Paypal error when people try to check out

[simonari]

When customers are about to check out (when they press the final pay now button) they get a paypal error. Similar error has been covered here:



http://www.e-junkie.com/bb/topic/6165



Please someone from e-junkie contact me and help me with this issue as well.



However I use paypal standard, not paypal payments advanced.

[E-junkie_Guru]

It appears you have not been taking any sales through PayPal since you started selling items priced in GBP, so I'm wondering if your PayPal account settings may be blocking payments sent in a currency you don't already hold in your PayPal account balances.



Log into your PayPal account and go to Profile > My Selling Tools > Block Payments:

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/customerprofileweb?cmd=_profile-pref



We recommend setting everything there to No or un-checked, and remember to scroll to the bottom and click Save to apply any changes.

[simonari]

Hi, thanks for your quick reply. I actually had to change usd payments to gbp After the error, because I needed to use Google Checkout for customers to be able to purchase my e-goods.



Now I enabled paypal to accept all currencies, my friend tried to check out, and still got the error message. He is based in UK, so actually tried to pay in pounds. He said that paypal doesn't allow him to check out with his paypal account and asks him to enter another card.

[E-junkie_Guru]

Ah yes, if you're based in the UK and signed up for Google Checkout, they would require pricing in GBP.



When buyers proceed to checkout on PayPal's site, they should see a choice of two payment options: "Have a PayPal account?" (where they can log into their PayPal account) and "Don't have a PayPal account?" (where they can provide card info to pay without using a PayPal account). If PayPal's site detects a previous PayPal login cookie in the buyer's browser, the "Have a PayPal account?" section would be expanded by default; otherwise, they would show the "Don't have a PayPal account?" section expanded. Buyers who already have a PayPal account cannot use a card that's associated with their PayPal account in the "Don't Have a PayPal account?" section; they must log into their PayPal account to pay with that card.



As ours is a centrally-managed system shared in common with all sellers using our system, it's not really possible for our system to send your orders to checkout with PayPal any differently than we do for any other seller. Since we've been integrated with PayPal for years, haven't changed anything with that recently, and haven't received any other reports of similar problems from other sellers, that rules out any general problem with our system's PayPal integration.



We've also examined your own PayPal-related account settings at our end and verified those are fine, presuming the PayPal Email in your E-junkie Profile is an email address listed in your PayPal account > Profile > Update Emails screen. We tested some of your cart buttons and were able to proceed from the cart to checkout with PayPal and log into our PayPal account right up to the point where we'd actually click the Pay Now button, so that indicates we're passing your cart orders to PayPal correctly.



The problem you described is occurring during checkout on PayPal's site, at which point we have no control nor oversight over things, so we can't tell what's happening there, but the problem must be something peculiar to your own PayPal account or settings there, or possibly some broader issue or bug at PayPal's end.



If you've already set all your Block Payments/Payment Receiving Preferences as we advised above, you might look into your PayPal account > Profile > My Selling Tools > Managing Risk and Fraud:

https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/customerprofileweb?cmd=_rf-control-summary

In there, see if you may have added any Risk Control filters to block payments by Country or Maximum Amount of payment.



Also check your PayPal account > Profile > My Selling Tools > Website Preferences:

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/customerprofileweb?cmd=_profile-website-payments

In there, make sure you have set Auto return: OFF, Block Non-encrypted Website Payment: OFF, and PayPal Account Optional: ON.



If you've verified all the settings recommended above and are still seeing problems, we'd recommend contacting PayPal support to sort out the problem at their end, and provide as much specific detail as you can about what steps the buyer is taking up to the point when things go wrong, along with any actual error messages they get -- e.g., if the buyer gets some sort of error when they try to log into their PayPal account, mention that and copy-paste the exact error message they get. It may help to have a friend use their PayPal account to perform a test checkout with you in person, so you can copy-paste any error messages they get into your email to PayPal support. If the test payment actually goes through, you can just refund it afterwards.

[simonari]

Yes, my friend is doing exactly that - trying to check out but is not able to. When he presses PAY NOW he gets this error message:



An error occurred whilst processing your request.



Before submitting this again, log in and check your account history to insure that the transaction didn't complete.



Others get the option to pay with another card, but that doesn't allow them to check out either.



By the way, my friend is able to purchase things from other sites using paypal, but he can't check out through my site. Also, he tells that the design of the paypal payment page which he gets redirected to through my site is different from the Old System.

[E-junkie_Guru]

Our system cannot be doing anything differently for you than for any of our other thousands of sellers, none of whom are reporting a problem, and your problem is occurring at PayPal's end during checkout on their site where we have no influence over things, so you'd need to work with PayPal Support to report the problem and sort it out with them. If the first rep you contact doesn't seem to be willing or able to help, request a supervisor or escalation of your issue. I'll also be filing a ticket with PayPal MTS (Merchant Technical Services) and Cc:ing you on that to keep you informed of any progress along that avenue.

[simonari]

Thank you very much for that. I keep writing to mts but they don't help me. Keep saying everything is okay and that it's the customers' individual accounts issues, which of course cannot be the case.



Also if you can, is it possible for me to transfer money to your paypal account so that you could attempt to purchase an item from my store? This will enable you to see what is the problem. Paypal keeps blaming e-junkie for this error - they say the paypal button was generated by e-junkie so it's not paypal's fault.

[E-junkie_Guru]

Unfortunately, PayPal's front-line support agents sometimes seem eager to presume that anything non-PayPal they see involved in the purchase process must be the source of any problems and then decline to pursue the matter further at their end; fortunately, the MTS agent who responded to the ticket I filed for you seems to properly understand the nature of the situation here and is willing to test and investigate further from PayPal's end.



As you may have seen in email replies to the ticket I opened with MTS, they are requesting your assurance that you will refund any test payments they make in attempting to trace this problem. Just reply here (or to the email I sent you) to confirm you will do so, and we'll pass that along to them, so they can proceed with placing test orders.

[simonari]

Yes, of course I will refund any payments that were made to check this issue. Thank you very much for your help - without you this issue could not possibly be solved!

[simonari]

Wow, the ticket you raised got some real response, not like my attempts to contact MTS:) They did find a possible problem - there are two accounts registered with the same email address (although I have never registered another paypal account in my life). So they advised me to change the primary email. I did and surprise surprise, my friend's order went through!



The order was made in USD, through the link I sent him. He will also try to check out through the GBP links on my website. The MTS should still check the issue by going through the order system - I will refund the money.



Also, is it possible for them to tell how another paypal account was created sharing the same email, as I haven't created it myself.



Thanks again!

[E-junkie_Guru]

I've updated that ticket I opened with MTS with your assurance to refund any test transactions, though it seems you may have sorted out the source of the problem already.



I'd thought it impossible for multiple PayPal accounts to reference the same email address, so I'm wondering if possibly some glitch in PayPal US/UK account integration could have wound up giving you two separate accounts (one UK-based, the other US-based) rather than a single merged account.

[simonari]

Thank you for that. My friend was also able to successfully place a GBP order. Would you please ask them to investigate what secondary account is opened with the same email address? If they find a duplicate one that was, as you said, automatically created, can they merge them together to avoid future problems?