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Day: 4 February 2009

Paypal Express Checkout and Recurring Payments

Are you, like me, using Paypal Express Checkout for integration into your shopping cart/ecommerce site?
Are you, like me, utilising the Paypal Subscriptions (Recurring Payments) options to set up future payments?
Are you, like me, getting a blank page when you are trying to setup a Recurring payment (maybe using the PHP NVP kit) after clicking “Agree and Pay” on the “Review your payment” page of the Paypal sandbox or live site)?

If so, the problem may be because you are sending an “AMT” (Amount) of 0 to Paypal: I did this because I didn’t want to actually take any money now…

It appears this is a long standing issue with the SetExpressCheckout section and RecurringPayments on Paypal and to avoid the blank white page, you’ll need to just send a nominal amount (such as 0.01) for Paypal to process “now”. However, Paypal does charge you a 20p transaction fee on the live system, so you may need to adjust your entire Paypal Express Checkout integration.