Warning - Using checkout express / pro forms and DPRP

[flip4520]

We recently developed a site and installed s2member for a client who wanted an integrated membership application, payment and renewal system based on Wordpress.

s2member Pro seemed ideal, my client was not ken on moving to Paypal to accept payments wit their Australian Paypal Business accounts using Web Paymens Standard account with Express Checkout enabled.

We went this route due tot he advice found on this page:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=304

We had a professional install of S2member Pro and setup of Paypal Pro forms for a number of levels of annual membership registrations for an Australian based site, in Australian dollars, by Jason.

We additionally paid Jason to customise and install central ipn php script so that two different Paypal-using Wordpress plugins (both with their own specific ipn address) could work with just one paypal account but using multiple ipn url's.

On completing the work Jason kindly provided access to one of their Paypal sandbox account test cards to test the install and it worked fine in that environment

But on turning on the system to production, on the first attempt by a user to buy an annual membership with a MasterCard, she got the error message:

Member Application Payment
Error# 11586. DPRP is disabled. DPRP is disabled for this merchant.

DPRP is a Paypal's service Direct Payments Recurring Payments. The DPRP is what gives you the ability to create recurring payment profiles with credit cards inn s2memberpro apparently. Our web site requires the use of this service to enable rucurrent member payments a we wanted a system that would automaically hanld e annual renewals.

I put ticket in with Paypal Merchant services asking if DPRP could be switched on for this account. Their reply was NO because my clients Pypal account was not a Pro account (which is only availablle to US, UK and Canadian Paypal Pro accounts apparently.

This is very disappointing news - I am not sure where it leaves us in terms of being able to use s2member if there is an error thrown up every time sometime tris to sign up on the site.

Is there a way to switch off the need for this DPRP service and manualy run a weekly report in s2member pro instead which tells you which renewals are due in the next say week or 2 weeks, with the ability to email out renewal reminders from Wordpress. But would Paypal then remember them - this is important since as teh renewal fee is fidrent from the intial registration fee

I am unsure whether there is a workaround to this problem, or if we are facing thr need to abandon s2member / paypal pro.

Why Payal restrict the Pro service to only IS, UK an Canada us beyond me, there's many merchants who need these features on their Paypal account.

Any ideas appreciated.

[Cristián Lávaque]

I'm sorry you're having that trouble. It's weird that PayPal would restrict that service in Australia.

I did a search and found a staff member in PayPal's Developer Network, in one of his posts, gave a phone number to the DPRP service activated (he said "live" as in "not sandbox") in Australia.

https://www.x.com/message/170922#170922

To enable DPRP for live, you will need to contact support at the following numbers:

US/CA: 1-888-221-1161
UK: 08707 307 191
Australia: 1-800-073-263
Germany: 0180 500 66 27
Other: 1-402-935-2080

I hope that helps. Let us know what they tell you.

[drbyte]

use a proxy server....https://getcocoon.com/ to open a New PayPal account.... FireFox extension

They might need to open an offshore bank account and get a mailing address here in the US (this can be done online)

It's an awesome piece of work and the servers are based here in the US so it wont be a problem. PayPal will only know that it's coming form the US


Sam

[flip4520]

Well the outcome was that Paypal Merchant Services rejected my request to turn on DPRP service because the account was not a paypal pro account - and there's no way to get one because Pro accounts are not available to Australians.

The phone numbers provided above, at least the Australian one, resulted in being connected to the general PP help line, after a long call they admitted they had no authority to change any aspect of the account and that i should put a ticket in to PP Merchant Services support - which I already had and got told the above.

But I wonder how s2member users outside US,UK, Canada sill manage to use Express Checkout as a way around not being able to have a Pro account? Do you not also get a DPRP error since presumably this servive would be switched off on your account by default.

I am confused!

[armedia]

Hi,

I was wondering what you ended up doing? I've just discovered this as well, very annoying as my website is almost complete.

I'm trying to call Paypal's merchant support but even their Australian number operates during US business hours. I've been told that Paypal Pro is being rolled out this year to Australia, but the initial guy on the phone doesn't know when.

[flip4520]

Hi, not really, see this thread for one potential issue for you . viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6140&p=13070&hilit=paypal+initial+buy+now#p13070

There are other problems as well, mainly that this approach negates the advantages of using Pro forms on your site, as using Express Checkout in lieu of Paypal Pro requires the registrant to leave the site to make the payment.

It would be good to see Paypal Pro accounts available to Australian businesses however we are not holding our breath.