Paypal refund and do void

Question

What is the difference between DoVoid and Refund in paypal?

Is any charges applies for the DoVoid?

Is any limitation for the DoVoid.?

Answer 1

Raising this old question from the past, but just so that it doesn't fool anyone else who googles in the future: Paul's answer above is NOT CORRECT. The two APIs do not substitute for each other and cannot be used on the same transactions.

The difference is:

DoVoid reverses (aka releases) an order or an authorization that a merchant has made with a customer. Refund reverses (aka returns) a sale that a merchant has made with a customer. So if all you have done is place an order or an auth but you have not collected funds, call DoVoid(); any funds being held in the buyer's account pending capture will be released, and you will not be able to capture funds against that order or authorization later.

If you have already completed the sale (collected funds, whether through PaymentAction=Sale at checkout time or through having captured previously-authorized funds) you need to call Refund() to return those funds to the buyer.

-- Glenn from PayPal (yes, I wrote one of those APIs :)

Answer 2

They provide similar effects. You generally want to void a transaction if it was run in error, and use Refund for actually refunding legitimate purchases where the purchaser changed their mind or you were unable to provide the product/service. The difference is mostly a matter of your own record keeping.