Buy Now Drop Down Button has stopped including item description in email or purchase details

TraceyMmm
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I have had the same Buy Now drop down button on my web site since 2015. It has the option to purchase one of 10 different services - the client chooses from the drop down menu, and completes the transaction. It's always worked as intended, and I receive an email that tells me which of the 10 services the client purchased. It also shows this on the payment information in Paypal.

Over the last week this has stopped working correctly. Now when a client chooses an item from the drop down list, it doesn't tell me WHICH item it is. The name of the button is put as the description next to the price, rather than the actual item description. This is an issue as I have several services which are the same price, so I don't know which service the customer has purchased without messaging to ask them - which is very unprofessional.

I have changed nothing at all on my web site or within PayPal. My assumption is that this may be a Paypal issue connected with how the button interface/back end has changed recently.

Can anyone assist or confirm that they've had a similar problem? Because I've searched and not found anything at all thus far. Thank you!


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31 REPLIES 31

John-GGD2
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This is exactly the same problem I have with my German account.  It worked until July 13, 2023. The next purchase 4 days later did not have the description.  I have helpers who fill the orders and they do not have access to my PayPal account.  They have no idea which item to send.

Has anyone heard about a solution for this or has anyone put in a formal PayPal complaint?

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TraceyMmm
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I actually ended up finding a workaround for this - it isn't ideal but at least it works. I noticed that the PayPal emails that have been coming since this problem started now seem to say "Item No" in the subject field, but don't actually say what item it is. That's the only other change I noticed from how it had worked for years previously. So I had an idea.

I went into the EDIT BUTTON section for the drop-down button that isn't working, there is an area where you can "Add Tracking Information" if you want to keep track of how many items you are selling. I'd never used that as it obviously wasn't applicable to my situation because I am offering a service rather than actual items. But if you DO select tracking, you can put in the name of each item and the amount. So I did that, and put the amount of each item at 10000 (which is unlikely to ever run out).

And now when a service is purchased, it will tell me which item it is in both the subject line of the email, and the body of the email. And it shows in PayPal.

So I'm not sure what changed at PayPal's end. I feel the emails should still tell you which selection was made from the drop down regardless of whether you add tracking. But at least now I've been able to get it working and the fix was pretty quick.

I hope this helps you! 🙂

Tracey from Australia

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John-GGD2
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Thank you for the suggestion.  I have over 300 items I sell and would hate to list each one individually in the tracking information.  I am going to see if I can replicate the problem in the USA PayPal so that I can contact them and ask them to fix it.  (I don't speak German).  John from Galizien German Descendants based in the USA but living in Canada.

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Swiwer
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Oh, God, yes, I have the same problem. I even posted a lenghty post here asking about a solution before I saw thist post (https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/PayPal-Payments-Standard/PayPal-no-longer-shows-me-custom-reques...). PayPal changed something this summer 2023, and the drop down or free text item descriptions / custom buyer messages don't reach the seller anymore. These were actually never shown in the PayPal account (under transaction details) since PayPal revised the website around 2015/2016. At that time you still had the option to click on "old account view" and get all that info, but they have since removed it, and after that you could only see these custom messages in e-mails that PayPal sent after each order came in. Now that has stopped as well since they changed the e-mail format / layout.

 

I am wondering though if this problem only applies to non-US accounts. I also have a European account.

 

Another bug in PayPal that I also noticed is on the "saved button" page where the string "NaN EUR" or "NaN USD" is shown instead of the actual price, next to the button name.

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John-GGD3
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I also have a US PayPal account and have just tried it there.  It too does not show the buyer message in the email although it is perfectly clear in the PayPal activity screen when logged into my PayPal account.  I will try to put in a support ticket to PayPal.

John from Canada/USA

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Swiwer
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John-GGD3 , so US PayPal account holders can at least see the buyer message when looking at the transaction details on the PayPal website?  I guess US and EU websites differ a little since EU website doesn't show anything. And neither does the e-mail. We're really **bleep** over here. It's basically impossible to sell anymore.

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Wingflyer
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I have the same problem and it also started around July 13th, but I am a US user, and all US purchases are missing the descriptions in the email, but non-US purchases do show the details.  I spent 20 minutes on the phone with support last week and they tooke examples for what worked and what didn't to submit to the developers.  I've heard nothing back.

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Swiwer
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Wingflyer , do the e-mails with missing description have a different subject format compared to the e-mails that do contain the description for the order?

 

Before this recent change in July, I did notice that e-mail kinda came in two different "versions". Most had the subject "Notification of payment received" while some had the subject "Payment received from <buyer e-mail address>". I'm guessing these differed depending on where the buyer was from, but both versions still contained the order description back then.

 

Now after the change, the e-mails I received so far (which are all missing order descriptions) all have the subject formatted like this: "Item # - Notification of Payment Received from <buyer name> (<buyer e-mail address>)"

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TraceyMmm
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Swiwer: That is exactly what I experienced, too - the change in the email subject line where it now says "Item No - Notification of Payment Received" for the drop down menu buttons. But since I added in inventory tracking for those drop down buttons (as I mentioned above), it now puts the name of the item chosen after that, so "Item No Product Name - Notification of Payment Received". I also have some buttons on my site that are for single items, these have not been affected at all. It's only the drop down buttons with multiple items that changed suddenly a few weeks ago.

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