Express Checkout: Merchant not enabled for reference transactions

pierrehenri220
Contributor
Contributor

Good Day Ladies and Gentlemen,

 

I set up a Woocommerce (Wordpress - PHP based) with the Paypal Checkout plugin enabled to do splitting payments (recursive?).

I successfully configured the sandbox but I tried to buy something with a sandbox account (buyer), I'm redirected to the site with a message like "Sorry, the information couldn't be retrieved from Paypal".

So I tried multiple times this time using logs, and here is an excerpt of what I got:

 

08-1[Removed. Phone #s not permitted]- WC_Gateway_PPEC_Client::_process_response: acknowleged response body: Array
(
[TOKEN] => EC-31P31927EE221643X
[TIMESTAMP] => 2019-08-19T14:44:40Z
[CORRELATIONID] => c1bde29b5fcf2
[ACK] => SuccessWithWarning
[VERSION] => 120.0
[BUILD] => 53420567
[L_ERRORCODE0] => 11452
[L_SHORTMESSAGE0] => Merchant not enabled for reference transactions
[L_LONGMESSAGE0] => Merchant not enabled for reference transactions
[L_SEVERITYCODE0] => Warning
)

 

08-1[Removed. Phone #s not permitted]- WC_Gateway_PPEC_Client::_request: remote request to https://api-3t.sandbox.paypal.com/nvp with params: Array
(
[METHOD] => GetExpressCheckoutDetails
[VERSION] => 120.0
[TOKEN] =>XXXXXXXXXXXX
[USER] => XXXXXXXXXXXX
[PWD] => XXXXXXXXXXXX
[SIGNATURE] => XXXXXXXXXXXX
)

08-1[Removed. Phone #s not permitted]- WC_Gateway_PPEC_Client::_process_response: acknowleged response body: Array
(
[TOKEN] => XXXXXXXXXXXX
[BILLINGAGREEMENTACCEPTEDSTATUS] => 0
[CHECKOUTSTATUS] => PaymentActionNotInitiated
[TIMESTAMP] => 2019-08-19T14:45:17Z
[CORRELATIONID] => f528d01b11404
[ACK] => Success
[VERSION] => 120.0

 

 

Is there something I should still enable on the side of Paypal?

I googled and searched for "Merchant not enabled for reference transactions" but couldn't find useful information on what to do.

 

Thank you very much in advance for your help, any hint would be greatly appreciated

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1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

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angelleye
Advisor
Advisor

Reference Transactions have to be specifically enabled by PayPal, and can be difficult to get approved at times.  Here is a guide they provide about this.

 

I would also recommend you take a look at our PayPal for WooCommerce plugin.  It adds PayPal Checkout and Braintree to your site, and it provides a lot more features that Woo's version does not.

 

 

Angell EYE - www.angelleye.com
PayPal Partner and Certified Developer - Kudos are Greatly Appreciated!

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6 REPLIES 6
Solved

angelleye
Advisor
Advisor

Reference Transactions have to be specifically enabled by PayPal, and can be difficult to get approved at times.  Here is a guide they provide about this.

 

I would also recommend you take a look at our PayPal for WooCommerce plugin.  It adds PayPal Checkout and Braintree to your site, and it provides a lot more features that Woo's version does not.

 

 

Angell EYE - www.angelleye.com
PayPal Partner and Certified Developer - Kudos are Greatly Appreciated!
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pierrehenri220
Contributor
Contributor

Thank you very much for your reply.
The technical support replies to me as well, I'm following the procedure described in the Woocommece kink. Hope this will work.

 

Kind Regards,

 

Pierre-Henri

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hutber
Contributor
Contributor

I imagine you never got this working? 
I've been trying for weeks now

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pierrehenri220
Contributor
Contributor

Hi,

For my client, we ended up applying for a new account at Braintree and used the Braintree for Woocommerce plugin.
It was done in a few weeks but it was really strict, you have to apply for a new account at Braintree and then they ask tones of information about your business, the money made, etc... As we were trying to set up an external shop in addition to ClickFunnel for a Wordpress based site, we had data to show and justify. I haven't tried but I bet you can start from zero with Braintree.

And for Paypal Business with subscriptions, to resume it looks like "Plug And Play" when you are located in the USA with a bank partner / compatible Paypal. For example, banks when you can withdraw directly from Paypal and vice-versa. Even if you are located in the USA I would recommend opening and use a bank account "fully compatible" with Paypal. You know when you try to withdraw to a bank account or use some business features depending on your countries a list of banks is being displayed for the setup. Pick one of them 😉

I'm now investigating to enable cashless stuff, and the Stripe gateway payment looks more promising  - and painless as well for the certificates with ApplePay - so I'm currently with Stripe for the credit cards and Braintree for Paypal only related stuff.

 

Hope that helps

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angelleye
Advisor
Advisor
You know you could use Braintree for all of that? It includes PayPal, direct credit cards, Google/Apple/Samsung Pay, etc. all in a single integration.

You will also get cheaper fees and faster access to your money using Braintree over Stripe.

Angell EYE - www.angelleye.com
PayPal Partner and Certified Developer - Kudos are Greatly Appreciated!
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pierrehenri220
Contributor
Contributor

Thank you very much for your support angeleye

We are using a Braintree account with my client and it's working well.
I hope that in the future I would be able to use Business Paypal accounts with subscriptions enabled,
especially for businesses located in Europe. For now, I didn't make it through the process, it's NG ><

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