PayPal Community

I've built my integration with the V2 API but I can't help but feel like I'm missing something. I'm simply trying to integrate online payments for my website where the customer pays there and then. No subscriptions, no authorisation for future capture etc. I don't mind redirecting the customer to PayPal to make the payment (as opposed to collecting the card details myself). I can do this using the API: /v2/checkout/orders   ...but this results in just an authorised order - which I then have to spin-off a separate process to "Capture" those funds using the API: /v2/payments/authorizations/{authorization_id}/capture   ...that wouldn't be so bad if it didn't take circa 15 minutes for the final webhook (event: PAYMENT.CAPTURE.COMPLETED) to come through and complete the order. What am I supposed to show the customer on the confirmation page in the meantime?   My questions are: 1). Is there a way to just take payment (and capture the funds) immediately? Should I be using something different to the "Order" end points? 2). When a payment is authorised, do I need to wait for confirmation of capture - or is it safe to assume that the funds are there before I've tried to capture them if the order has been approved (web hook event: CHECKOUT.ORDER.APPROVED)? 3). When would you ever want to create an order but not actually capture the funds? ... View more

Do the Sandbox Webhooks ever work with any consistency? Sometimes (but very rarely) the notifications come through... but mostly they don't! I've never once managed to get a "PAYMENT.CAPTURE.COMPLETED" notification despite capturing a payment. Right now it just feels that PayPal is simply unfit for purpose. Am I the only one experiencing these issues? Is the LIVE environment any better?  ... View more

I'm really struggling to understand the options available on PayPal. In short, I want to be able to register the payment with PayPal (from the server - so the variables are never visible on the client) and then redirect the customer to the PayPal website to complete that purchase... with a webhook/IPN in the background to confirm a successful payment. Obviously there is the "cmd=upload" option, but it seems a bit simple and prone to meddling because the variables have to be written out to a self-posting form on the client... yuk! I've been looking at the RESTful API, but the documentation is hard to follow for a new-comer. It seems that you have to capture card details on the website itself and pass them. Is that correct? Is there not a way to register the payment details from the server, get a unique link and then simply redirect the customer to that link?  ... View more