we are trying to add a pre-approval paypal process to our website before a user can bid on any of our items for sale. We currently accomplished this using Authorize.net but want to now integrate paypal as well.
I have been doing some research and am trying to find out if paypal even offers such a solution. The main reason for adding this verification is of course to make sure an individual actually has the money to purchase the item, some items can range from $100-$100,000. Does paypal offer a pre approval process for those types of transactions?
https://developer.paypal.com/docs/classic/api/adaptive-payments/Preapproval_API_Operation/
The Preapproval API gives your application permissions to trigger payments on a user's behalf without further approval (no login required to submit payments with a preapproval ID). There is no guarantee funds will be available when you submit this payment. A transaction with a preapproval ID could simply fail like any other transaction.
It sounds like what you're looking is the Authorization and Capture process, which is probably what you're doing with Auth.net, too.
With PayPal you can run Authorizations from credit cards directly (exactly like you do with Auth.net) and you can also do it with Express Checkout, which would be PayPal login payments.