Failmail alert paypal_audit
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	Laurabarluzzi
	Sep 7 2026, 12:15 PM

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file_path: /var/spool/audit/paypal-frup/incoming/TRR-20260904.01.011.CSV
file_name: TRR-20260904.01.011.CSV
message: Something went amiss with the recon parser while processing /var/spool/audit/paypal-frup/incoming/TRR-20260904.01.011.CSV: "We expect these to always be debits - ie payouts"
code: RECON_PARSE_ERROR
subject: paypal_audit

The withdrawal row throwing the error has Transaction Debit or Credit=CR instead of DR as expected in our code. CR is expected to be the value in column Fee Debit or Credit instead.

"Transaction Event Code","Transaction Debit or Credit","Fee Debit or Credit"
"T1300","CR",""

Details

Related Changes in Gerrit:

	Subject	Author	Repo	Branch	Lines +/-
	Treat unsolicited payment as a donation	Eileen	wikimedia/fundraising/SmashPig	master	+38 -0

Customize query in gerrit

Related Objects

Mentioned In: T438899: Sprint R Priorities

Event Timeline

Laurabarluzzi created this task.Sep 7 2026, 12:15 PM

Restricted Application added a subscriber: Aklapper. · View Herald TranscriptSep 7 2026, 12:15 PM

Laurabarluzzi updated the task description. (Show Details)Sep 7 2026, 12:59 PM

Laurabarluzzi updated the task description. (Show Details)

XenoRyet moved this task from Triage to Chaos Crew Backlog on the Fundraising-Backlog board.Sep 8 2026, 8:07 PM

Laurabarluzzi moved this task from Chaos Crew Backlog to Triage on the Fundraising-Backlog board.Sep 8 2026, 8:07 PM

XenoRyet moved this task from Triage to Chaos Crew Backlog on the Fundraising-Backlog board.Sep 8 2026, 8:08 PM

This is being caused by an incoming transaction with type T0000 from CID

T000 translates to 'General Payment' - https://developer.paypal.com/reports/reference/t-codes

We have only seen these as payouts to us before - possibly the presence of a consumer ID is meaningful?

it does not appear to have made it to CiviCRM

This is how it looks in the file

Field	Value
CH	SB
Transaction ID	6WE406841H3050743
Invoice ID
PayPal Reference ID
PayPal Reference ID Type
Transaction Event Code	T0000
Transaction Initiation Date	2026/09/04 08:55:09 -0700
Transaction Completion Date	2026/09/04 08:55:09 -0700
Transaction Debit or Credit	CR
Gross Transaction Amount	1040
Gross Transaction Currency	USD
Fee Debit or Credit	DR
Fee Amount	31
Fee Currency	USD
Custom Field
Consumer ID	XLH85GERDAL34
Payment Tracking ID
Store ID
Bank Reference ID

We are explicitly throwing an exception as we don't know what to do with these and it seems like if we let it bubble up from the audit it might be hard to figure out how to make a donation from it.

So I don't know how this happened - if it's a one-off we also need some clear way to recover - which possibly means letting the donation through the audit so the file at least completes - but it would still require some manual intervention because it's soooo oddball

./logdog.sh -d 202609 6WE406841H3050743 found nothing ....

@Eileenmcnaughton Do you have access to PayPal? I don't, so I cannot see the transaction nor the consumer in the account. I'm asking because based on my research I believe this happens when the user donated directly to us using PayPal's UI / interface. Basically this PayPal consumer might have clicked on a button in PayPal like a "Send Money" feature to an email address or mobile number, rather than paying through an integrated checkout system.

Is there a way to verify this assumption from the account? If so, couldn't we maybe change some settings in the PayPal's buisness account so that all payments are categorized differently? I read somewhere that we could maybe achieve that using Donations / PayPal Buttons -> Donate. But not having access, I cannot validate.

Sign - no I failed to log in I thought I got into paypal once - maybe I imagined it - @Cstone or @Ejegg ?

I searched in the PayPal console at https://www.paypal.com/mep/unifiedtransactions for the transaction ID and didn't find anything either. I looked around for other data saw 'disbursement report' available so I'm generating one for 9/4 to see if that has any more information.

XenoRyet triaged this task as High priority.Mon, Sep 14, 8:02 PM

Searching in the FRUP account I did find it - seems to be an unsolicited donation. Looks like ppl can send us money just by searching for 'Wikimedia Foundation' directly in their 'Send Money' screen, so we're guessing that's how they did it. The TRR file has more complete donor information.

@Ejegg got in to analyse how this happened