Paypal Error #36: Transaction Failed

Hi,
I’m using Pro forms with S2member Pro. Credit card payments hosted on my site work, but Paypal gives error #36: Transaction failed, with logs also giving, “Referral: 10422-The customer must return to PayPal to select new funding sources.”

I see in the forums there was extensive discussion about this back in November- http://www.s2member.com/forums/topic/paypal-error-36-transaction-failed/

Also this post: http://www.s2member.com/forums/topic/cant-do-recurring-billing-via-paypal-payflow/#post-18748

After reading these, I can say the following about my situation:

1) I have asked Paypal support reps repeatedly to verify that I definitely have Paypal Payments Pro Payflow Edition with Recurring Billing, as opposed to Payflow Pro, and the reps tell me that this is the case. Not sure I completely believe them though. My Paypal Manager shows:
Paypal Payments Pro: Live
Hosted Checkout Pages: Live
Payflow SDK/API (Full Access): Live
Recurring Billing: Live
Paypal Express Checkout: Live

This was exactly the setup of the guy in the above posting, until the very end he realized he had Payflow Pro all along, which was the problem. But Paypal tells me I don’t have Payflow Pro. Is there some other way I can ask them this same question?

2) If I remove my Payflow credentials from S2member, the Paypal option does work, and I don’t get the Error #36. This tells me there isn’t anything wrong with the Paypal account I’m using as buyer or the credit card on that Paypal account. This Paypal account is separate from my merchant account. My merchant account is capable of accepting payments from this Paypal account.

3) I’ve mainly been doing $0.01 test transactions, but I’ve also done some above $4.00 (Paypal’s “micropayments” threshold- which can apparently make a difference?).

Paypal support reps have suggested the following:
1) There is an issue with my bank. Perhaps because I’ve used the same Paypal account to do so many test transactions, my credit card is being denied. I called the bank, notified them of the situation, and they said they gave clearance for the transactions.

2) Looking at a specific transaction in Paypal Reports, there is a “field format error (code 7)” from the comment, “Recurring Profile: RP0000000014 Payment: 000001 Name: 1358432902:1 D:1 M mydancemastermind.com 1” that gets passed in the transaction somewhere. The guy said no special characters are allowed except for ‘@’ so the periods and colons could be messing things up. This doesn’t seem like it would be the problem.

3) A rep asked if I could get a copy of S2member’s API Request and Response. Not sure exactly what that is, but if someone could tell me what to send him, I’d appreciate it.

I have error logs I can send to someone at s2member (in a private post?? sorry- I’m new).

Any ideas?

Thanks,
John

Thank-you for reporting this important issue. ~ We appreciate your patience.

I’ve notified Jason (lead developer) of this issue.

This was exactly the setup of the guy in the above posting, until the very end he realized he had Payflow Pro all along, which was the problem. But Paypal tells me I don’t have Payflow Pro. Is there some other way I can ask them this same question?

As mentioned in Jason’s post, this issue was not with PayPal Payflow Pro accounts, but with accounts that run with PayPal’s “PayPal Pro (Payflow Edition)”.

See: Knowledge Base » PayPal® Pro (PayFlow Edition)

s2Member was updated in early December to accommodate changes that should stop this issue from occuring. See: s2Member® Unified Changelog » v121201

Have you updated to the latest version of s2Member?

(s2Member Pro) Bug Fix. s2Member Pro Forms integrated with Payflow Recurring Billing via PayPal Express Checkout were failing against some accounts with an erroneous error #10422 related to an invalid funding source. With some help from other site owners and the assistance of PayPal technical support, the underlying issue has been fixed in this release. Discussed in this thread.

What version of s2Member and WordPress are you running?

You mentioned that you were looking in your logs, please post these, along with Dashboard and FTP login through our Private Contact Form so we can take a look.

Along with sending the info in the Private Contact Form, could you please give us the OK to run test transactions against your installation?

Hi Bruce,
I just submitted logs and WP dashboard and FTP logins with the Private contact form. You have my OK to run test transactions.

I just updated to S2member v130121. I tried a transaction just now, and it still gave me error #36. I was previously using v121201. I have WordPress 3.5.

Also, a Paypal rep requested a copy of S2member’s API request and response. What exactly is he asking for/should I give him?

Thanks,
John

Thanks for the heads up on this thread :-)

I am reviewing now. One moment please.

Details received. Thank you!

Thanks for your patience.

2) Looking at a specific transaction in Paypal Reports, there is a “field format error (code 7)” from the comment, “Recurring Profile: RP0000000014 Payment: 000001 Name: 1358432902:1 D:1 M mydancemastermind.com 1″ that gets passed in the transaction somewhere. The guy said no special characters are allowed except for ‘@’ so the periods and colons could be messing things up. This doesn’t seem like it would be the problem.

3) A rep asked if I could get a copy of S2member’s API Request and Response. Not sure exactly what that is, but if someone could tell me what to send him, I’d appreciate it.

Yes, let’s get PayPal involved here, because I’m not seeing anything that would cause this issue to occur on your installation. We’ve investigated issues like this in the past, and PayPal has been unable to resolve them definitively thus far. Hopefully, getting them involved again in this case will produce some information we can use. I really don’t know why that error would occur, other than for the reason it mentions (invalid funding source).

If you’re already working with them, let’s have them look at the log files that I’ve pulled from your server. I’m emailing you a text file privately which includes several API calls (all related to the same transaction), which resulted in Error Code 36; reflected in the log entries.

The text file that I’m sending you, can be forwarded to PayPal for review. Since it references a transaction on your account, they should be able to give you specifics about it, including the real reason a funding source was denied in this case. Please let us know what they tell you.

I am updating my ticket with PayPal about this matter as well, and I will inform you of any insight they can offer us. Please let us know what you come up with from your end. Thanks!

2) Looking at a specific transaction in Paypal Reports, there is a “field format error (code 7)” from the comment, “Recurring Profile: RP0000000014 Payment: 000001 Name: 1358432902:1 D:1 M mydancemastermind.com 1″ that gets passed in the transaction somewhere. The guy said no special characters are allowed except for ‘@’ so the periods and colons could be messing things up. This doesn’t seem like it would be the problem.

Thank you for reporting this. I’ll make an attempt to confirm this with the documentation and with PayPal support; then update you here. In mean time, I agree with you. It seems very unlikely that this would be the cause of the issue you’re reporting. One would expect to get an error matching the underlying reason for failure.

New ticket created at PayPal for this issue.
https://www.x.com/developers/paypal/forums/express-checkout/can-someone-please-explain-error

Hi,
Thanks for your help on this, Jason.

I sent Paypal your text file and got on the phone with them again, and they said there was nothing wrong from our end. They say it’s a legitimate refusal from the processor or the card issuer’s bank, and that it’s a generic decline. He said it could be any number of reasons on the part of the processor or bank, probably having to do with their fraud filters, but they aren’t privy to any of that specific information.

One person I talked to also mentioned that the fraud filters for Payflow are more robust than for the normal Paypal Express checkout. Even though I was using separate Paypal accounts as customer and merchant to do these test transactions, the billing address would still be the same (since they’re both mine), and the fraud filters might not like that. However, I had a friend test with her account just now (and she says her account is even verified with a checking account), and it still gave the same error #36.

The guy also said these fraud filters can be inconsistent, meaning that one day they may accept a particular transaction and that another day they would decline the exact same one. Apparently there’s an element of randomness to it??? I consistently get this error though, and with Payflow credentials entered, I’ve never successfully setup a recurring billing profile with Express checkout.

At this point, it really just feels like a brick wall. Paypal says it’s a legitimate decline, and that the customer just has to use another funding source. Paypal just doesn’t work for my particular site/merchant account. So I asked Paypal if I could remove their payment option from my site and just use credit cards (contrary to Paypal’s policy), and they said I could.

I’m not really a developer and only basically know HTML/CSS. I’ve successfully hidden the Paypal option radio button with:

#s2member-pro-paypal-checkout-form-card-type-paypal-label {
	display: none;
}

But I’m having trouble hiding the Paypal button that is on the pro form where the user selects payment type. If I do:

#s2member-pro-paypal-checkout-form-submit-div {
	display: none;
}

This hides the Paypal button but also hides the submit button for credit cards.

I’m fine with continuing to explore this error to resolve it, but I can’t delay launching anymore. In the meantime I’d just like to hide Paypal.

Thanks,
John

Thanks for the follow-up :-)

I sent Paypal your text file and got on the phone with them again, and they said there was nothing wrong from our end. They say it’s a legitimate refusal from the processor or the card issuer’s bank, and that it’s a generic decline. He said it could be any number of reasons on the part of the processor or bank, probably having to do with their fraud filters, but they aren’t privy to any of that specific information.

One person I talked to also mentioned that the fraud filters for Payflow are more robust than for the normal Paypal Express checkout. Even though I was using separate Paypal accounts as customer and merchant to do these test transactions, the billing address would still be the same (since they’re both mine), and the fraud filters might not like that. However, I had a friend test with her account just now (and she says her account is even verified with a checking account), and it still gave the same error #36.

The guy also said these fraud filters can be inconsistent, meaning that one day they may accept a particular transaction and that another day they would decline the exact same one. Apparently there’s an element of randomness to it??? I consistently get this error though, and with Payflow credentials entered, I’ve never successfully setup a recurring billing profile with Express checkout.

So they are suggesting that we should take this error at face value then. This would make the most sense to me as well. If these declines resulted from test transactions, that would be expected. Fraud filters can be amazingly effective. Declining a site owner a purchase from their own site, where they are the merchant, is a fairly common decline among payment gateways; so I wouldn’t blame PayPal® too much for this. Even though it’s viewed as an inconvenience, test transactions should really be processed against a development environment whenever possible.

Having others test your site (as you’ve done) would be more effective, but only if they are not associated with you, and they are not on the same IP address that you are on either.

Also, I would be sure that test amounts are within reason. For instance, don’t try to run a test transaction at $0.01 over and over again, because that can create a red flag with your underlying merchant bank. I’d go with charges of at least $2.50 when running live tests. Or, whatever you’ve listed with your merchant bank, as being the average retail sale amount — most banks keep this on file.

At this point, it really just feels like a brick wall. Paypal says it’s a legitimate decline, and that the customer just has to use another funding source. Paypal just doesn’t work for my particular site/merchant account. So I asked Paypal if I could remove their payment option from my site and just use credit cards (contrary to Paypal’s policy), and they said I could.

s2Member® intentionally makes this impossible, because it violates PayPal’s terms of service. I can’t say that I recommend doing this, but here is how you would go about it. It requires custom code.

Find line #84 inside: /s2member-pro/includes/classes/gateways/paypal/paypal-form-in.inc.php

$attr["accept"] = (!in_array("paypal", $attr["accept"])) ? array_merge($attr["accept"], array("paypal")) : $attr["accept"];

Comment that line out, and add the following underneath it.

//$attr["accept"] = (!in_array("paypal", $attr["accept"])) ? array_merge($attr["accept"], array("paypal")) : $attr["accept"];
						if(empty($_POST["s2member_pro_paypal_checkout"]["card_type"])) $_POST["s2member_pro_paypal_checkout"]["card_type"] = "Visa";

In your Pro Form Shortcode, set the following Shortcode Attributes.
accept="visa,mastercard,amex,discover,maestro,solo" accept_via_paypal=""

Please let us know if problems persist :-)

Thanks so much for your help, Jason. Your code successfully took out the Paypal payment option from my forms.

Having others test your site (as you’ve done) would be more effective, but only if they are not associated with you, and they are not on the same IP address that you are on either.

Also, I would be sure that test amounts are within reason. For instance, don’t try to run a test transaction at $0.01 over and over again, because that can create a red flag with your underlying merchant bank. I’d go with charges of at least $2.50 when running live tests. Or, whatever you’ve listed with your merchant bank, as being the average retail sale amount — most banks keep this on file.

I tested again using a higher dollar amount with a different friend, and her profile was accepted! I guess maybe it was the combination of too small a payment amount and overlapping account information like you said?

I notice this friend’s transaction didn’t create a recurring profile in Paypal though. I offered a free trial where she gets 30 days of access for $0.00 before she pays, so I assume the profile isn’t created in Paypal until an actual payment is executed. If this is correct, I think we can consider error #36 resolved.

However, if it is indeed correct, then I also have a new issue which I posted here. How can the user cancel the account during the free trial if there’s no account in Paypal to cancel?

Thanks again for your help,
John

Thanks for the follow-up :-)

I tested again using a higher dollar amount with a different friend, and her profile was accepted! I guess maybe it was the combination of too small a payment amount and overlapping account information like you said?

Yes, the stars aligned!

When it comes to online banking, you really have to put your trust in the underlying merchant bank and your payment gateway on things like this. I know what you’re thinking, “Yea, trust banks. Ha!” :-)

Anyway, we all have to work with them these days. All you can do is monitor the log files that s2Member keeps, and make adjustments to any configuration options they provide you with. If you’re unhappy with the results, you might consider moving to a different merchant provider.

I’ve been happy with PayPal, they do a good job overall. Having been on the other side of this issue, needing to deal with chargebacks caused by a payment gateway that did NOT defend you well enough, is worse :-) You learn to appreciate fraud filters once your site goes live.

Closing this thread. Thank you VERY much for helping us resolve this.

I replied to your other thread here. See: http://www.s2member.com/forums/topic/how-to-cancel-paypal-acct-during-free-trial/#post-39988