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Verify Thank You Page

by AccountCache
6 replies
I thought this would be easy to solve but after reading all the posts about IPN I'm still confused.

The Problem: My Thank You page contains a form that generates an unlock key for my software. All I want to do is verify that anyone accessing the form has been sent by PayPal (ClickBank, PayDotCom & DigiResult).

There is nothing to download and I don't need any information in the IPN.

Is there a simple solution to this?

Thanks for any help,

Geoff
#page #verify
  • Profile picture of the author theIMgeek
    Hi Geoff,

    To do this the "proper" way (the secure way) you would have to use PayPal's IPN or PDT services.

    IPN - Instant Payment Notification - happens in the background, so you would need a custom script to receive this notice, generate the unlock key, and email it to the customer.

    PDT - Payment Data Transfer - is similar but it happens out in front. PayPal sends people back to your page, adding a tx value (transaction id) to the end of the url. Your page is supposed to verify this transaction ID with PayPal and then display your unlock code to your customer.

    Both would require a little bit of custom programming.

    The "quick and dirty" way would be to use PayPal to make an encoded "Buy Now" button... which means people can't see what information is in your payment form... and specify a secret "thank you" page address. Then you would be relatively sure knowing that only PayPal customers could get there.

    Mind you, once that page address becomes known, your security is out the window.

    -Ryan
    Signature
    FREE WSO: Protect and Automatically Deliver Your Digital Products

    Ask the Internet Marketing Geek     <-- Happy to help with technical challenges
    MiniSiteMaker.org <-- Free software to make your mini-sites fast and easy
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    • Profile picture of the author AccountCache
      Originally Posted by theIMgeek View Post


      The "quick and dirty" way would be to use PayPal to make an encoded "Buy Now" button... which means people can't see what information is in your payment form... and specify a secret "thank you" page address. Then you would be relatively sure knowing that only PayPal customers could get there.

      Mind you, once that page address becomes known, your security is out the window.

      -Ryan
      Thanks for your insight Ryan. I'm amazed that there doesn't appear to be a canned solution to what seems like a common problem.

      Since we are launching in just a couple of days we bought WP Member Champ which is a great plugin for creating member sites but doesn't do exactly what we want. It should get us by until we can come up with something better.
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      • Profile picture of the author Cash Money Hosting
        maybe not the most secure, but you could always just do a simple referrer check in php.

        if($_SERVER['http_referrer']!='http://www.paypal.com){die('Invalid Page Request');exit;}
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  • Profile picture of the author theIMgeek
    The trouble with using a referrer is that it is not guaranteed that the browser will submit that value. You could potentially block out a paying customer.

    -Ryan
    Signature
    FREE WSO: Protect and Automatically Deliver Your Digital Products

    Ask the Internet Marketing Geek     <-- Happy to help with technical challenges
    MiniSiteMaker.org <-- Free software to make your mini-sites fast and easy
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    • Profile picture of the author HamzaSiddiqui
      Originally Posted by theIMgeek View Post

      The trouble with using a referrer is that it is not guaranteed that the browser will submit that value. You could potentially block out a paying customer.

      -Ryan

      you are right
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      • Profile picture of the author AccountCache
        CMH - This is exactly the kind of simple solution I was hoping to find but as Ryan points out I can't risk losing customers.

        For now I guess we will go with WP Member Champ until we can come up with a more appropriate solution.
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