Paypal (or alternative) paying to strangers?

Question

just wondering if this is possible with Paypal. I have a website and I want to start allowing people to give me their Paypal email, and when other users come to my site, it allows them to pay to that users Paypal account using credit card or their own Paypal.

If not Paypal, is there another site that does something similar?

Basically I'm looking for a way to set up a gateway for people to provide their account details easily, and then other users to pay to that account through my website (a redirect to Paypal then back is acceptable as well).

I can't really ask for bank details etc because it's hard to verify and a lengthy process. Also it'll be small 'donation' type payments. It's for a non-registration site too.

So in summary:

• User1 browses to mysite.com
• User1 gives me their Paypal email address and hits submit
• User2 browses to mysite.com, and sees User1's 'pay page'. Hits Pay on their page, and it allows them to pay User1 using User2s Paypal (or credit card or whatever).

Thanks.

Answer 1

If you do not need to track the payments made, you could simply programmatically generate the standard PayPal HTML button code.

If you need to track the payments, you will need to process them through your account. For example, User1 makes a payemnt to you and then you make a payment to User2. Of course, you will need to count the fees in. Another way of tracking payments is the PayPal IPN.

To receive the payment you can use the PayPal REST API, which is very simple and has very good SDKs already built.

To make the payment, you can use PayPal Mass Payment API which is a part of the PayPal Classic API.

To get proper support from PayPal, try registering a developer account.

Answer 2

As Igor mentioned, the easiest way is to simply programmatically change the receiver in a Payments Standard button by modifying the value of the 'business' parameter.

I.e. as a link with GET parameters:

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_xclick&amount=10.00&currency_code=GBP&business=$receiverBusiness

Or via a :

<form method="POST" action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr">
<input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_xclick">
<input type="hidden" name="business" value="$receiverBusiness">
<input type="hidden" name="amount" value="10.00">
<input type="hidden" name="currency_code" value="GBP">
<input type="hidden" name="item_name" value="Payments Standard demo">
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit">
</form>

Adaptive Payments

If you'd like a little more visibility and control over the transactions - typical for a marketplace setup - you might want to look something more refined however.
For this we currently offer Adaptive Payments, which allows you to 'chain payments' so that they flow from the sender via a first (primary) receiver to eventually the final recipient.

Quick flow diagram:

More details about Adaptive Payments is available here, with a quick runnable example available here.

If you're thinking of going this route, note that you need to apply for an 'Application ID' via https://apps.paypal.com/. Your application will need to be reviewed. More details about this are available here.

Answer 3

Or you could use bitcoins ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin), a cryptographic currency, which will hide your transactions from everyone.