We use the payment_status value in PayPal IPN to determine the outcome of a transaction. There are 6 possible values according to the transaction logs of one of my websites, out of a total of 1132 occurences:
- Completed – 884
- Reversed – 100
- Refunded – 67
- Canceled_Reversal – 66
- Pending – 13
- Denied – 2
For those who are new to PayPal IPN:
- Completed = You got the money and you can ship the goods.
- Reversed = The payment was reversed by the other party (NOT you) and you lost the money! e.g. A chargeback.
- Refunded = The money was refunded to the buyer (probably by you).
- Canceled_Reversal = The money was again returned to you after it was reversed previously.
- Pending = You haven’t got the money yet but you probably will after fraud review was done by PayPal or after the eCheck clears.
- Denied = PayPal denies a payment because god knows why and you don’t get the money.