How should I handle a paypal transaction between 2 users and still get the post back information

Question

I am building a website similar to Ebay that allows users to buy and sell items among themselves.

I was thinking of making a paypal account to be the middle man to handle all the transactions. So The buyer will pay to my paypal account(so I can call the paypal-ipn when transaction is finished) and then I will transfer the money from my paypal account to the seller after the items are delivered.

I'm Not sure if that is be best way to do it. Is there anyway I can have the buyer pay directly to the seller and still get the payment confirmation? I know paypal have the buyer protection thing so I want them to handle the money holding to save myself some time.

Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks

Answer 1

There's a few ways to do this

Third party transactions let you run a call on the behalf of the end user so the transaction is seamless between them. They would need to authorize your API username to run calls and then provide you their PayPal email address. The downside is if you want to process cards. The end user would have to have a Payments Pro account.

The other option is a Chained Payment, where you take the payment, take your cut and then send the rest along. In this case, however, you would be the receiver of record, not the end receiver.

The last option is to simply take the payments yourself and then use Mass Pay. Again, you would be the payee of record but you could transfer the money to the recipient's PayPal account (minus a maximum $1 fee PayPal charges).