IPN sends 'Pending' status and nothing further

castlegateit
Contributor
Contributor

Something strange seems to have happened on a client's e-commerce site in the last few months.

 

When a buyer completes a sale using a credit or debit card via PayPal instead of logging into a PayPal account, the transaction status (as communicated via the IPN) is "Pending". In the PayPal account the transaction is described as "Interchange plus – settlement hold".

 

Typically two days later the payment clears. But no IPN is sent to the website cart to confirm that this has happened, leaving the e-commerce system in the dark about the payment status.

 

Is this correct behaviour? It seems that it almost makes the IPN useless as a reporting method.

 

Lots of similar problems reported but not the same as ours: it's nothing to do with multi-currency or conversion and this is a live site, not a sandbox (using Mal's E-Commerce) which was working fine until this summer. (I note that Interchange Plus was added to PayPal T&Cs in June.)

 

Anyone any ideas? I put this on StackOverflow and got a 'tumbleweed' medal.

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MTS_Ciaran
Moderator
Moderator

Yep, they will be.

 

Unless of course they go pending for a different reason, in which case we will send an updated IPN once the status changes. I should add that the IC+ case is the only "pending" status that doesnt issue an IPN once cleared. 

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MTS_Ciaran
Moderator
Moderator
We are aware of this and raised this internally. At the moment the system doesn't send an IPN in this scenario. There is an ask in with our development teams to have an IPN issued once the IC+ payment clears, unfortunately I don't have an ETA though. In the interim, you could optionally use the GetTransactionDetails API to ping for transaction status after 2 days to confirm completion.
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castlegateit
Contributor
Contributor

OK - good to hear at least that I'm not imagining things.

 

If I understand everything I've read about 'Interchange Plus' correctly, should we be able to switch the client to "Blended" payments to avoid this? How do I switch the payment fee structure? I've had a hunt around in the labyrinthine PayPal Profile settings and couldn't find it anywhere.

 

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MTS_Ciaran
Moderator
Moderator

 you wont be able to switch via the PayPal account profile, I'm afraid its a "Call In" type setting, you can call into business/customer support and request to be swited back. 

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castlegateit
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks. Can you confirm that this will definitely fix the problem? Will IPNs being sent with under a 'blended' fees structure be sent as "confirmed" right off?

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MTS_Ciaran
Moderator
Moderator

Yep, they will be.

 

Unless of course they go pending for a different reason, in which case we will send an updated IPN once the status changes. I should add that the IC+ case is the only "pending" status that doesnt issue an IPN once cleared. 

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atomicbomb
New Community Member

Hi MTS_Ciaran,

 

Is there any update on this proposed functionality? I'm currently developing a payment gateway for a client and this functionality would be great to have. 

 

Any info would be appreciated.

 

Cheers

 

Chris

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jez6363
Contributor
Contributor

This is a BUG, not 'nice to have functionality'

 

It is outrageous really, that a perfectly fine transaction can result in no IPN being sent that says the order is complete. What on earth is taking so long to fix this? It was reported well over a year ago now.

 

I note that I keep being bugged to switch back to blended - I do not want to, and it feels as if you are deliberately not fixing this, to force people to switch back.

 

Very unimpressed, and now having to spend time training my employees to handle this critical bug in PayPal systems.

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