Thanks. I opened a support ticket with PayPal Merchant Technical Services. Here is their reply:
Thank you for contacting Merchant Technical Services.
You will need to add rm=2 into your cart code. It will force PayPal to POST the return details to your landing page without adding the '?merchant_return_link=Return+to+Your+Domain&form_charset=UTF-8 ' to return address .
Here is a sample how to do that with PayPal button using the rm=2:
<form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post">
<input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_s-xclick">
<input type="hidden" name="hosted_button_id" value="D5UUYFE6PTAPU">
<input type="hidden" name="rm" value="2">
<input type="image" src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/btn_buynowCC_LG.gif" border="0" name="submit" alt="PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online!">
<img alt="" border="0" src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/scr/pixel.gif" width="1" height="1">
</form>
I hope this helps. Please let me know if you need further assistance.
Regards,
Sh.
PayPal Merchant Technical Services
PayPal, an eBay Company