PayPal forcing customer signup?

[bwatford]

All of a sudden customers can't checkout as a guest.  Anyone else experiencing it?  It has all but killed sales.

My settings in the business setup are still clicked for optional.

[tschap]

This is a serious issue and surprised there aren't more posts about it.  It basically bait and switches a guest  who selects "Pay without a paypal account" and then the next screen takes their credit card info but then requires them to create a paypal account to complete the check out. It's confusing and frustrating for the customer experience. We rely completely on our paypal buttons and the paypal check out for our site and this is definitely causing shopping cart checkout abandonment and lost revenue. We realized this issue today, 12/9, and received over 10 emails from customers today who couldn't check out.   If anyone has received any info on when this glitch will be fixed, please post.  Really concerned and hoping for a quick solution. Thank you.

[bwatford]

It actually started happening late afternoon (Central Standard Time) on December 8th, customer calls and emails.  We are currently doing about 400 orders a day.  Talk to PayPal tech this morning and they say they are aware of the issue and are working on it.

Around 2:00 pm today it started working again but did so for only about two hours and now we are back in the same boat.

Instead of 400 orders today we ended up with about 176 or so.  Shopping Cart abandonement went up over 600% from usually and our customer service department is inidated with calls and emails about the issue.

We have been using PayPal for years with no main issues.  Our last order date for 2016 Christmas was today and they fumbled big time.

[THE_BLUR]

i dont think this is a serious issue ... there are sellers abusing this functionality..

what they are doing is the seller will get the card info of the customer and they will be doing the payment

[JustDuckyDesign]

I am a website designer with dozens of sites using PayPal Payments Standard for their on line stores. All of them are experiencing this issue. I spent about a half hour on the phone on Friday with one PayPal tech trying to tell me that my PayPal button was set up incorrectly (I know it was not - I'm not using a PayPal button, I'm using a full ecommerce store with PayPal Payments Standard as the payment option). I did more checking at tht point and that's when I found out it was not just one store - but all of them. I then called PayPal back, and fortunately got someone who knew what they were talking about and was told it was a "known problem" and they were working on it and would hopefully have it fixed with a "few hours" - that was Friday, Dec. 9 around 4 pm central time. I see from the posts here that it actually started the day before.

I did get an email from the Friday afternoon which said:

Thank you for contacting Merchant Technical Support.

Unfortunately, the problem you're experiencing is being caused by some technical issues with the PayPal system. Our engineers are currently working diligently on a solution to this problem. I am going to assign this ticket to our internal engineering ticket so that when the problem is resolved, you will be notified of its completion right away.

This ticket will remain in a "Pending Fix" status until you're contacted about the resolution.

I apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience!


My customers are pretty upset about this and have emailed me multiple times over the weekend. Unfortunatley all I can tell them is that we need to wait for PayPal to fix it. Very frustrating!!

Has anyone else heard anything new?

[Whac-A-Mole]

If someone uses a stolen credit card to check out using Paypal as guest ,how does Paypal recover its loss?

Paypal seller protection for unauthorised transaction said that it the item is eligible for seller protection,all seller needs to show is that he has shipped the item,it does not need to show it has been delivered.

So seller gets his money back,but how does Paypal get its money back?

There are sites where scammers bid on stolen credit cards,by the time the true owner finds out someone has used his creditcard,it would be weeks or month away.

But if your customer signs up with Paypal,it has a better chance of recovering the money.

Besides,using Paypal as a guest is a courtesy gesture,I believe if you use more than a few times,Paypal will askyou to become a member?

for those of you who haev clients who prefer not to sign up with Paypal,get your own\ merchant account,you can apply with your bank or Costco or some association you belong to.

you have a better chance of fighting chargeback . (if you are a web designer or dealing in digital/virtual goods,PAYPAL has no seller protection for you)

[JustDuckyDesign]

I see what you are saying - but that is not the issue here - unless PayPal is lying.

As I said in my post, I spoke to a PayPal tech support person and also got an email from another tech support person saying that this is a known issue and they are working on it. The person I spoke to said "this is an all hands on deck situation - we want it fixed as quickly as possible". According to the email I received "The ticket will remain in a "Pending Fix" status until you're contaced about the resolution.

So... while you point may be valid - PayPal DOES offer the option of allowing customers to checkout WITHOUT creating an account. It is an option in everyone's control panel under seller tools.

[Whac-A-Mole]

PAYPAL has been having many technical problems and said they are fixing it,.like the Paypal business debit card,like the Prepaid MC debit card,like the Extra MC card,like the PAD,like the line of credit,like missing transactions in your activity list ,like the foreign currency conversion option, it has been months now,and no fix.

I wonder if they are using it as an excuse,like the check is in the mail.

[Whac-A-Mole]

offer AMZN one click as another option.

[tschap]

Still not fixed as of 7pm Pacific on Sunday.  Not good.  Hopefully this will be solved by tomorow.