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Using UK cards via Paypal for Ebay purchases from France


nomoss
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I thought I saw a comment on this recently, but searching the forum for "paypal" doesn't find it.

Today I bought a "Buy it now" item on Ebay UK. The seller specified that immediate payment had to be made via Paypal.

As I prefer to use a UK credit card for sterling purchases, and it is not accepted on my PP account, in the past I have always clicked on "I don't have a Paypal account" and then filled in the details of the UK card, ignoring the offer to "remember my details".

I last made a similar BIN purchase in this way on Ebay UK on December 3rd, with no problem.

Today the card was refused and "This card may not be used for this purchase" was displayed.

I checked I had entered all the details correctly and tried again with the same result.

I tried again, putting my country as UK, but it was still refused.

I need the item fairly urgently, and as the amount was quite small I used PP directly, thus charging to a French CC, but next time I will try clearing Ebay and PP cookies, and/or using a proxy server.

Before someone assures me that they have a UK CC or DC which they use with PP from France, I did so too, for several years, until they refused to accept a new card when the previous one expired.

I argued with them for some time but they still refused to accept it, and until today continued using my UK card in the way described above.

.

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I cant recall the problems that I had, similar but not the same as yours, my solution should also work for you.

 

I have 2 paypal accounts, I dont think that one is .fr or anything, just 2 different accounts needing different E-mail addresses and I have my French Euro card and bank registered to one and the UK card and bank to the other.

 

Obviously I use the Euro one for Euro purchase and the ÂŁ one for ÂŁ purchases but they will work for the other as a couple of times I wasn't carefull to select the right one.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Actually I think I had exactly the same problem regarding a new debit card.

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We had a nightmare with ebay and pay pal last summer.

The account had been started in France and since we have been back in the UK everything had been fine until one particular transaction.

No idea what was really wrong, but it literally took us weeks to get sorted out.

Fine when it is working, but when it is not, well, my sympathies.

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I have neither bought or been able to buy anything where PayPal is involved, with my Uk cc from France, for about 12 months.

I have 2 UK cards and both are registered to a French address and like yourself I've tried both PP.FR and PP.UK and dipped out on both sites.

I put this situation down to a dislike, by PP, of a French registered UK cc being used in a non UK country to make a purchase from the UK. (If you can get your head around that!). As ebay own PayPal there is also no way to hoodwink them as their systems will be integrated.

I don't possess any French bank cards.  Until my bank start to issue me one with nil annual charge or I am unable to use a UK cc I wont be purchasing anything requiring payment via PayPal.

What happened to 'freedom of movement of goods and services?

regards

cajal

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eBay and Paypal parted company in July 2015.

On the one UK Paypal A/C I have registered:

My UK bank for direct transfers

The associated debit card

A UK credit card

My CA dual debit/credit card

All of those cards have changed at least once.

It's too long ago to remember exactly how I set it up but I seem to recall that it was to do with  addresses and finding a format which the system would accept.

I can buy what I like from where I like and with whichever source I choose.

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My wife and I got our new Barclaycards, only change was the validation dates. My amendent went through OK, my wifes was refused. PP said it was the Banks fault, but the bank could clearly see that PP had made a trial debit.

Could not resolve it so wife opened her own new PP account using her own UK bank card about 3 weeks ago.
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nomoss wrote

Today the card was refused and "This card may not be used for this purchase" was displayed.

This might be a longshot if you attempted to make your purchase with a Nationwide cc.  Mrs c has just informed me that she was unable to access her cc account at Nationwide yesterday due to a technical fault which has now been sorted. Just a thought.

regards

cajal

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I joined Paypal in 2004, and had a French bank account and credit cards from France, Spain, and UK, registered.

Some time after that Paypal split up; my account was transferred to PP Europe, and eventually to PP France. The problem began after that, when the first of my non-French cards expired and the system would not accept the new card.

I played around, and eventually got new cards accepted as the old ones expired, but like ANO I can't remember how.

Eventually I couldn't find a way to get a new UK card accepted. I complained to PP in English and received a reply that as a member of PP Fr I had to correspond in French.

I did this, and was told that having a UK card was against EU regulations or some such carp. When I replied that I had been using my UK and SP cards for years I was told that I had found a loophole, which was now closed.

Unlike some on here, I have found that paying via Paypal is very useful in the event of a dispute, so continue using them for payments of all kinds, but if I am no longer able to use my UK card as a "non member" I may have to reconsider this.

I don't think I can join PP UK without a UK address, and don't particularly want to go through the verification processes again.

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I think we are back with our dear old friend Money Laundering and Paypal (Europe) are adopting the "English Solution" of your financial account must be in the country where you live.

This policy can result in you having to pay Paypal exchange rates where currency of the card and the sale are different. Given their dominant (near monopoly) position in Ebay, this might well be considered an infringement under EU free trade rules and an abuse of a dominant market position.

Good luck however taking this through Brussels. I suspect any case would take years.

I do have to say however that I too use them and have found the process of transferring assets to be a real benefit over alternative means. I have never had to resort to their resolution procedure, so cannot comment except to say that it looks good on paper (or more accurately the screen).
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[quote user="andyh4"]

.............. Good luck however taking this through Brussels. I suspect any case would take years  ..........[/quote]

I'm not about to do that.

A friend in Spain was swindled out of the proceeds of the sale of his hotel, which represented his life's savings, to a British crook, by a bent lawyer who presumably took a large cut..

He sued and lost in Spain, took his case to Brussels and moved to a B&B in Dover so he could get there easily for hearings.

His wife got fed up and left him.

He was obsessed with the case and wrote frequently about his (probably imagined) progress.

I tried but failed to persuade him to move on, but he was convinced that he would get justice if he just hung on.

After a few years he died in the B&B in Dover.

The British crook was eventually run out of Spain, he swindled the wrong people in the end, but that didn't do Frank any good.

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I think sometimes the problem is Ebay rather than Paypal, especially Buy It Now items. A lot of Ebayers will only post to the address on the PayPal registered card. So if you are using a UK card with a UK address but want your item posted to France you will come unstuck with some Ebay purchases. Well this has been my experience anyway...

All this comes down to stolen cards etc.... I am told.
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It's been so long now that I can't remember exactly what happened with my eBay and PayPal accounts; I think it was around 2005 that "they" realised I was no longer living in UK and insisted that I change to an eBay.fr account. I had a UK credit card registered. I changed the eBay account to French and the PayPal changed with it (they were part of the same organisation at that time, as ANO points out the split happened fairly recently). All has been well since then and I use PayPal a lot, not just for eBay purchases, and have had no problems.

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