"TVAG: "Important Notice to Customers and Friends - Please Read!"" Topic

Hang in there Patrick!

Worth the wait…your loyalists will follow and encourage others.

Always "surprised" when the latest "upgrades" (new, improved, even crunchier!!) to sites, products and everything else always seem to be worse, slower, harder and downright annoying.

JJ

Hi JJ

Is this a US only thing ?

I have had no notice of any changes from PayPal, nor any messages on my account.

Tony of TTT

Patrick,

As Blackadder so aptly put it: "My path in life is strewn with cow-pats from the devil's own infernal herd".

Alan

You seemed to have worked out the best angle of approach possible for your troubles Patrick, I don't think you'll have much trouble with customers going one small step further.

Best Wishes!

Patrick:

TVAG will operate normally in all other respects until the date PayPal pulls the plug, and I look forward to remaining "The War Gamer's Enabler" for many great years to come.

Bravo to you for your honorable stand. May we all maintain our ground against such villains and their dirty tricks. Keep the flag flying.

What's going on with PayPal?

What's going on with PayPal?

According to Patrick, changes to the PayPal shopping cart system are invalidating the older catalog links.

Does anyone know any more details? There must be lots of other similar websites out there which presumably will be affected in the same way (mine included) so I'm a little concerned by this news. Like GildasFacit I haven't heard anything from PayPal unless it was buried in one of their updates to terms and conditions.

Charges on goods bought in other currencies will go up to 4.2% with limitations on money back guarantee on offshore sales. They can also kill your account if you complain to customers or in any way disuade them from using paypal. You're going to see sellers stop taking foreign sales on ebay.

Charges on goods bought in other currencies will go up to 4.2% with limitations on money back guarantee on offshore sales. They can also kill your account if you complain to customers or in any way disuade them from using paypal. You're going to see sellers stop taking foreign sales on ebay.

If what Joe Rocket is saying is true, seems to me like Paypal just shot themselves in the foot.

Going through some major business changes myself, but nothing this drastic. Good luck, General. We'll be here when you get sorted, and through the process.

From their user amendment
We are changing the standard transaction fee for sellers selling goods or services online to buyers outside the U.S. from 3.9% to 4.4% plus the existing fixed fee based on the currency.
We are changing the standard transaction fee for in store transactions received from buyers outside the U.S. from 3.7% to 4.2%.
We are changing the cross-border transaction fee for keyed and scanned transactions from 4.5% + $0.15 USD to 5.0% + $0.15 USD.
We are changing the additional fee for cross-border payments received from buyers outside the United States from 1.0% to 1.5% added to the transaction fees.
We are changing the currency conversion spread charged when we perform a currency conversion for you from charging an additional 2.5% over the exchange rate set by our bank to charging an additional 3.0% over the exchange rate set by our bank.

We are adding a non-discouragement clause for sellers that provides:
In representations to your customers or in public communications, you agree not to mischaracterize PayPal as a payment method. At all of your points of sale (in whatever form), you agree not to try to dissuade or inhibit your customers from using PayPal; and, if you enable your customers to pay you with PayPal, you agree to treat PayPal's payment mark at least at par with other payment methods offered.

Still nothing there referring to what TVAG posted about.

I don't like the idea of paying hugher fees for foreign transactions (if they do the same in the UK) but having to re-program my whole website is a REAL problem.

If it involves moving to a shopping cart like those the 'big boys' use, with a stock database and all, I could cope with, given time but having to pay for the privilege as well is going to hit profits hard as I don't get the monthly incomes they do.

Yet another hit at small businesses, aimed to make them unprofitable so that customers have little or no choice in the marketplace.

Paypal's top line doubles every four years 15-20% annual growth. As long as ebay does not allow a serious competitor in (like Google Wallet or Apple) they can do what they want. In talks with Amazon right now.

Most shopping cart software and hosts that have their own software have PayPal modules that connect to the PayPal API for processing payments.

My reading into Patrick's statement is that TVAG is not using a cart but rather individual pages that he has added PayPal buttons and then uses the PayPal "cart" button system to have the system act as like a shopping cart.

Paypal is evidently changing the code on how this works. My guess is based on all the security issues with online transactions that in order for them to maintain compliance with Visa/MC/Amex/Disc that they must make the changes to this cart builder system.

Since paypal also processes cc and bank account payments, if that is how you choose to make a payment, there are rules outside the pp ecosystem that must be adhered to.

With the rise of fraud and many other alternatives like Amazon Pay, Stripe, Square etc, it appears this is being done to improve security. I doubt anyone like TVAG sees it as a necessary change, but then systems do continue to evolve and the requirement is most definitely due to fraud prevention.

TVAG is an important contributor to the hobby, best wishes.

Brigade Games!

Lon, you described the situation in a nutshell--thank you!

However, please don't draw the inference that I don't appreciate superior security when CC's/Bank Accounts are in play. I have my own, too!

What is outrageous to me is that no effort has beek with vendors during the transition. They did extend their original date in mid-January to mid-march, but the time and effort required to provide UNIQUE "Buy Now" buttons for each individual product would break my back, if not my heart.

In the past, working in HTML 4, sales buttons could be added for new product with simple "boiler plate" code that could be dropped into a script, then the particulars (ID's, price, etc) added later. Now, with PayPal's convenience first and foremost, there is a unique full page long code--literally: I printed one out--that applies only to a single item. This new code must be generated for each item, then added to the script for a given page. And, cut-and-paste be damned, an error of only one letter or number invalidates the button, and finding that error is no different from requiring a specific leaf be plucked from a tornado.

No shortcuts, no alternative means, no help… nothing to make an impossibly repetitive and tedious job easier for the client.

Does PayPal think they only cater to "Aunt Minnie's Home-Made Jelly" shops, with only three flavors for sale at any one time?

Understand, starting from scratch with a modern Website Host/Shopping Cart system is no easy solution, but it also offers services and advantages that will make future operations far easier and more efficient to everyone's benefit. I will be at this for weeks, and it's still easier than doing things PayPal's way.

Sorry for the redundant mini-rant, but I hope this both clarifies the situation, and possibly serve as warning for other vendors that their comfortable worlds may actually rest on the whims of corporate gits.

God Bless you all for the signs of support--it would be infinitely harder to start over if it really seemed no one else gave a damn.

A Rightly Humbled,
TVAG

With the new currency conversion rates, I will have to check my credit card rates again. They may now be the cheaper way to go. It might suck to be PayPal!

TVAG – is there any online reference or notification you can point the rest of us at ? Having a full PayPal shopping cart website, I'm a bit concerned that I haven't heard of it before now. How did you find out about it ?

Thanks in advance

I'm trying to figure this out as this is the first we've heard of this. Up until now all we've done is copy/paste the Paypal provided script editing names, prices, etc for purchasing items and just using their cart system for our online store. Are we going to have to go through our own lists and update everything?

I just spent about 30 minutes trying to find any info or discussion about this and all I've run into is programming jargon, corporate non-speak, and complaints about the international rate increases.

Like most people who probably use the service, I'm not a programmer at all, and if I'm reading your complaint right a lot of people are going to blindsided by webstores that no longer work.

Could this be an issue with code provided by your hosting service to operate things such as drop down lists and such ?

I had a similar problem some years ago and had to just use separate buttons for each option when my host stopped supporting the code.

If the problem is just with PayPal I can't see why you need to change to a new provider. You may well be right in saying that this will be, long term, better for both yourself and your customers.

As to the rate increases, we in the UK haven't been told about any YET but I can see it happening soon. Most other services transferring cash internationally charge higher rates than PayPal, even with the increases – at least they do from UK. I'm too small to make a CC service economical so PayPal is a must have for me.

Gentlemen,

First, whatever else happens, at this point it still seems best for me to continue using PayPal for payment services, and I'm not giving up them up.

My desperation comes from not receiving a more positive warning than "You might have an issue regarding your 'Buy It Now' buttons beginning in January" (not a verbatim quote). When I first noticed the warnings appearing whenever I logged in (November, if I recall), I tried two or three times over weeks of more lost time trying to learn if they actually applied to my business.

When January came round, word became that the change over was re-set for a date in mid-March. I tried again, and once more could not get past the same familiar sounding fog Our Friend, Richard Brooks, just encountered. It was only about two weeks ago that I actually got to a Tech who succeeded in explaining what was going to happen, and the realization just how much trouble I was in.

For those who, possibly wisely, want to find out whatever's going to happen in mid-March, I would encourage them to keep trying to get a Tech on the line and ask about the changes in PayPal's code governing "Buy It Now" (or equivalents) that might make their current version obsolete.

One possible avenue is to sign in, click on "Tools," click again on "All Tools," and scroll down to "PayPal Buttons," where you should find reference to your current set up. It's through here that the instructions for applying the new code to replace current buttons will be found, and with less than crystal clear instruction on how to generate the new and unique code for each item in inventory with a dedicated "Buy Now" button.

Meanwhile, the service I'm currently exploring does allow "mass" uploads of items to a given Web Page via the use of Spreadsheets--which still, after all, require individual entries of all relevant details of each.

AND… at least one service offers to perform an entire transfer operation over the course of week for just under $1,100 USD. Not practical in my foreseeable future given recent unrelated events.

In any event, please bear with us, and "Good Luck, Everyone!"

TVAG