Bitcoin sent, confirmed on my end - never received on the other end

Question

I made a purchase and paid using bitcoin. They sent me a link which took me to a coinbase processor. I got the wallet address and sent the money from my Electrum Wallet. I have 157 confirmations, Electrum shows it's there and complete, but the receiver says they had never received it. I have been waiting a day for them to send me the wallet address they use so I can see if I sent it to the correct place.

Someone told me that if BTC is not claimed within 30 days it automatically goes back to where it came from. I do not know if that is true since someone said: "once it's gone it's gone". But I got some back that exact way. I just want to know where it got screwed up.

If I know the money will come back, then I don't care if they help or not. It's their loss. I would have used it to pay for my purchase.

So where could the money be if they say they no longer use bitcoin? isn't it still in that wallet? They just have to get it right?

I hope this is not too convoluted.

Answer 1

They sent me a link which took me to a coinbase processor. I got the wallet address and sent the money from my Electrum Wallet. I have 157 confirmations, Electrum shows it's there and complete, but the receiver says they never got it.

One of three things has happened:

• The receiver's wallet is not properly synced wit the network and hasn't seen your transaction
• The receiver is lying about not receiving the transaction
• You somehow sent Bitcoin to the wrong address (eg malware injected a malicious address into your copy/paste clipboard)

Someone told me that if btc isn't claimed within 30 days it automatically goes back to where it came from.

This is incorrect. Perhaps there are custodial services that work this way, but if you send an actual Bitcoin transaction and it is confirmed in the blockchain, then the chance of it being reversed are basically zero.

So where could the money be if they say they no longer use bitcoin? isn't it still in that wallet? They just have to get it right?

If you can link an address you sent to, or a transaction ID, someone could take a look at the blockchain to see where the Bitcoin ended up, but generally:

If you sent to a coinbase payment page, then the payment was sent to a Bitcoin address that Coinbase controls. Coinbase may have forwarded this payment on to the person you were paying, or it may still be sitting in that person's coinbase account. You would have to contact Coinbase and/or your counterparty to resolve the issue. There is nothing further anyone here can do to help you remedy the situation.

Answer 2

I have been waiting a day for them to send me the wallet address they use so I can see if I sent it to the correct place.

You don't need to wait. Open your wallet in Electrum and right-click on your outgoing transaction in the history tab. This will bring up a menu: left-click on Details. You will now see a new window named Transactions, which shows the address where you sent the coins under a heading Outputs. Look up this address in a blockexplorer web site, and you will be able to see all transactions in and out of that address.

From your description, your seem to be using some third party as an intermediary between you and your payee. I don't understand why you and your payee both trust the third party, but when you look at the address in the blockexplorer web site as described above, you will be able to see all outward transactions from the third party's address after it received coins from you.