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I am getting an error when I do a donation
I am getting an error when I do a donation
Gary Armstrong avatar
Written by Gary Armstrong
Updated over a week ago

Merchant Account Errors

If you are receiving an error message when you submit the registration form, that error is coming directly from your merchant account provider and not Txt2Give. We simply pass the error message along to you so that you know something is wrong in your merchant account connection.

Since we do not have access to your merchant account to be able to see what caused the error in their system, you may need to reach out to your merchant account provider and have them resolve the issue for you. Sometimes the error is simply due to incorrect information being entered in Txt2Give when you connected the payment gateway. Here are a few reasons that could generate an error:

You are using the wrong gateway credentials in Txt2Give,

Make sure that the gateway credentials that you enter in Txt2Give are for the payment gateway. Incorrect user credentials will prevent Txt2Give from successfully being able to connect to your merchant account. If they were mistyped or there is a phantom space before or after an entry, it will cause an error. These credentials are also case sensitive, so verify that you are entering them exactly as the payment processor is showing them in your account with them.

There is a setting in your actual merchant account that is preventing the successful transaction.

Sometimes if you have certain restrictions set in your merchant account settings, they will prevent us from being able to successfully submit the donation information to the payment processor. You will need to contact your merchant account provider directly for assistance. We do not have access or visibility into your merchant account.

Merchant Account Errors - PayPal Payments Pro

"You do not have permissions to make this API call"

You have not granted API permissions correctly in your PayPal account. Those instructions were provided when you created the gateway connection. You must complete that in order for PayPal to process the donations that Txt2Give sends to them. Here is the article again that shows you how to do that.

"This transaction cannot be processed. The merchant's account is not able to process transactions."

You are not using the PayPal Payments Pro account. This is not the same type of account as their Business Pro account & it is not a free account. To use PayPal as your processor, you must have their PayPal Payments Pro account, which is $30 per month. PayPal also requires you to do additional setup in your PayPal Payments Pro account. This is a PayPal requirement and not a Txt2Give requirement.

If you are open to an easier and more cost effective processor than PayPal, we recommend Stripe. Stripe is a free instant account & just charges a flat 2.3% + .30 per transaction, no matter what type of card your donor uses. You can easily create and connect the Stripe account right in our dashboard in about 5 minutes, under My Account->Gateways->Stripe->Connect Stripe. Complete the one page application & once you submit it, your Stripe account is created and the gateway is connected and you are ready to accept donations!

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