How do I do this?
All i want is to use paypal as a credit card processor, I don't want the user to have to have a paypal account.
The user does not have to have a paypal account in order to pay with a credit card. That being said the issue is if they have ever hit paypal or a site that uses paypal and a cookie is set on their system.
Once a paypal cookie is set on a users system when they go to checkout from your site (assuming you don't have paypal pro merchant account) the landing page that paypal provides is very poor and it looks like they need a paypal account, but they do not. When they go to checkout on the left side of landing page will read :
Don't have a PayPal account?
Use your credit card or bank account (where available). Continue
If the user clicks on their link it will take them to another page that shows a credit card form on the left side with yet another paypal login section on the right. However, if your customer does not want to use paypal they probably have not even made it this far.
I'm in the same boat as you but the only option to make it look as if the customer does not need paypal is to have a paypal merchant account @ $30.00 a month. With at that point I'd rather get a normal merchant account and tell paypal to kiss my ***
ok, i don't know if I need to do any extra configuration w/ the paypal payment method... but it really looks like the user needs a paypal account to even pay.
Check out grownfriendly.com (http://www.grownfriendly.com/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=2) and purchase something (paypal method is in test mode).
It sends the user to a paypal log-in screen.