Buyer having problems with paypal

I had a buyer last week who had problems with paying for an item through paypal. He said when he tried to pay, he got redirected back to DPW. So he had to send a money order.
The same thing happened to another buyer last night, and she’s getting pretty frustrated. The current buyer with this problem is getting pretty frustrated. I don’t want to lose the sale because of this.
Does anyone have a possible solution?
I contacted support and was told to have the buyer contact them, so I asked the buyer to contact them but she hasn’t yet.
I have a feeling since this happened to two different buyers within a week of each other, that this might be a recurring problem.
I also have another buyer who hasn’t paid after days of the end of the sale. It might be the same problem there too.

Any suggestions?

[This post is by David, the developer and owner of DPW, not Carol! I forgot to switch my login to my account before posting!]

I am sincerely sorry about the frustration with this. It is working perfectly when both Sophie and I try to purchase your art, on a computer and on a smartphone, and no one else has reported any issues with PayPal, so rest assured the issue is not systemic.

DPW extensively logs information regarding all aspects of the checkout process and the PayPal transaction, with the first log entry being written long before DPW even takes the buyer to PayPal. The thing is, is I cannot see any recent payment attempts that weren’t successful for your paintings. The most recent unsuccessful attempt was on April 7th, however it was quickly followed by a successful transaction by the same buyer. Often the unsuccessful attempts are simply a buyer clicking the PayPal link or button in DPW, going to the PayPal site and then choosing to not complete the sale for whatever reason.

As far as being directed back to the DPW site from PayPal, that is the way it should work.

Here are the steps involved:

  1. The buyer clicks the PayPal link or Buy It Now button.
  2. They are taken to their PayPal account where they sign in or pay by credit card and then click the “Continue” button.
  3. They are then returned to DPW where they are presented with a window summarizing the purchase and asking them to either confirm or cancel the sale.
  4. The sale is completed only if they click the “Confirm” button.

All of this is extensively logged by DPW.

If there are any issues with the transaction, such as they do not have sufficient funds in their PayPal account, they will be presented with the error with instructions to call PayPal to resolve the issue. And, again, DPW logs the error and I am contacted by text.

Again, I am not seeing any recent non successful payment attempts, which I should see if a buyer has even clicked the PayPal link or Buy It Now button, no matter where the attempt failed.

At this point, I need to find out from the buyers what, specifically, they were running into. Bob, I’ll contact you outside of ArtTalk for their names and email addresses.

As an aside, browsers can exhibit very strange behavior. A year back, I remember not being able to bring up PayPal.com at all. I just got a cryptic, all text error. Finally, I cleared my browser’s cookies and bingo it worked fine! Unfortunately, there is a lot happening in the buyer’s browser, computer, internet connection, and with PayPal that is outside of DPW’s control, which is why I am logging every step in the process.

Ok thanks David,

I think after calling paypal, I might know the reason she was having problems. The first painting she bought on April 7th was paid with an email address that was associated with her paypal acount and the second one she bought was with a different one. (probably not associated with paypal). I hope that’s all there is to it. I told her she should try clearing the cache and cookies, so maybe that too.
I emailed her and explained that to her in detail and I’m waiting to here back.
I appreciate the information.

Bob @rkstudio,

I had a buyer (also a woman) e-mail me last night with the same exact problem, almost word for word.

DPW notified me that my buyer had paid with paypal; however, the money has not shown up in my account in over a week. I have received a receipt from FedEx saying the painting was delivered. I don’t have a solution, Bob, only a similar difficulty.

I haven’t had a problem with payments in quite a while and all of a sudden two different people in about two weeks.

Sorry to hear that Patty. If I were you, I would wait until the money is in the bank before you send the package. Of course I’m sure you know that now. Did you try to contact the buyer? Also, I’d want to get the notification from paypal itself that the payment is made. Good luck!

Thank you Bob. I will contact the buyer tomorrow. Naive me–I thought DPW notifying me that the paypal payment had been made meant that it was in my account. It’s rough having no left brain! Patty

No problem Patty. I hope it works out.

Well the problem finally got solved. The pop-up blocker was on which needs to be off to complete the transaction. Anyway, I spent quite a bit of time trying to help here and that’s all it turned out to be.
So, if anyone else runs across something like that, maybe that would be one of the first things to look at.