Update
Eric,
Having spejt the day experimenting with someone from Paypal I managed to get a transaction through, but I'm left with this bit I dont understand.
THe only settings that seem to make sense are to use the Paypal Pro US, rather than UK. If I do that the cart works (either local checkout or express). but the transaction obviously goes through as USD not GBP.
If I go into checkout.asp and confirm.asp and changes the USD settings to GBP and the US parameters to GB, the cart works (if i try to pay be credit card) until after the checkout page whereupon it now refers me to the paypal site - as tho i have selected the "checkout with paypal" button.
it refers to :
webscr?cmd=_flow&SESSION=o_mHtVOJ5_oj2JeLZ83Q20Iyyk6xOo0tXz9UybJz3pSdP2P54aau78qD8Oq&dispatch=50a222a57771920b6a3d7b606239e4d529b525e0b7e69bf0224adecfb0124e9b5efedb82468478c6e115945fd0658595dbb4bda98e0c5f8e
why is it doing this now and not processing the transaction locally? i cant see what i've changed that makes this difference. have attached the relevant pages