Paying Germans for Ebay

If they can't take credit cards they also won't take debit cards. You'd need to have your paypal account attached directly to your bank account instead.

This has bitten me recently from the other side - I sold something 'PayPal only' and somebody paid with a credit-card linked PayPal account.

If you only have a basic account yourself (free to do everything except draw money out) then you cannot accept CC or DC payments, only from a bank account. You have to upgrade to a 'Premier' account - which means you then pay 3.4%+£0.20 for receiving *every* transaction from then on - even the previously free bank account linked payments.

There is no way to say 'PayPal but only bank-linked' when selling an item and I've heard they will take your listing off if you try..

What do you mean "They can't take CC via paypal"? I'm pretty sure I've paid for a something from a German ebayer using paypal/CC. It's true that many places in germany prefer bank transfers - even COD rather than credit cards but paypal isn't a credit card.

Can you provide a link to the auction?

Can you transfer cash into your PayPal account (from your credit card!) then pay with PayPal? If you can then your credit card will probably charge you interest from day one (as it's a cash transaction).

PC Paul ( snipped-for-privacy@home.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

So you set up two PayPal accounts. One that's free to take payments from PayPal balances, one "Premier" for card-funded payments.

True.

I don't advertise PayPal on my auctions - I just say that I'll take almost any kind of payment, and we can probably come to some arrangement.

"Do you take PayPal?" "Sure - is the money coming from card or balance? OK - send it to this/that address"

I don't think it's lost me bids, because I just don't tend to sell the kind of "commodity" item where there's a few identical to choose from at any given time.

The message from "PC Paul" contains these words:

I've seen several items marked "Not credit-card PayPal" if that's the same thing.

I found I couldn't do an electronic transfer from my bank to an EU country.

It was for lowish value goods - about 75 quid - and the small company didn't take credit cards. A cheque would also have cost (them). So I eventually sent Euros in an envelope. It was a company I trusted, though.

Credit cards aren't so 'universal' with both firms and individuals as they are in the UK.

You don't know though, e.g.

e.g. 3 years ago the majority of restaurants didn't take them.

Duncan Wood ( snipped-for-privacy@dmx512.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Eh? You as a bidder don't have to change your account. The seller has two, gives you the relevant address to send the money to.

I know but..

What I didn't realise was that you had to be capable of accepting credit card paymets if you want to accept Paypal payments. Does this mean it's possible for some ebay sellers to accept "Mastercard via Paypal" but not say Visa via Paypal?

Not if they want me to pay by means oother than a card, I then have to be arsed to attach my bank account to Paypal.

No, one of th epluspoints of paypal is you don't have to go through all the hassle of being able to accept credit card payments.

Duncan Wood ( snipped-for-privacy@dmx512.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

You're not doing this "reading" thing very well, are you?

I'm the seller. In my auction I say "I can take almost any payment - talk to me". You're the buyer. You want to pay by PayPal. But is it card-funded?

If I have one account that is card-payable, *every* payment costs me money. If I have one account that isn't card-payable, I can't take card payments.

So I have TWO accounts. If you want to pay by balance, fine - send it to account A - it doesn't cost me. If you want to pay by card, fine - sent it to account B - I can take cards.

However you're rare, most sellers that list things like that don't actually take paypal & are therefore tedious to deal with.

So perhaps someone can explain the OP's comment that..

"They can't take CC via paypal"

Basic (free)PayPal accounts don't let you take Credit or Debit cards. For that you need to have a Premium or Business account. At which point you pay a fee of 3.4%+£0.20 for *every* transaction, including bank account transactions that were previously free.

Hence signing up for two accounts, one for CC, one not.

Ah thanks.