Paypal: Need help getting this right...very important!

[ArchangelX]

I guess I posted this in the wrong VM section (VM.10), so I'm reposting in the proper section now.

I currently have VB setup with Joomla 1.5 and am already in a production environment.  At the beginning, I thought I understood exactly how Paypal operates in VM.

I assumed that you could set it so that a person orders an item, and then after you receive the item, when you change it to "Confirmed" only then would it charge the user.

The first problem I'm having at the moment is that sometimes the orders need to be modified, or have their prices changed.  The site is for a flower shop, and sometimes people make mistakes in selecting their delivery methods.

Right now, from what I'm seeing, as soon as they order the product, they are immediately being charged.  This doesn't allow us time to look at the order and modify it if it needs to be.  And when we cancel an order...does it automatically cancel and refund the Paypal amount?  Am I wrong in this?

Can anyone please explain to me what the proper setup would be.  So far, I'm really frustrated with my experience with VM.  If I can't figure this out, I'm going to have to redo the entire site and switch to a basic shopping cart I think

Secondly, I just had a super-irate customer email me he didn't receive his order.  We received the order in our Orders List, but we sure as heck didn't receive the funds from Paypal in our account so I sent him an email asking if he could pay. 

How come we're getting orders when the Paypal payment didn't go through?   As it is, I'm having to check both the Paypal system and our system at the same time just to ensure that everything is working properly.

Right now, the gentleman that I created the site for is becoming extremely agitated at the lack of "ease of use" that VM is presenting, and it's becoming a problem.

[pilotjourney]

We have the same issue with PayPal.

An order gets placed, the customer chooses PayPal, then for whatever reason the PayPal payment does not get processed. VM does not know about this and sends us the order anyway.  I have another system in which PayPal notifies us if the transaction was completed...I am not sure why VM does not do this.

It's funny (sad really) the biggest problems with VM are:

1. Credit Card drop downs
2. Registration issues with state name drop downs
3. PayPal issues
4. Usability of checkout process with different shipping addresses

Other than the above minor issues it all works fine.  If I was a programmer I would volunteer, but I am not.  We are looking into paying someone to write another cart for Joomla though.

I have a feeling many VM users are not making as much money as they would if it all worked in various browsers and PayPal integration was better.