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One-Off PayPal BIllings

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Joseph Meenaghan

20 Apr, 2016 11:31 PM

Hi Guys,

We're struggling to figure out how to just do a clean, simple, one-off charge for our PayPal customers without forcing them through a "pre-approval" process for recurring billing. The pre-approval is inappropriate since it is a one-time purchase. The biggest problem is that PayPal states that it requires that a customer give permission to us to bill their account, essentially whenever we wish (implying after the one-off purchase), which is both false and has the definite ability to scare off a possible sale.

We're hoping that we're just missing something here and that there is a way in the API to handle this. The addCharge() method seems to assume that a customer has already been established. The newOneTimeInvoice() method also seems to assume the same.

Please let us know how to just do a single, one-off, PayPal billing without the pre-approval screen for a non-existent subscription.

Thanks!

Joe

1. 1 Posted by Drew Songer on 22 Apr, 2016 05:40 PM

   

   Hi Joseph,

   PayPal by it's very nature requires that the customer approves something after being redirected to PayPal to log into their account. That's the case for a peer to peer payment. For CG, it's the preapproval that they agree to, then you can charge whatever you want whenever you want.

   I noticed that you are also using PayPal Payflow Pro. This solution uses reference transactions which are completely different. Rather than being a peer to peer agreement, it is a direct credit card transaction.

   You may want to consider enabling only the direct credit card option for the "one off" payment in your application. This eliminates the need fro a customer agreement.

   Best,
   Drew

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2. Drew Songer closed this discussion on 03 May, 2016 03:43 PM.