Is there a way to freeze an amount of money with PaypalAPI? - paypal

Question

In general I have the flow described here: Is there a way to authorize orders calling the paypal api directly
In two words: just payments between users on my website with PaypalAPI
Now I am trying to figure out how to freeze an amount of money with PaypalAPI
An example of that would be when employers on certain platforms for freelancers place their project and confirm a freelancer. An amount of money is going to be frozen on their account. And, then in the end when the job is done, transferred to the freelancer.

Answer 1

This is possible. Paypal calls it 'Authorize and Capture'. It allows you to 'Authorize' a payment, which places a hold on the associated funds, and it can later be captured, i.e. paid out.
Here are the developer documents for the request. Here's a curl request from their docs that summarizes it pretty well.
curl -v https://api-m.sandbox.paypal.com/v1/payments/payment \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer <Access-Token>" \
-d '{
"intent": "authorize",
"payer":
{
"payment_method": "paypal"
},
"transactions": [
{
"amount":
{
"total": "30.11",
"currency": "USD",
"details":
{
"subtotal": "30.00",
"tax": "0.07",
"shipping": "0.03",
"handling_fee": "1.00",
"shipping_discount": "-1.00",
"insurance": "0.01"
}
},
"description": "This is the payment transaction description.",
"custom": "EBAY_EMS_90048630024435",
"invoice_number": "48787589673",
"payment_options":
{
"allowed_payment_method": "INSTANT_FUNDING_SOURCE"
},
"soft_descriptor": "ECHI5786786",
"item_list":
{
"items": [
{
"name": "hat",
"description": "Brown color hat",
"quantity": "5",
"price": "3",
"tax": "0.01",
"sku": "1",
"currency": "USD"
},
{
"name": "handbag",
"description": "Black color hand bag",
"quantity": "1",
"price": "15",
"tax": "0.02",
"sku": "product34",
"currency": "USD"
}],
"shipping_address":
{
"recipient_name": "Hello World",
"line1": "4thFloor",
"line2": "unit#34",
"city": "SAn Jose",
"country_code": "US",
"postal_code": "95131",
"phone": "011862212345678",
"state": "CA"
}
}
}],
"note_to_payer": "Contact us for any questions on your order.",
"redirect_urls":
{
"return_url": "https://example.com/return",
"cancel_url": "https://example.com/cancel"
}
}'