[beejiu]

This is how it has always been; it's written in the documentation. I don't personally consider this a bug, since a retailer could feasibly accept a credit card and charge whatever they want to it. The fact the PayPal allows the amount to be changed is not dangerous, because PayPal holds the liability and any charges can be reversed. Furthermore, the business who charges consumers without consent will be committing fraud.

[thejosh]

It's a flaw though. A user trusts that the amount that they see in PayPal ($19.95) is what they will be charged when they click accept - not $21.95 or $25.95 or $2,000.

It's different if you are having your customers type in their details, even though they hope you will charge them $19.95, and not double charge them or steal their credit card information - this is a reason why people use PayPal.

But yeah, like you said it is fraud, though a business could argue shipping charges or tax or "addon pricing" or whatever for a small amount (a company I would see doing this is GoDaddy), but larger amounts their PayPal account would probably be banned.

[Hermel]

> any charges can be reversed

Good luck with that. It's very hard to get your money back when the merchant knows how to answer Paypal's questions. I failed at doing so when a merchant sold me something he could not deliver and then insisted on giving me a voucher instead returning my money.

[MichaelApproved]

This story is going to need more detail because one of the biggest complaints merchants have is how PayPal will pretty much always side with the customer.

[arkonaut]

Agree here - That has always been one of the thorns in accepting PayPal on any decent scale. At least with chargebacks, you can fight them and win about 50% of the time with the right docs. PayPal barely entertains dialogue.

[Hermel]

What happened is that I wanted to register a domain using www.mediaon.com, but that failed because someone else registered the same domain in the meantime using another company. When I asked for my money back because they failed to register the domain, they refused, saying that firstly it wasn't there fault (which is technically true) and secondly that I would be free to use the paid money to register another domain. That's in direct contradiction to their "money-back guarantee". Anyway, Paypal sided with them. It seemed to me that they exactly knew what to tell PayPal and PayPal does not seem to be very consumer-friendly when it comes to digital products (the policy for physical products differs).

[EGreg]

PayPal nearly always sides with customers in a chargeback dispute. I'm not sure how this business was able to get around that.

[jackweirdy]

True, but how many customers read the documentation? If that's the way it is, the user should at least be told that on the checkout screen.

[beejiu]

It's shouldn't really affect customers in any way. By terms of Express Checkout, after returning from the authorization at PayPal (which is NOT a checkout screen), the business must show the final checkout screen with the finalised price. If the business doesn't do this, it is the business committing fraud. PayPal is rather good at holding payments from businesses until they are happy everything is legitimate.

[kevinpet]

Maybe, but the implied behavior from what the buyer sees is that they are verifying a specific amount on Paypal's (trusted vendor) site, not on marginally trusted random internet vendor.

The difference is that if I want to order some two dollar bike parts, I'm happy to risk that I won't receive them, but I'm not in the habit of giving my credit card to every random site on the internet.

[onewaystreet]

It doesn't really matter because the customer isn't on the line. It's PayPal that is. Considering how fanatically PayPal fights fraud, that they don't consider this an issue pretty much tells you that it isn't one.

[kelnos]

Sure the customer is on the line. You make a very large charge on a customer's credit card, and best case is that they can't make further charges on the card because they've hit their limit. Getting it resolved in a week or so is little consolation when you have a useless credit card.

[david_b]

While I can see how this behaviour of PayPal is close to credit cards, I cannot see how they can show an amount that may be incorrect - they could just ask the shop whether the amount is final or not and indicate that in some way.

I wouldn't be astonished to see chargebacks (by buyers who think they were overcharged) resulting from this - that can hardly be in anyones interest.

[seabee]

If a bug causes behaviour that everybody expects, is it still a bug?

[EGreg]

Who is everybody? I never knew a website could charge via paypal $200 more than what I authorized. I thought PayPal was different than credit cards!

[eli]

Sites that don't redirect to PayPal could charge you $200 more than what they display too -- even easier!

[EGreg]

So what? The whole point of that confirmation screen should be to let me confirm the amount with Paypak which authorizes the funds' release.