Receiving credit and debit card payments

[NNF11]

Our company has recently setup the possibility for customers to make Paypal payments on our website.

When we were testing the setup we noticed that, if a customer tries to pay by card, then sometimes it goes smoothly, other times a Paypal account setup screen appears and the customer can't get past this to pay without setting up an account.

Is there any reason for this and is there any way around it?  We don't want our customers to be forced to setup a Paypal account if they don't want to.

[TopKat]

I am having the same issue so would love to know the answer to this one

[dho]

ditto....last month we were able to have customer checkout and pay by credit card without the requirement to register an account. I tested it again today and it appears that the customer is forced to created a paypal account when paying by credit card...using business paypal standard....any reason why this changed and is there a fix for it? I too don't want my customers to be forced to create a paypal account if they don't want to.

[dho]

hm...interesting...i had a reply from my cart forum and this might be the problem..

[quote]It seems like everyone in that thread was using PayPal sandbox. I tested it on my live site a couple of times, and always had the same options (PayPal, or with credit card) as before. Maybe the sandbox is messed up?[/quote]

i tried on the regular paying site outside of sandbox mode and it seems to work...did that fix the problem for you guys/gals?

[NNF11]

You know it is possible that this is the answer.  Our difficulties came using our trial set-up, which was not imbedded in the overall website.  The succesful usage has been through the actual live and running website.  Thanks for the comments all; let's hope that things will be fine from now!

[NNF11]

I'm tempted to mark this as the 'solution'.  Maybe I'll leave this topic open to check with other people's experience for now.

[ttc]

We were not using a test situation - our situation was live, from a "Donation" button set on our website. We've had success with it, just not consistently. 

[ttc]

We also are having the same problem. We are a non-profit and want to use PayPal to accept payments for a charity auction we are having this weekend, and I am super nervous, as 3 tests we have run have had mixed results. One, with someone who has a Paypal account, but wanted to pay with credit card, couldn't pay with credit card. Had to use their Paypal account. Another person who also has a Paypal account, after finally using a card they never use, and a different email address, was finally able to get things through. 

It shouldn't be this hard! 

[NNF11]

Thanks for these replies.  On one hand I'm glad we're not the only ones; on the other I'm disappointed that this problem exists at all.  We are actually a large UK arts festival, and we're trialing this to allow Friends and Benefactors to be able to sign up online.  Obviously they get benefits, so people might persevere, but also their goodwill and support is important to us and we don't want to annoy or drive people away.

Now, having shared the problem, it would be good if someone from Paypal could give us the answer!