I am testing payments via paypal sandbox and I noticed that the txn_id passed via the ipn is different from the transaction number the "buyer" gets. I also noticed that the transaction number for both buyer and seller is different.
Is it a bug on the sandbox site? or just the way it is?
How am I able to track transactions pertaining to specific buyers later if both the transaction numbers are different?
Thanks in advance.
It's intended functionality -- the buyer and seller will have different transaction IDs. It's the same way on the live site.
Related
How is it possible?
txn_id value seller gets (by paypal ipn) is different than transaction number buyer gets on screen when he makes an order.
Are there two different id's for each transaction (client and shop)? or truely txn_id i am receiving is wrong?
Thanks a lot guys!
If the buyer is paying with PayPal directly (i.e. Express Checkout) then the buyer will get one transaction ID and you will get another. It's confusing but it's how PayPal chose to do it.
My use case: buyer buys service from seller, our app facilitates and guaranties the transaction. It should work in the way that buyer sends the money to us, we check if buyer received the service, in that case we send the money to seller. Otherwise we refund the buyer. Important is to have 2 payments solutions for the buyer: paypal account and card payment without account. The whole use case is international.
I'm testing this in sandbox environment.
Possible solutions:
Adaptive payments - Delayed chained payments:
Works fine. Disadvantage is that the seller must grant us permission so that the refund works. The problem here is that the permission api is under maintenance, so i am waiting for all the changes https://developer.paypal.com/docs/classic/permissions-service/integration-guide/PermissionsWhatsNew/ . Is this big deal?
Express checkout Authorize/Capture + Mass Pay:
Works OK. Advantage here is that in case of refund (void after authorize) we don't have to pay the fee. Disadvantage here is that I'm not sure if authorize holds the funds, so that even buyer without account paying with card cannot touch the money and I can capture them in 3 days. Another issue is that when I authorize 40$ from PayPal account with 30$ balance, I capture the whole 40$. How come?
I have no previous experience with PayPal I now the app should work on international scale. Please if you have any tips, articles or practical experience with this use case share it!
EDIT:
Delayed Chained Payment is great. I solved the issue by making my application the secondary receiver and the seller primary one. Seller must grant a permision to my app in case of refunds, but there is no better way.
However, now the issue is that when buyer pays without account (Guest Payment - with card) all receivers must be Business or Premier account holders:
Each receiver of a guest payment must be a verified PayPal business or premier account holder.
Source: https://developer.paypal.com/docs/classic/api/adaptive-payments/Pay_API_Operation/
The issue is that in sanbox it works even if the primary receiver (seller) is NOT Business or Premiere account. What is wrong?
1) Do you have yourself set as the primary receiver? If so, I don't think you would need to have permissions granted unless you had already run ExecutePayment to push the money to the secondary receiver account. If you're refunding before that happens you shouldn't need permissions (though I haven't tested this specifically, so I could be wrong.)
2) Regarding the fee, if you refund a payment that went through Adaptive then PayPal would refund the fee back to you, so you're not really gaining anything here as far as that goes.
The authorizations can be tricky. I theory, the authorized funds should be guaranteed for 3 days, but you still capture within 30 days (or maybe 60) even though it may or may not have funds available at that point (it would simply succeed or fail).
You could run a Reauthorization after the first 3 days to get yourself an additional 3 days of guaranteed funds, but I don't think you can do that more than once.
Much of that depends on the card issuing banks, though. Even though PayPal's docs may specify certain things regarding how authorizations work, if the card issuing bank has different rules associated with their credit cards that could throw things off.
As for why a $40 auth would work when the PayPal balance is only $30, I think that may be because of secondary funding sources. If you have bank account and/or credit cards setup in the account, PayPal would assume it can pull from those sources when the time comes to capture if the PayPal funds alone don't cover it. Depending on your use-case this may or may not be ideal.
You are mixing multiple concepts with this question. There are different PayPal PAYMENT products (adaptive with chained payments vs express checkout) and then there is the question of authorizations vs immediate payments.
Agree with Andrew that fees in the refund case is not the right basis to choose a solution. Much more significant is what the sender & receivers will see in their accounts (payments to/from you, or from/to the other party?), simplicity/reliability of the overall system (can an error on your side cause failed or multiple payments?), liability, and even regulatory questions (e.g., are you acting as an escrow service?).
If PayPal gives you an auth from a PayPal buyer it means that PayPal guarantees (with certain very limited exceptions) that it will honor a capture of those funds within the specified time and amount limits (which can vary with the specific scenario). PayPal might make that guarantee based on the sender's balance, credit cards, bank accounts, or combination of factors. You as the recipient needn't care - that is between PayPal and the buyer. (And it's PayPal's limits/conditions which apply to that auth, NOT the conditions of the sender's underlying credit card/bank/etc; PayPal protects you from that complexity.)
In contrast if the auth is from a card network rather than a PayPal account (ie the user gives card info rather than using a PP account, whether or not PayPal is your payment processor), then that network specifies and controls the conditions of the auth.
PS: if you are waiting for Adaptive Payments changes, you may have a long wait. Release 89 was quite some time ago and PayPal's priorities are on the RESTful APIs, not Adaptive.
I need to send a cart to PayPal for payment using the FORM integration method where the cart value has already had a part payment made against it, usually by another means, like 'on account' or a gift card for example.
Is there an accepted way to do this?
The only thing I can find is sending the already paid amount as a discount amount but that's not 100% ideal as it isn't in reality a discount.
The other option I came up with was to just send a single line cart with an item of 'Balance of your order XXXX' but this is also not ideal as the customer wouldn't then see the actual items listed when on PayPal.
Many thank.
I can think of 3 PayPal features that you might possibly use to do this:
Authorization and Capture
Authorization & Capture, or Auth/Capture, allows you to authorize the availability of funds for a transaction but delay the capture of funds until a later time. This is often useful for merchants who have a delayed order fulfillment process. Authorize & Capture also enables merchants to modify the original authorization amount due to order changes occurring after the initial order is placed, such as taxes, shipping or gratuity.
Recurring Payments
PayPal Recurring Payments allows you to bill a buyer for a fixed amount of money on a fixed schedule.
Note You can also setup another form of recurring payments using reference transactions to handle payments for varying amounts of money on a varying schedule.
Reference Transactions
A reference transaction is a financial transaction from which subsequent transactions can be derived. For example, a buyer purchases an item on your site, and you use the PayPal transaction ID or reference transaction ID later to initiate another transaction. Reference transactions and billing agreements also enable you to handle recurring payments for varying amounts of money on a varying schedule.
You can read more about these features here: https://developer.paypal.com/docs/classic/admin/intro/
Yes i know this question looks similar to Add funds to PayPal from Bank Account , but I have a legitimate circumstance why that answer is not acceptable.
I have many recipients that I need to automatically pay out each day, and need my paypal account to have suitable funds (while only making ONE call to my bank account). My bank account has transaction limits and I therefore can't afford to make 10+ withdrawals a day.
I plan on using Mass Payments api, does anyone know if this makes one lump withdrawal for the total amount of all the payments combined that are wrapped up in a mass payment?
Alternatively, does anyone know of an api way of funding a paypal account from a bank account?
Thanks
Unfortunately, there isn't any way to fund your PayPal account from your bank through the API. MassPay won't automatically do it either. You would need to have the funds already available in PayPal for MassPay to work.
Well I asked though the paypal site, but have got no answer. I got the famous email with "Your question has been received. To review the status of your ticket, click on the link below." with no link in it. So I'm hoping I can get an answer here.
This is what I sent them:
It appears you have multiple APIs available and I'm having a hard time figuring out what the each API is capable of doing exactly. I want to create a site that in short, brings buyers and seller together. Here is what I am looking for:
Buyer and Seller make an agreement through site.
Buyer sends money, seller is unable to touch it yet though. (Basically can paypal secure a payment?)
Seller gets notice of money sent and notice to ship product ship product.
Alternative paths for step 4:
Buyer gets product and there are no issues, the buyer confirms the transaction and payment is released to the seller and a set % is sent to me. (Can paypal split payments?)
Seller never ships product or problem arise in shipping that cannot be resolved, paypal returns money to buyer without penalty. (Can paypal return funds without penalty?)
Product arrives, but has issues. There will be set penalties for said issues. Penalities are returned to the buyer, then rest is sent to seller and set % sent to me. (can paypal enact a penalty?)
Any general information or answers to my specific questions would be greatly appreciated. thank you for your time.
For #2, since you're the service provider, you'll be liable for product delivery. Paypal won't do it for you.
An ideal workflow would be:
Your buyers pay you
You withold the payment
Buyer okays the shipment
You keep your cut and pay the rest to the seller
If you have to refund your buyer (order cancellation, or some other reason), you can use paypal's refund api
To summarize, paypal is just a payment processor and would ensure that payment reaches from endpoint A to endpoint B. How you use paypal for your particular use cases is totally upto you.