PayPal redirects to http://www.mysite.com/www.pay

-- HikaShop version -- : 2.2.2
-- Joomla version -- : 3.1.5
-- PHP version -- : 5.3.13
-- Browser(s) name and version -- : firefox/chrome/IE
-- Error-message(debug-mod must be tuned on) -- : Error_message

Upon checkout, I cannot get my site to redirect to PayPal. I get the 10 second message, then go back to the checkout screen. I am positive I have the PayPal plugin correctly configured. I've gone thru every checklist of potential solutions I have been able to find. Finally I gave up and sent a message to the support team, and have not yet heard back.

However I continued searching the boards, and found a post with the same issue that was resolved by turning off SEO. I tried turning off SEO, and now I AM redirecting...sort of. Instead of going to the PayPal site it goes to : www.mysite.com/www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr

In two days of scouring this forum, I don't recall having seen this mentioned, much less a solution.

While I would prefer to have both a functioning checkout and SEO, I can live without it for now. But I do need to fix this redirect so I can get my site to online ASAP

Any help is much appreciated!