Paypal's IPN notification - "recurring_payment_skipped" vs "recurring_payment_failed" - paypal

I set up a recurring payment with paypal within my website.
So if customer's balance is empty the value of "txn_type" will be "recurring_payment_skipped".
After 3 failed attempts, the value of "txn_type" will be "recurring_payment_suspended_due_to_max_failed_payment" and in this case the related recurring payment profile has been suspended.
So, can you explain to me the difference between recurring_payment_skipped and recurring_payment_failed ? and when we have exactly txn_type = recurring_payment_failed ?

Related

Paypal Website Payments Pro - Recurring Payment Profile - Negative testing - how to trigger

I try to establish recurring payment from CiviCRM, using Website Payments Pro mode.
The positive testing works perfectly, I see the created payment profile, I get the IPN notifications, it's perfect.
I enabled negative testing at the profile, I tried two methods to trigger the negative case - when the initial payment fails:
PayPal recurring payments negative testing (https://developer.paypal.com/docs/classic/lifecycle/sb_error-conditions/ - with the amount of 106.10 $)
With IPN error code: https://developer.paypal.com/docs/classic/ipn/integration-guide/IPNTesting/ - 31.22
In both cases, the payment completed successfully.
I contacted the paypal support and their best answer was this:
" You can test it with close expiry date. Usually when the expiry date almost come, PayPal will sent notification to the buyer to change credit card. But if the buyers just ignore the notification, it will lead to failed transaction. "
Even if it works, it's unacceptable, that I might have to wait 1 month to see the result. Paypal does not allow to set already expired card for the recurring payment profile.
Do you see an efficient way to test negative outcome? Maybe with IPN simulator? But how can I be sure that Send Paypal Recurring Payments commands with IPN Simulator contains the proper messages that PayPal uses today for my type of account?
Here is how to proceed: forget the sandbox, it is just not mature enough. Use the production/live paypal account, lower the recurring fee to 0.5$, launch the recurring payment from Civicrm, wait for the initial payment, you have the successful case, then ask your bank to set the POS limit to 0$, then the next recurring payment will fail. This is a totally robust way to test negative case. Do not forget to set your IPN first (https://developer.paypal.com/docs/classic/ipn/integration-guide/IPNSetup/). Do you have any better method?
The following method works for recurring payments with Express Checkout, might as well work for Payments Pro:
Login to https://www.sandbox.paypal.com using your buyer's test PayPal account.
Replace the contents of the street address Line-1 of the buyer's test credit card, with CCREJECT-REFUSED.
Execute a typical Express Checkout payment flow against the Sandbox test environment using the same buyer account and with the same credit
card that you just modified.
This method is described on a page in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard' helpfully titled How To Recover from Funding Failure Error Code 10486 in Express Checkout

Paypal recurring payment enough money

I'm testing recurring payment on Sandbox of Paypal.
But I find out client's account is not enough money, but their own account is still recieved money.
If client 's account is not enough money, how does the paypal process?
This transaction will be suspend or cancel...
If client'account have enough money then the transaction become activate.
For initial payment, use FAILEDINITAMTACTION, Action you can specify when a payment fails. It is one of the following values:
ContinueOnFailure – By default, PayPal suspends the pending profile in the event that the initial payment amount fails. You can override this default behavior by setting this field to ContinueOnFailure. Then, if the initial payment amount fails, PayPal adds the failed payment amount to the outstanding balance for this recurring payment profile.
When you specify ContinueOnFailure, a success code is returned to you in the CreateRecurringPaymentsProfile response and the recurring payments profile is activated for scheduled billing immediately. You should check your IPN messages or PayPal account for updates of the payment status.
CancelOnFailure – If this field is not set or you set it to CancelOnFailure, PayPal creates the recurring payment profile, but places it into a pending status until the initial payment completes. If the initial payment clears, PayPal notifies you by IPN that the pending profile has been activated. If the payment fails, PayPal notifies you by IPN that the pending profile has been canceled.
Once you are into the regular billing cycle, Be sure to assign a value to MAXFAILEDPAYMENTS, which is the number of scheduled payments that can fail before the profile is automatically suspended. An IPN message is sent to the merchant when the specified number of failed payments is reached.
Then, AUTOBILLOUTAMT Indicates whether you would like PayPal to automatically bill the outstanding balance amount in the next billing cycle. The outstanding balance is the total amount of any previously failed scheduled payments that have yet to be successfully paid. It is one of the following values:
NoAutoBill – PayPal does not automatically bill the outstanding balance.
AddToNextBilling – PayPal automatically bills the outstanding balance.
it is up to you how to handle profiles that suspend.

Paypal recurring payment IPN messages

I'm unsure as to what IPN messages I should be expecting when a recurring payment is setup through the Express Checkout API.
The period is three months with the first three months free.
When the customer signs up, I expect an IPN message with transaction type (txn_type) recurring_payment_profile_created.
After three months, I expect a message with txn_type = recurring_payment and a payment_status. As far as I can tell, I should not be receiving one of these until after the end of the trial period.
But what message will I receive when a customer cancels the recurring payment? The only likely candidate for txn_type I can see is subscr_cancel, but this is listed with other subscr_x types, and I understand that subscriptions are distinct from recurring payments.
Will I receive an IPN with txn_type = subscr_cancel when a customer cancels are recurring payment, or will I receive something else (and if so, what will I receive)?
You will receive an IPN for the profile creation when the user signs up. You will also receive an IPN for each recurring payment when they are processed. When the profile is cancelled, you will receive another IPN for this. You will get an IPN with txn_type=recurring_payment_profile_cancel.

Paypal IPN - Differentiating between Recurring Payment and Initial Payment

I've created a recurring payments profile on Paypal setting an initial payment.
When I receive the IPN, the txn_id is the same for both the initial payment and the recurring payment. I would like to know if there's a way of differentiating between them.
I've noticed that when I receive the recurring payment, there's this variable "period_type= Regular". This doesn't appear in the initial payment IPN. Is this a good way to make the distinction?
Thanks
I think you might be getting confused with what you're getting in the IPN's.
When the profile is first created, you'll get an IPN with the profile ID of the profile that was just created, and you would only get a transaction ID if you included the original amount to be charged. The transaction ID here is only for that original amount. If you didn't have that all you would get is the profile ID.
If your recurring payments are scheduled to start on the same day as well you will get an additional IPN for the recurring payment and that will have its own transaction ID.

PayPal Subscription Payment Failed

When a subscription payment fails, PayPal will retry for n times.
What transaction type (subscr_cancel or subscr_eot) is sent back via IPN, after all retries fail?
The specifics depend on the PayPal product you're using, although the logic works similar(`ish) across both Website Payments Standard subscription buttons and Express Checkout Recurring Payments (via the CreateRecurringPaymentsProfile API):
This depends on whether you've set MAXFAILEDPAYMENTS or not. If MAXFAILEDPAYMENTS > 0 is set, it will cancel the subscription after n number of attempts and you'll receive a subscr_cancel. If you have it set to MAXFAILEDPAYMENTS=0, you'll get recurring_payment_skipped and the recurring payment will be marked as having an outstanding balance. If you specify AUTOBILLOUTAMT=AutoBillAmt, the outstanding balance will be added to the next billing cycle.
I would suggest taking a look at https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=developer/e_howto_html_IPNandPDTVariables#id091EB0901HT which lists all IPN variables, including the ones for recurring payments.
Paypal returns subscr_failed for this case, and the possible return values are:
subscr_signup: subscription sign-up.
subscr_cancel: subscription cancellation.
subscr_failed: subscription payment failure.
subscr_payment: subscription payment.
subscr_eot: subscription’s end-of-term.
subscr_modify: subscription modification.
Please click here for further clarification.