I am busy implementing Paypal into a site that offers users the ability to subscribe to digital content. From what I have read, the payment status returned using Paypal's IPN will typically be Pending for foreign payments or if you are a new Paypal seller.The bank account used for this site is not based in the US, and most subscribers will likely be from the US. So I presume that the payment status will always come back as Pending initially (correct me if that is wrong? Is there any way to avoid this or speed up the process?).In this case, do I simply allow access to the subscribers once I receive a Pending payment status? It doesn't seem fair to make subscribers wait several days after they've subscribed until I receive a Completedstatus just to give them access to the site. Especially since from their perspective, they have paid.My question comes down to, is this the way the above situation is typically handled? ie: Just give the user access once a payment status of either Pending or Completed is received.Is it possible for a subscriber to cancel their payment from within their Paypal account before the payment changes from Pending to Complete? In other words, they get access to the site for free for a few days, then cancel their payment before the funds transfer is complete?Im just trying to understand the process and what the earliest point in time is that I can give the users access to the site. Ideally I would give them access immediately, but this Pending status issue has me worried / confused.
Paypal pending vs completed status
paypal;subscription
It's not common for a payment to be 'pending' for an extended period of time. I've not heard of the 'foreign' payment issue - but it doesn't matter what country a persons PayPal account is from, transactions should complete immediately unless there is an issue with the funding on their end.Common issues with 'funding' can be:Customer uses a suspicious card.PayPal is receiving slow payment form like a bank transaction (5-7 days to clear)There are details missing from the transaction (unconfirmed email, missing address, etc.)Wait until the payment is confirmed. If it's not, the customer is almost certainly at fault. Make sure you have a system set up to handle some of the common issues such as missing details or suspicious cards.Your main problem with subscriber content and PayPal will be charge backs. PayPal enforces these aggressively from the customer end. We keep logs of all actions and have still lost the majority of charge back requests due to the nature of our business - leaving us eating the transaction charge and having to cancel their order. I suspect you'll have similar issues fighting charge backs, take that into consideration and accept that you're going to get scammed a certain amount.