Sudden Foreign PayPal trouble

We've been running our live Zen cart store for 2 years now and have upgraded a few month ago to 1.38a. No problems after the update either.

However, for the last week or two, something very strange is going on: non-US customers cannot checkout via PayPal anymore. All foreign orders come in as "check/money order", which is the only other payment module enabled in the cart and it is set to only allow US as a payment zone (PayPal express has no zones set).

From talking to a couple customers, they "think" they paid via PayPal, but when checking their accounts, no money was transferred, nor does the IPN record anything.

I've checked the IPN with the IPN check tool and it works fine (Communication = ok for both CURL and fsockopen). There are no errors etc when processing US payments. I've used a test customer account with a foreign address and I get to the PayPal screen just fine. (I have not fully completed the transaction, because my PP account is US based.) Nor do I as a foreign customer even have the option to even pay via check.

I'm at loss here and I have no clue what else to check. Have there been any changes to PayPal by any chance? What else could cause this? ANY help is appreciated!

Andrea

I'm not aware of any changes on PayPal's end that would specifically cause what you're describing.
However, I've seen something similar to what you mention getting triggered by changes made by the storeowner in their coupons/gift-certificates/taxes/currencies settings. Have you been making any alterations in your admin coinciding with the timing when these problems suddenly started?

DrByte:

I'm not aware of any changes on PayPal's end that would specifically cause what you're describing.
However, I've seen something similar to what you mention getting triggered by changes made by the storeowner in their coupons/gift-certificates/taxes/currencies settings. Have you been making any alterations in your admin coinciding with the timing when these problems suddenly started?

No, the only change that was made AFTER we noticed it, was to change the default country setting on the sign-up form from US to blank, because we thought it was "human error", i.e. a customer signing up with US as his home country when it was in fact Korea. But they keep coming in for any country and when customers sign up with their correct country.

I suggest trying this at least to see whether it helps at all: http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showpost.php?p=818117&postcount=38

Thanks, I've just made the code change, because this morning I did disable the moneyorder mod just to see if it would trigger anything different. Without the code change it did not (just had gotten another foreign order in that claims check as payment.) I've also enabled debug for PP express, maybe it helps to shed some light on this mystery. :)

Andrea

Here is an update. Since I've disabled the moneyorder module, one of our customers in Canada was kind enough to provide me with details of her order process. I was able to recreate it using my own foreign test account. Here are her details:

1. I'm at my shopping cart with one item. I click on the "checkout with paypal" button and am taken to the paypal login page.

2. I am asked to confirm my shipping information and payment method.

3. When I click next, I am taken back to the store to the step 2 of 3 page, Payment information. My total is 30 dollars. There is space to redeem a coupon or give special instructions. I click continue

4. here I get a prompt saying I must choose a payment method, although I have not seen anywhere along the way that I can identify a payment method, nor can I see one now. I try to continue but keep getting the same message. [Note: while recreating the process, the cart show a big "error" message, see attached screenshot image.]

5. I go back to the shopping cart and click on "go to checkout" button - not the paypal button this time.

6. I am taken to step 1 of 3 - delivery information. My total is 33.95. i click continue.

7. I am at step 2 of 3, payment information. I now notice under payment method it has a tiny paypal sign, but it's not a button. It seems paypal is the only choice, so I click continue...

8. i am at step 3 of three, and payment method is still saying paypal, but my total is now 30 dollars even. I click continue.

9. I am taken to the paypal login site (this looks promising!)

10. I log in and the payment is all set up and everything is confirmed: Order number xxx [ommitted].

In addition, what sticks out here as well is the price differences during the steps. I've also queried the db to check when the last error-free foreign PayPal order came in, March 1st. After that, it went haywire.

Andrea

aeibc:

In addition, what sticks out here as well is the price differences during the steps. I've also queried the db to check when the last error-free foreign PayPal order came in, March 1st. After that, it went haywire.
I'm most interested in what settings may have changed since March 1st to trigger something like this.

I wish I could tell you something definite, but most of the admin tasks had been reduced to simply maintenance, because everything was working smoothly! Those tasks include the simple stuff like adding/changing inventory, setting up specials, etc.

The last "major" change involving settings was to disable and uninstall the offsite payment module in January. But the cart still worked fine for two month thereafter, so in my opinion it should not had an effect.

Changed some wording in a language file about a week ago due to noticing foreign orders using the check option. At that point I did confirm my settings to ensure check/money orders were only valid for US customers and it made me realize something else is going on. Since I'm not the person who actually fills the orders, I did not pay it any attention before that.

Andrea

I've not been able to consistently recreate the problem you describe, but you're not the first to report it. Various different suggestions have been made in many forum discussions, some by me, some by others running their own shops. I'm not sure exactly how to direct you. But ... I can say that there are a number of huge improvements in the (not yet released) v1.3.9 version which should hopefully fix the PayPal problem you're talking about. It's not a difficult upgrade, as it doesn't touch a lot of templates. The release date isn't set, but if you subscribe yourself to the News & Announcements section of the forum, you'll be emailed when it's ready. And, at that time there'll be a discussion area for any questions related to it, if needed.

That's great to know an update is forthcoming. However, what do you suggest we do in the meantime? I've just seen a message from another person that appears to have a similar problem where PayPal is avail for everyone and a zone restriction in the MO mod. Since it appeared somewhat out-of-the-blue it strongly suggest that there has been some type of change that PayPal made, maybe so small that it they thought it wouldn't warrant a public announcement.

I did find one concern that coincides with my timeline ... remember I said the last successful foreign order came in March 1st. After some more digging, so did the first "bad" order by a customer in France. I noticed his first name on the order screen (and in the db) came across as "Fran&§ois" or something like that (in place of a small letter c w/cedilla, I already corrected it). Maybe it is just a coincidence, maybe an inadvertent SQL injection?

Andrea

No, that's not an SQL injection. It's just a character-set problem for non-english characters not being recognized by your server when coming back from PayPal.