Hey, guys, I'm here to let you know that is aware of this issue and is trying to pin down the cause. In the meantime, if possible, please use Stripe for your CSC purchases.

Keith is investigating why it is not working and has disabled it for paypal until they can figure things out. They are working on it though!

We are still trying to get paypal to troubleshoot with us. I promise that we are trying. Keith has recommended that you buy through Stripe for the time being. You can use Apple Pay, Android Pay and Credit Cards. As soon as we can get this resolved with them we will.

I wish I had better news for you all, but the latest update is that is aware of this issue and is still trying to troubleshoot this with Paypal. Staff will update all of you as soon as we have any news beyond this!

I hope it's clear that we aren't ignoring the issue, you not being able to spend money means that we don't get your money. That's a lose/lose. I apologize for being quiet, there just hasn't been anything to report other than "waiting for someone to email me back". I'll keep the thread updated more often, especially if there is any movement or forcing toward their newer tool, that I'm not a fan of. If you can buy CSC with any other method than paypal, I'd recommend doing that for now.

We, right now, process those payments through a third party processor called Braintree. Not to get too into Silicon Valley Politics, but that company was bought at eBay when they owned paypal, it was spun off when Paypal was, and then purchased by Paypal and then it was... absorbed? by Paypal, and now it looks like it's probably going to be discontinued in favor of their PayPal Checkout product, which takes paypal as a first tier payment and lets you give them your credit card information.

I don't like that option. I would like PayPal to be a single option, the same as Apple Pay or credit card, not needing to give them (a very shady company) your details to pay with credit card.

Unfortunately, they make that really difficult. Braintree sends information in a way that adheres to standards that Stripe (and most other payment processors) also follow.

There is still the Paypal integration in braintree, that allegedly works, for now. Except it clearly doesn't. I've been waiting on a response from our rep there, and will reach out again, and hope we can get it turned back on. I'm still not super comfortable with paypal checkout as an option - but if it becomes the only option i'll let y'all know the amount of time I think it'd take to implement it, and the warnings / precautions I'd like to have in place.

CSC can still be purchased through Stripe, which accepts credit card, debit card, I believe e-check, Apple Pay, and Google Pay.

Yeah, PayPal not being a payment option is still ... PayPal. The ball is in their court. Sorry, guys.

Once you click the "Buy CSC" link, it'll take you to the Kumos Subeta page to buy CSCs. Click the amount you're after, "Buy X CSC." The next page is hosted by Stripe. You'll see the buttons for card or bank account, but up ABOVE that, if you're eligible, it'll show you your other payment options (for example, I have a big black GPay button).

PayPal isn't working with us at all. It's something on their end, but they seem uninterested in resolving the issue.

Unfortunately, we have no control over geographic limitations for some of the payment options. :( We'd really LIKE to be able to have PayPal working again, but it's out of our hands.

I see that it is still possible to access the page where PayPal is an option if you go the roundabout way through the link on the Item Cash Shop page. Whoops! That should get fixed here shortly, with all "Buy CSC" options linking to the newer page on Kumos Subeta to avoid confusion.

Hey everyone -- we had no idea that this page was even still up. I've gone ahead and taken it down, with a link to the appropriate page.

In terms of how we're approaching this issue with PayPal -- it's complicated. Believe me, I'm absolutely happy to rake a company over the coals on twitter, if I think that it'll provide outcomes (and not result in worse outcomes). If you do a quick google, you'll see the kind of things that happen to PayPal accounts when someone complains or reaches out publicly. They get frozen for the absolute longest amount of time, legally, they can freeze the funds. It is very common for PayPal to do this.

In terms of what is going on, again, it's complicated. PayPal used to be owned by eBay, which also bought Braintree to be a payment processor for their entire empire, as well as an API that folks could use easily to take payments that INCLUDED (but didn't need to have!) paypal. Over the last few years, PayPal has been split off from ebay, and Braintree has been split off entirely. It's now not clear what 'value' it has in the world, and the API and improvements have slowed down. At the same time, PayPal started pushing (and is now forcing) companies to move to their "all in" payment processing, meaning if we wanted to process credit cards they would have to be processed through PayPal. And we'd have two cuts taken on it, one from the payment processor ($.40 minimum and then a % fee of the total amount) and one from paypal (a % fee from the total amount). I don't think that's fair, and I also don't think we can sustain Subeta if we're forced to pay vendors like that, and in a situation where the could increase the fees down the road. Again, I encourage folks to google PayPal horror stories.

I'm going to attempt to go one more round with our braintree representative to see if there is any reason for us to continue our relationship with them, and if there isn't, we'll likely just not able to take Paypal in the future :( It's a bummer, and I'm really sorry.

It's complicated! The subscription feature in Braintree is something that hasn't been replicated completely (to the degree we use it) in the PayPal API / Software Development Kit. I assume they'll change that at some point, and force migrations or continue to break things like they've done in the regular purchasing flow.

I'm chatting with our rep later this week, will let you know what I learn!

I'm really confused by what you mean. We accept credit cards via stripe, which accepts most world currencies.

Yeah, Payments is a particularly difficult part of the internet because it's a place where international banking and regulations really kicks in. There aren't a ton of other places (cookies, terms and conditions, etc) that require the level of cross border collaboration that payments do. When we started Subeta, you needed a separate payment processor for each country.

And it's particularly frustrating because we were one of the first customers of the Paypal API. Subeta was one of the first websites to implement the "instant" payment system (I don't know if anyone here remembers the FIRST cash shop - where Amber and I would go through the daily payments and hand them out individually to accounts. That's how internet payments worked...... 17 years ago omg i'm old now 💀)

Sorry for the confusion there, guys. What I meant is that you have to go to the Cash Shop items page and then click the CSC link from there, versus the "direct" route which is just to click the "Buy CSC" link under the "Cash Shop" tab up there at the top.

HELLOOOOO everyone. Sorry for the lack of updates on this, we've been making movements on the backend!

After (finally) speaking to our rep on the Paypal side, I think I've got a path forward for us. We've been recommended a method, and I'm going to take the next few days to attempt to implement it on kumos.subeta.net as an option for purchasing CSC along side the Stripe method.

If that goes well, we'll be able to transition all of our cash shop purchasing (including subscriptions!) over to kumos.subeta.net with either stripe OR paypal as a payment option.

Thank you for your patience, it's been a very very very annoying road, and we might have an end to it soon! Thank you for wanting to support us 💖 💖

Almost there! I pushed out an update to the Cash Shop that:

1. makes it seem less like a weird page with nothing on it, but link out to the other areas you can spend money. Soon I'll have some cash shop items / etc displayed here!
2. Has (in testing) the ability to pay by PayPal and it works. It logs to the right places, etc. I'm going to do some a little more internal testing, but 🤞

And to celebrate, I want to shift the Gift of Fashion Past vending machine to the new format (so, I'll have to build in cash shop credits) and add in some special new items. Items will now have a limited number of times they go out, so they should hold value in a lot more easy to understand ways.

(Work In Progress!)

There is now an option to buy CSCs with PayPal again! Keith announced in the News tonight that new Subscription options are in the works, to include a PayPal payment option there, too.

Sorry, that's what happens when I post in the middle of the night.

I just meant that subscription payment options would be expanding. They already used Braintree, which works with PayPal. They'll also have a Stripe option. (I'm not sure if we're sticking with Braintree or will be going directly through PayPal instead, but I don't think it matters much on the user end, either way.)

Sorry again. I work Subeta days and then have a night job that I work 7 days a week and I'm exhausted, hah.

Since it looks like there aren't issues with PayPal payments since they were made possible again, I'm going to close up this thread.