I’ve used Paypal for a dozen years and never had a problem.  But I know how it works. There are two kind of accounts: one to send money, so you can buy things or make donations online, and one to receive money.  If you want to send someone a payment or a donation, you would tell Paypal to send it to their email address.  If your Paypal was set up at first with a credit card attached to it (like to buy things online), then you might think Paypal would just credit the card with the amount sent to Paypal.  They don’t do that.

My experience with Paypal in the past is there has to be a bank account attached to the email address before anyone sends money to you.  Otherwise it gets mis-routed in cyber limbo and the people who sent the money have to be the ones to contact Paypal to find it and make sure it gets to you.

You on the receiving end will not be able to fix it.  Whoever sent the donations to your email address have to be the ones to contact Paypal and remedy it.

I know just in the past week many kind souls have sent donations for two separate friends whose loved ones passed away.  In both cases, Paypal donations were sent before the bank account was set up, and both accounts are having problems. One account shows no transactions.  If you sent a donation, please contact Paypal and make sure it was delivered and received.

Please also forward (to the email address you donated to) the receipt that Paypal emailed to you after you made your donation.  No, not so they can say thank you, but so they can know that they received what you sent.