PayPal IPN and Credit cards - No?

I was attracted by the PayPal feature that my customers would have the option to pay using a debit or credit card instead of setting up a Paypal account. Since launching my client's Zen Cart store I have had several problems where IPN has failed to work resulting in lost orders.

I have just read the FAQ:

https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=28

and just wanted to clarify the point:

If the customer pays without making a PayPal account and declines the invitation to make one, your store sits in limbo and never gets the order (due to a bug in PayPal's logic, which they've not fixed yet).

Does this effectively mean I cannot use Paypal Web Payments Standard + IPN to take debit or credit card payments with Zen Cart? :dontgetit

You may want to install the PayPal Express Checkout module (see FAQ and appropriate forum).

Works a treat for me. Customers still have the option to use their own PP account or just a credit / debit card.

Just make sure you read all the instructions on the PP site.

Frank

https://www.zencart.frnt.org

Both the PayPal Website Payments Standard and the Express Checkout options allow customers to pay with credit card or debit card, as well as with funds already in their PayPal account, or even from a checking account connected to their PayPal account.

Thx for responding :smile:

@frank18

Does the IPN work for you using Express if a customer chooses to pay with a credit card?. My IPN failures using Standard were both card payments.

@DrByte

I guess the FAQ is referring to the fact that PayPal doesn't return visitors to the site automatically if they pay by card?

I use the PayPal standard module. To confirm what Dr. Byte said, our customers frequently use credit cards without setting up a PayPal account.

I've corrected a typo in the FAQ. It was meant to say that if the customer doesn't already have a PayPal account, then when PayPal invites them to create one after they've completed payment, if they don't choose yes or no (ie: they close their browser instead, or click a link to go somewhere else, etc) then PayPal never sends the payment confirmation to your store, and thus your store leaves the transaction orphaned.

Using Express prevents this because the payment confirmation is provided immediately when the payment is received, not after-the-fact the way the Standard/IPN module has to do it.

PayPal has been notified of this problem, but has not published any plans on how to respond to it.

Thx for clearing that up DrByte.

I will take a look at Express and I understand the benefits for customers with a Paypal account, but if the customer chooses to pay by card, is the IPN handled any differently? I mean, is it still vulnerable to the above problem?

You install either Express or IPN. IPN has the bug mentioned, Express does not.

Excellent!. Many thx gjh42.