Customer registered without completing company filed

[ray-the-otter]

Hi,

Can some one help me understand how the following has happened?

I have used the Zen Cart Admin to make Company Name compulsory for registering with the site. I have tested this and it works for me as it should.

Yet a customer has managed to register with the site and the Company Name filed is empty. (No purchase made)

How can this be?
What/where do I look to see what has gone wrong?
Is it a sign of a problem elsewhere?

virgin install of version 1.5.0, not an upgraded site. No debug files, No server error logs.
following Add-Ons: Category Dressing, Ezpages Footer Columns, lightbox, Include and Exclude Tax in Prices, Google Analytics

[stevesh]

The usual reply to something like this is that they registered through Paypal and not on your site, but you said that no payment was made. Are you using Paypal, and if so, Standard or Express ? May we see a link to the site ? If you created/acquired a custom template, does it work if you switch temporarily back to Classic ?

[swguy]

Go to admin->configuration->minimum values, and be sure the Company setting (i.e. minimum length of the company field) is greater than 0. It defaults to 0.

[ray-the-otter]

@stevesh: hi, that is what I had thought, but there is no record of a sale via the PayPal Admin or the Zen Cart Admin. (Site is set up to use both Express and Pro (PayFlow))
@swguy: hi, it was set to a value of 3

I have checked the emails, and there is also no email that you normally get when a person registers.
Checking the DB via cpanel shows that in the field for company name = NULL

I have discovered the only way a compulsory field can be left empty is if it is deleted by an admin. The admin logs show this was not done.

I would give a link to the site, but it is not my site and the owner does not wish to have a public link to the site.

The registered address of this user doesn't seem suspicious. She has registered her address as being in a suburb of a small town in the south of England.

[ray-the-otter]

I have just done a winmerge of a backup take now to a backup from Jan 2013. No changes except the minor ones I have made. I don't have a clue how it's happened and it's worrying. Tempted to suggest the site owner blocks said account, but don't want to over dramatise the situation.

[swguy]

Try turning off JavaScript in your browser and creating an account with no company name. Try switching to the default template, as @stevesh suggested.

[ray-the-otter]

hi, tested in IE, FF and Chrome, switched to the Classic template and disabled all Java & Javascript. I am still unable to register while leaving the Company Name field blank. Rather than the javascript popup saying " Please enter a company name " I get an on-page warning (styled by messageStackWarning) of the same " Please enter a company name "

I have no idea how they bypassed this? Or why the website did not email the owner when they registered? Any other ideas or tests or where to look?

[ray-the-otter]

As I am totally unable to recreate this, what are people opinions on this?

Should I be worried and suggest the owner blocks the user? or just put it down to one of IT's typical unexplainable quirks?

[stevesh]

Personally, I wouldn't worry about it until it happened again. If I were that customer, though, I wouldn't mind being contacted and asked to help figure out what happened. It's possible she did enter a company name and it didn't make it intoi the DB for some reason.

[ray-the-otter]

Hi all, the site in question has had 5 more people register without the website either

a) emailing the store owner
b) the mandatory Company Name field (at a valve of 5) being left blank

Given stevesh's explanation of how the mandatory Company Name field can be bypassed by a customer using PayPal Express

c) No paypal transaction.

I have in fact (i think) uncovered why this has been happening. I believe it is the way the checkout flows when a customer selects Express Checkout.

When a visitor adds an item to the cart, in this example 'Widget A' priced at £10 and selects Express Checkout method, they are taken off site to the paypal page.
From this they can ether select to pay via their paypal account or via PayPal via their credit card. Once the buyer has done what they need to do, they are then returned to the Shipping Pages of Zen Cart, where they presented with the shipping cost. For example, another £10... From this, if they proceed to the Confirmation page they are then presented with Costs plus VAT

so they see

Widget A = £10
Shipping = £10
VAT @20% = £4

Total £24

At this point, if you abandon the cart before clicking 'Confirm Order'. The zen cart store shows the symptoms of what I have been seeing

that is
a) No email from the store as PayPal has created the buyers account on the Zen cart Store
b) Company Name bypassed
c) No PayPal Sale.........

So my next question is.......... can someone please please help me fix this???

How can I change the checkout flow so that when someone chooses PayPal Express, they don't go to paypal first then back to shipping and then see the addition of tax in the confirmation page, causing this cart abandonment.

that is to NOT show the PayPal Express button on the register page or on the Your Shopping Cart Contents.

Add stuff to cart > Your Shopping Cart Contents > Step 1 of 3 - Delivery Information > Step 2 of 3 - Payment Information > THEN Select PayPal

I hope this makes sense and someone can help

p.s. have others experienced this problem?