How to fix? Access Denied You don't have permission to access http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr

[cndg]

For more than a year now, I get occasional customers who elect to pay me using paypal, but when they click the link on my website which 99% of the time works fine, they instead report to me that paypal shows them this:-

Access Denied
You don't have permission to access "http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" on this server.
Reference #18.c5595068.1537455748.868cf0a

That is not my server showing that message - it's something purporting to be paypal (it says http: in the error, but as far as I know, it's an https: page).

These are intermittent problems, and it's my customers, not me, who suffer them, so I am unable to reproduce them - I only know when my customers are kind enough to tell me - the problem is probably 10x larger (most customers probably don't report this).

Has anyone else seen this? How would I get it fixed?

[tornF]

I know this may not help you too much, but I was able to get around this issue in personal use via a vpn.

[PayPal_Olivia]

Hi @cndg and @tornF,

I'm sorry to hear about thus issue accessing the checkout. Please collect any specific examples along with date and times of that result and open a ticket at https://www.paypal-support.com. You can log in there and click Contact Us. 

Please do not instruct anyone to use a VPN, as any kind of proxies are not permitted for accessing PayPal. 

I hope this helps!

Olivia

[lekica]

Sorry @PayPal_Olivia but VPN worked for me, too. The problem is you cannot log into your PayPal account at all to be able to report the problem the way you suggest.

Hope this gets fixed soon as I use PayPal to pay almost all my online transactions (and also pay a nice service fee to enjoy the safety and user-friendliness of PayPal).

[WalterKemble]

THIS MAY BE HELPFUL FOR OTHER MEMBERS IN FUTURE. I am NOT a developer or I.T. professional. Like so many learning curves for me ..this was the result of a finger spasm on the mouse. 

• Simply click the reload icon in the browser window that is giving you Access Denied. The page reloaded and logged me into my PayPal and the transaction was completed with the appropriate receipt emailed from PayPal.

I use PayPal for shopping on only TWO or THREE sites. Mostly Wish.com. and "Mostly" from my late model iMac using Safari. I prefer using my iMac which being a desktop machine always uses my home router and IP.

• I am beginning my day and bought something from Wish using their app on Android.
• Wanted to look at it in greater detail so logged in on Mac.
• Noticed something in my shopping cart from the night before. I hadn't completed the checkout due to Access denied and had closed rather than risk falling down some techy rabbit hole right before bed. (LoL can anyone relate?)
• Clicked to complete the purchase and got "Access denied etc" when clicking the "Log in to PayPal" that loads.    Googled for a solution which brought me here.
• Clearing the cache and cookies is a HUGE inconvenience and for me and a very last resort. I do that once or twice a year if I have to and it was done a couple of weeks ago.
• Wanted to contact PayPal and tried login here using Safari.
• PayPal returned Access Denied etc.
• Hadn't closed the Access denied tab yet and went back to it to find the ID reference number because I intended to call PayPal.
• Meant to click on the "lock" in the address bar that gives settings for whichever site and also shows if I am connected HTTP or HTTPS. That was when I accidentally hit the circle with the arrowhead RELOAD button.
• ET VOILA transaction complete & I am HAPPY.

"Technology is a wonderful thing .....WHEN IT WORKS!!" xoxo 

[Bender67]

I experienced the same problem getting an "Access Denied" error using https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr. I created a support ticket days ago, but did not hear anything back from PayPal. What is going on? I see this issue exist for a while, but doesn't get fixed by PayPal. Does anyone have a solution to fix this issue?  

[Tayo200]

Immediately I saw your post I quickly switched to my VPN and it was resolved. I was able to log in into account successfully. @tornF Your post was extremely helpful. Thank you

[cndg · Accepted solution]

OK - so the problem is caused by PayPals own web application firewall - which is a kind of proxy that sits between the PayPal systems, and the internet.

This proxy of theirs is programmed to inspect all incoming traffic, and to deny access if anything in that traffic "looks like it comes from hackers".

The kind of things it is looking for, are embedded HTML elements inside your form that you are submitting.

So - to fix this problem, make sure none of the data you are sending to PayPal (customer names, addresses, goods descriptions, etc) contains anything "html ish".

This forum itself might ban me from typing the same stuff in (catch 22 - it's probably protected by the same proxy!) - but I'll try here:-

Stuff like angle <brackets> and ampersand & signs especially if semicolons; follow - and probably also "quotes" and 'apostrophes'

[cndg]

If you are a customer and having this problem - you have probably typed something into the checkout the PayPal WAF proxy rejects (your name, email, address, comments, deliver-instructions, etc): remove all the "special characters" and try again.

[cndg]

Note also that the WAF is inspecting *all* the traffic you send to paypal - even form fields that paypal might not be using - so if you're a web site and scratching your head because everything is right - check the data actually coming out of your browser - you might be sending other form data from your web page which is the cause (which was my problem).