method": "GET",
                "encType": "application/json"
            }
        ]
    }
],
"links": [
    {
        "href": "https://api.paypal.com/v1/payments/payouts/5CUYYX9GRGX2L?page_size=1000&page=1",
        "rel": "self",
        "method": "GET",
        "encType": "application/json"
    }
]}

I get no error message in this response. I am able to send money to other PayPal accounts via rest-apis, so the problem is not in the sender's side.

Why I am not able to send payments to some recipients via PayPal rest-api? Has anyone else got this error from webhook response which says undefined without any other details?

Answer 1

Sending that payment to that account was declined by PayPal. It's not a technical issue.

You can contact PayPal's support if you need the decline explained. Most likely something about the receiving account is too suspicious or potentially fraudulent to allow the automated API payout to proceed.