No option to pay directly with Paypal

#1

I am stumped here. One client wants to join the membership. When she does, using the Pro-form (i only allow Paypal with it), she gets to the Paypal site but is offered ONLY to pay with a credit card, and NOT with Paypal. She does not want to pay with a credit card and wants to use Paypal, but she does not have that option.

She pays with her Paypal without any issue when buying in my store (built on zencart) so it is not her Paypal account that is at fault.
Others from the same country (Netherlands) can access their Paypal “normally” so it is not country-related.
She tried multiple browsers and different devices, with the same issue.
She contacted Paypal directly and was given this response:

“I understand your situation.
Paypal sometimes forces payments through some other method to increase the security of its customers.
Do I understand correctly that you are trying to make a transaction with your PayPal balance and you cannot do that?
Sometimes the seller only acts like such payments.
First, check with the store to find out if they accept payments directly from your PayPal balance.”

I don’t know how to give her the chance to subscribe as she has been trying for a couple of weeks now, unsuccessfully. What else could it be?

#2

Is your form processing for recurring payments?

PayPal doesn’t allow recurring payments unless you have credit cards or bank accounts linked to it, and they need to have enough funds as well. Doesn’t matter if you have thousands of dollars in your PayPal account, if you don’t have a credit card linked to it, then you can’t pay for a subscription service.

Have her check whether or not she has credit card(s) linked to recurring payments!

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#3

Hum… I didn’t know Paypal REQUIRED to have a credit card associated with the account for a recurring payment to then go through Paypal.
I will inquire on her end.
Thanks for that suggestion.

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#4

No prob!
Yea, if you think about it, it does make sense that there is a “source” for funding an ongoing scheduled payments other than a paypal balance. which unless a person actually keeps a balance above the subscription per each payment… whereas a debit / credit card / bank account is what ‘most’ people tend to use for automatic payments.

There are a handful of other settings that could cause this, but I doubt she has gone that far into settings and altered the defaults.

Here is a step through you can send her to help her get right to it:

  1. At PP, goto ‘Settings’ the cog upper right

  2. click on ‘Payments’

  3. Then she should see ‘Manage Payments’, click on ‘Preapproved Payments’

  4. A new page will open… which shows (if she already has) pre-approved payments and recurring payments currently active on her account. On this page click on “Set Available Funding Sources”

  5. Here you can see the credit card and bank accounts set as source for these payments. PayPal will always withdraw from your account funds first, but in order to create a recurring payment you need to have credit cards linked to it and it needs to have enough money in them.

Let me know if that works for her…

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#5

I got her to test your suggestion by going, on the same site, to a Buy now button, start the process to see if she is also asked for a credit card (as her Paypal response suggested) and as expected, she could go through the transaction without it.

She said she would prefer NOT to link a credit card to her Paypal account, but I guess there might not be a way around it.

At least, I learned something and the explanation just makes sense. Interesting that it took 10 years of having my membership before this situation happened for the first time!
Interesting also that one cannot pay with a credit card only, for a recurring payment, through that Paypal button (unless one has a pro account).

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#6

People usually don’t want to link a funding source like a card or bank account because they want to churn and not pay when renewal time comes. The point of recurring billing is so the payment happens automatically every interval. Even with that requirement there’s a considerable amount of “involuntary churn” (when people freeze their cards or just have no funds or have issues with their method of payment), imagine without it?

Now, if you want to offer any non recurring alternative, that can be done by offering single time purchases, which should (hopefully) work to people who don’t want to link a card or bank account. You can offer that customer (and others) longer periods of subscription paid in advance, so they make up for the extra effort (and smaller chances of recurring their payment) by giving you a larger amount at once.

Oh, and remember to turn e-cheques off in your PayPal (I think you need to reach out to them), otherwise you will eventually get people who subscribe, their e-cheques bounce, PayPal takes the money back and you give access without being paid in the end.

#7

Thanks. I guess it is one alternative.
I might look into it for this person if she would want to take on a yearly plan, but as a one-time fee that would have to be renewed manually on her end.

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#8

That’s what I usually do. Then I update everything manually on Wordpress’ back end.

That’s also handy if you have people paying you directly via bank transfers or any other means (I use Patreon, and there’s no integration at all, so I have to update all the information manually).