Multiple PayPal accounts / IPN question

[christineabela]

I know the question about having multiple PayPal accounts has been asked, and yes, I know you can have multiple PayPal accounts as long as (1) you have each verified and linked to a different bank account and (2) you don't get caught! (grin)

But I only have so many bank accounts/credit cards. I want to start a new online business, and I want to use PayPal's IPN to automate delivery of the product. SO I need a PayPal account that is unique to that web site.

When I asked PayPal a while back how I can run more than one web site if I only have one PayPal account, their reply was that I can have multiple email addresses on that account. But that only fixes the way the customers send money to the account - what I need is a different IPN destination depending on which web site the customer came from. The woman on the phone that I was talking to didn't understand what I was talking about (duh).

Yes, I know I could use another alternative to PayPal, but the software I have bought that I want to install only uses PayPal. And since it is a membership-type thing, I want the IPN functionality to allow instant delivery.

Any ideas anyone? It's hard to be a multi-site mogul if you are restricted by how many PayPal accounts you can have. (My only solution at this point is to open a new bank account, but what a hassle! And what if I wanted to run 100 of these new sites??).

Thanks,
Christine.

[jazbo]

I am pretty sure you can use multiple IPN's using a notify_URL script, might be worth a Google.

[jaiganeshv.com]

Second option is what majority uses

[samstephens]

Hi Christine,

Jazbo is right, you can have as many different IPN's as you want, if you set them through sales button code.

DLGuard will do this automatically for you, meaning it doesn't take up the one spot you have in your Paypal Profile.

Check with the system you're thinking about using, and see if they have an option to set an IPN through the button code, rather than through the Paypal Profile.

cheers
Sam

[seasoned]

The IPN is controlled by the values you pass from YOUR site, and the customers action. If you can't understand it, and don't want to, you should just use something else, besides paypal.

Paypal shouldn't have to deal with multiple accounts, etc... just because you can't understand it.

And everyone else, to this point, has been right.

The way IPN works is THIS way....

1. YOUR site passes a URL to paypal for IPN. I believe there IS a default IPN, but that is by default.
2. Paypal generally constantly tries to pass values to the IPN address, until it gets a response.
3. IF you wish, YOUR site can use those values and others to PULL info DIRECT from paypal, so even if someone else DID try to access the IPN service, they would get NOTHING. That call is even ENCRYPTED with a special value.
4. YOUR site acts based on that info.

OR, as paypal says:

When you enable IPN, PayPal sends messages to the IPN listener at the URL you specify in your account’s profile. You can override the URL to associate other IPN listeners with specific transactions. In this case, you specify the listener’s URL when you set up a Website Payment Standard button or a PayPal API operation.

The IPN protocol consists of three steps:



PayPal sends your IPN listener a message that notifies you of the event

Your listener sends the complete unaltered message back to PayPal; the message must contain the same fields in the same order and be encoded in the same way as the original message

PayPal sends a single word back, which is either VERIFIED if the message originated with PayPal or INVALID if there is any discrepancy with what was originally sent

Your listener must respond to each message, whether or not you intend to do anything with it. If you do not respond, PayPal assumes that the message was not received and resends the message. PayPal continues to resend the message periodically until your listener sends the correct message back, although the interval between resent messages increases each time. The message can be resent for up to four days.

So technically, paypal does NOTHING unique with IPN. You could have a TRILLION urls all running off ONE paypal account. They could go to one, or billions of sites.

Steve

[Gene Pimentel]

Just an aside: You can have as many PayPal accounts as you'd like if you form LLCs. Each LLC is a separate and unique 'individual'.