PayPal IPN Gateway

[Ridley]

Just a shot in the dark.
Is anyone out there using the IPN gateway to process and keep track of "Send Money" transactions?

I've been using it for a few years as an option for payment for various consulting fees. However, the IPN gateway never ever returns the 'comments or memo' fields when a client sends money to my email.

It tracks and sends back all of the other information, but never the comments (or 'notes' as they are called in the Web form)
Anyone else experienced this?

Thanks

Ridley

[drauk]

Not such a shot in the dark!

DSC's sister company, Krescendo, is a certified eBay system integrator. In conversations with one of the guys there it seems we have exactly the same problem when using the eBay API. We've finally got the name of the person who is in charge of this stuff at head office and we've started discussions to try to get the comments field added.

[Ridley]

Hahaha, you gotta love this section on PPRuNe.

It never fails to amaze me.

When/If you find out, please post it here, I'm sure it will help others.

Thanks drauk...

Glad to know you can post almost any question in the world here, and it gets answered.

(How much of a shot in the dark was this? I had 7 emails in to 7 different departments at PayPal, 6 postings on their dev site, and 4 other websites devoted to technical development for paypal. Not one response by any of those avenues, and its been at least 3 weeks.)

Ridley

[amanoffewwords]

Are you using send money from the paypal site? Only that I use Paypal one of my sites that holds classifieds adverts and "it" sends me the memo/comment field in every payment made through paypal.

The raw data I get is something like:

Passed variables :

--- POST VARS ---
txn_type = web_accept
payment_date = 21:32:25 Oct 24, 2004 PDT
last_name = <deleted>
item_name = Advertising Fee - indiv (#146)
payment_gross =
mc_currency = GBP
business = <deleted>
payment_type = instant
payer_status = verified
verify_sign = <deleted>
payer_email = <deleted>
tax = 0.00
txn_id = <deleted>
receiver_email = <deleted>
quantity = 1
first_name = <deleted>
payer_id = <deleted>
receiver_id = <deleted>
memo = As agreed via email, I will be listing 2 ads.
item_number = 146
payment_status = Completed
payment_fee =
mc_fee = 0.88
mc_gross = 19.99
custom = indiv
notify_version = 1.6

I also get a formatted version of the above sent separately.

So it is possible.....

[Ridley]

amanoffewwords:

Are you getting that information from SEND MONEY transactions that happen through PayPal, or through your own transactions (on your website) that are then processed through PayPal?

Thanks

(The big difference is memo/notes always come through when the site owner uses the IPN gateway, and creates a way to pay on their site. The problem I'm having and several others are having is when transactions are started and finished through the paypal website ONLY.)

Ridley

[amanoffewwords]

Hi,

No, my transactions are from a website via paypal and back (via IPN).

But I was interested in the issue since I'm trying to convince a customer of mine to add paypal to her site (*) - using buy me now buttons created on the paypal site, so I may encounter the problem at some point.

Cheers
Charles


(*) this has, of course, nothing to do with the fact that paypal developers get a commission for each sale made on a paypal enabled site (up to £750)

[Ridley]

Good for you Charles.

It's always nice when you can make a little extra money from PayPal, after all they make so much from us. <g>

Ridley

[Ridley]

Well, it seems PayPal finally responded to one of my queries on one of their support sites.

Hello,

This issue should be resolved. Please let me know if you are still having any unexpected behaviors with this feature.

Stephen Ivaskevicius
PayPal/eBay, Inc.
www.paypal.com/pdn

Gonna test it to see if he's telling the truth.

Ridley

[Ridley]

PayPal can be brutal.

The paypal guy emailed me personally after I responded to him about it STILL NOT WORKING, saying "Oh, Send Money payments, yeah that one's not fixed or working still."

ARGGGH!

Ridley

[Ridley]

Ok, answers finally here.

After several (at least 40) emails to the different tech departments, (finally getting to the coding departments) and endless postings on different paypal supported forums around the world, it appears I finally have my answer.

When someone/anyone makes a payment to a company via the "Send Money" function of the paypal website, the comments/notes/memo field that the customer fills in, is NEVER sent through the IPN gateway. It is sent if the customer specifically sends you a payment through YOUR website (since the information your passing paypal is sent back to you, the notes show up) all notes are shown in the IPN gateway.

They said, this has never worked, and has never sent any comments to the IPN gateway from a "Send Money" payment.

GREAT NEWS!!!! God forbid anyone ever sends a payment via "Send Money" Any and all tracking via custom fields or comments is nil.

David, if you ever find anything different out, please post it.

Thanks

Ridley