Problem with PayPal payment

[p962ac1]

Hi

We have just gone properly live with the Grand Illusions Toy Shop, http://www.grand-illusions.com/acatalog/index.html, and the first few orders have gone through with no problem. (We are capturing the credit card data on the Actinic SSL server, and processing the information manually at this end).

However one payment seems to have gone wrong - they are the first person to use PayPal. When I click on the ORDER tab, I can see at top level that under the PAYMENT heading, it says ERROR (PSP) instead of PENDING. When I open up the order to have a look at PROGRESS AND PAYMENTS, and I click on VIEW PAYMENTS I see the message
''The total downloaded in the payment authorisation, £316.90, does not match the total downloaded with the order, £308.90."

We have a 10% coupon discount running at the moment, although that does not match the discrepancy.

Anyone come across this before?

Hendrik

[p962ac1]

Hmmm, I am puzzled by this one...

All the error messages are still there in Actinic, but the payment from the customer has arrived via PayPal.

The amount that PayPal has sent is £316.90, but the order should have come to £308.90.

The difference is £8, and as I write this, I can see what might be happening. Previously, if someone had bought stuff from the old shop (PayPal only) there was a fixed p&p charge depending on the value of the order. An order this size would have incurred an £8 p&p charge. That is still set up in my PayPal preferences. So I think PayPal is adding the £8.

I had thought that using PayPal via Actinic would be more like sending someone money via PayPal, where it simply sends the amount you say. But it would seem that is not the case.

I may have solved my own problem, but if anyone has anything further to add on this issue, I would be most grateful.

My own beef with PayPal is that for last 8 months or so, certain orders have been coming through without the VAT added. Mostly European countries, but also the UK. Seems to be random, but despite a lot of e-mails, they can't/won't fix it.

Thanks for reading this far...!

Hendrik

[RuralWeb]

That is still set up in my PayPal preferences

You need to clear these for paypal to process the payments correctly.

[pinbrook]

My own beef with PayPal is that for last 8 months or so, certain orders have been coming through without the VAT added. Mostly European countries, but also the UK. Seems to be random, but despite a lot of e-mails, they can't/won't fix it.

doesn't paypal take the amount sent to them by Actinic?

thus if VAt isn't working it is the configuration within actinic at fault not paypal. Take a look at the products that aren't adding VAT, or check your vat tables

[p962ac1]

reply to Jo...

Sorry Jo - I did not make that clear.

The problems with PayPal were before I was using Actinic - I just had the PayPal Shopping Basket. My VAT tables were all correct, but I would get these random orders that came through without VAT being added. PayPal admitted there was a problem at their end, but never got round to fixing it.

Problem was I didn't feel I could go back to customers and ask for the VAT that had been missed off their order, so I just had to lower my prices on the invoice until I got the total (with VAT now) to match the amount they had sent.

This was costing me money, and was a powerful incentive to find another solution, which I now have done - Actinic! So far it seems to be working well, and it is interesting to see (on the small sample of about a dozen orders that have come in overnight) that 75% of customers have paid directly with their credit card, and only 25% have used PayPal.

Before, although we had a merchant account, we couldn't take credit card orders securely on the site, so either people had to ring/fax their details through, or they had to use PayPal.

Thanks for your input.

Hendrik

[pinbrook]

so now you are using actinic, you don't need to use the paypal shopping basket.

just use the option within payment and security to add paypal as a payment method. Thus actinic does the calculation correctly for you, and passes the correct amount to paypal.