PayPal accounts, testing and sandbox

Question

I have a UK PayPal business account. I'm currently developing a website payment system to make payments to this account using Express Checkout.

My PHP code thus far is working and I'm able to connect to the sandbox and set and express checkout. Next stage is to redirect the user to the PayPal sandbox to make a test payment.

Its at this point that I'm stuck. I can't create a 'personal test' account for using as the 'client' on the PayPal sandbox.

I'm trying like this:

1. Visit developer.paypal.com
2. Login
3. Select 'Applications'
4. Select 'sandbox account'
5. Select 'Create Account'
6. Select Country as 'United Kingdom', account type 'Personal', valid email address (not associated with any other paypal account), password, first name, last name, bank verified = yes, card type = visa.
7. Click create account.

I then receive the following message:

We're sorry but something went wrong.Please delete this account and try again.

When it says 'delete this account', I don't know what it actually means, as it hasn't created a new personal account with the details I've just entered (at least not one that I can see anywhere). I've even tried creating a new business account to create this personal account from, and that has made no difference.

Is anyone else experiencing problems? I'm a little stuck. Could I use my 'real' personal PayPal account for testing on the sandbox without risk of losing any real money to the test business account I have setup?

Answer 1

OK, to answer my own question as I've got to the bottom of this.

First of all thanks to those who've provided answers and comments.

So, in my particular case the problem turned out to be that my password was too simple. On the form, the hint next to the password field is '(8-20 characters)'. So, as it was a test account and I was trying to keep things simple, the password I used was 'test password'. As requested, its between 8 and 20 characters, so that should do jus fine thank you! Or not as the case may be. I suddenly got a hunch that this could be the issue and tried a alternative. Again, a dictionary word, but with a few digits after it, and again, it worked. I then tried again with exactly the same details, but a slightly different email address (I'm using testN@mycompany... where I increment N and a simple password again, it failed!

The entire implementation and particularly error reporting on this form needs a serious overhaul.

So thanks PayPal, you wasted a good bit of my time on this client project, simply because the implementation of this form is absolutely terrible. Here is another example: Put a none integer value in the PayPal balance field, for example 200.00 and submit the form... You'll get blown out to the previous page where you are shown the error relating to the none integer value. At which point the form is completely reset and you have to start the whole process over again, instead of editing just one field.

Again, thank to everyone who has responded on this forum, very impressed. Not so impressed with the entire PayPal sandbox environment however, seems more than a little unpolished, I've found so many bugs...

Cheers

:wq

Answer 2

Same thing happened to me.

To solve:

PASSWORD must contain a symbol(s), number(s), upper-case character(s).

I also set the STARTING BALANCE to < $1000.00

I've had success with each account following the above, hope it helps!