只使用收据编号，使用REST API获取Paypal的交易

Question

Okay so I've setup a website with a basic paid subscription using Paypal. Here's the general flow of things:

1) A person fills up a basic subscription form and click subscribe

2) They get forwarded to Paypal who handles the payment

3) User clicks on "back to website" button

4) Account gets activated and user is forwarded to splash page

The thing is that if the user decides to close the window instead of clicking "Back to website", then his account will remain locked even though he paid (and yes, I'm aware you can skip the "back to website" button, but my client wants to keep it).

So, what I'd like to do is basically implement a form that will query Paypal's REST api to check if the user's receipt number actually exists and if so, complete his subscription. The problem is that most of the users pay through credit card, not Paypal... so all they have is a receipt number.

I've searched through the documentation and I can't seem to find how to query Paypal's REST API using the receipt number. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Answer 1

I use the IPN service provided by PayPal. With this, I pass a custom field along with the transaction containing the user's account number (you could use receipt number as long as you have it stored). I have an IPN Handler script that receives the verification from PayPal that the transaction completed successfully. This script receives the custom field, which can then be used to locate the user's account and update their subscription status.