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paypalexpress-checkoutpaypal-nvpnvp

Has the new Express Checkout layout removed support for "Note to seller" (and PAYMENTREQUEST_n_NOTETEXT)?


I've been testing PayPal Express Checkout in one of my projects and when I populate the PAYMENTREQUEST_n_NOTETEXT parameter in an NVP request, it works great on the PayPal sandbox and was working fine on the live PayPal site a couple of months ago.

However, in my latest round of tests it no longer seems to work on the live site, although the sandbox still works fine.

Compare these screenshots from sandbox and live:

Sandbox

PayPal Sandbox

Live

PayPal Live

As you can see, on the sandbox site the "Note to seller" is populated with the text "A test note" which gets passed on to the seller when the payment completes.

However, on the live site there is no "Note to seller" visible anywhere and no note gets passed on to the seller when the payment completes.

I've tried adding an ALLOWNOTE=1 parameter to the request. I've tried using the latest API version (124.0 at the time of writing). I've looked at the API version history and can't see any relevant changes.

Given that the UI is now completely different between the sandbox and live sites, I'm wondering if there's been some undocumented change which might be causing this?

Are notes to the seller even possible any more?


Solution

  • I contacted PayPal Technical Support to ask about this issue (as per Andrew Angell's suggestion) and have received the following response:

    The note to seller field is not available at the moment in new Checkout layout. Unfortunately at the moment we do not have any news on when its going to be implemented.

    Not exactly what I was hoping to hear, but an answer nonetheless.

    In a subsequent response, they have also stated:

    At the moment there is no other link where you can see any updates regarding the features that are being implemented in new layout.

    Since the previous layout is still active for some countries these [non-functional] variables/fields are available in documentation.