Jay Posted October 11, 2010 Share Posted October 11, 2010 I tried to use a UK Visa card to pay for an item purchased from eBay. PayPall blocked the card . I emailed PayPall to ask why they had blocked the card and got the following response which has either been written by a 10 year old or had been run through Google Translate!Thank you for contacting PayPal regarding your credit card.I checked your account and could see that you have been using a Visa card issued by a British financial institution (Visa card xXXXX).Whilst you have been using this card for a time I must advise you to refrain yourself to do so as it appeared to us that you have selected France in the country list to open a PayPal account. Therefore this card is not eligible on a French PayPal account.We randomly check the activity on accounts and soon or later your account may be frozen in relation to our user agreement.PayPal must comply with different financial regulations specific to individual countries. To ensure compliance with the laws of each country, PayPal does not allow members to add credit/debit cards that are issued outside of the country from which their PayPal account is registered.To resume the situation it is understood that the billing address on your credit card is in France however the card remains a UK one because it is issued by a UK financial institution.I have been using PayPall while resident in France for the past 9 years. I use a French Mastercard for stuff purchased in €'s and a Visa card for £'s. The PayPall account is the same one I used in the UK before moving here.Has anyone any idea what they are on about or had similar problems? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russethouse Posted October 11, 2010 Share Posted October 11, 2010 We can't use our card on our Paypal account either and we live in the UK where the card is registered - when it works Paypal is great, but sometimes it's a pain ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay Posted October 11, 2010 Author Share Posted October 11, 2010 Spoke to a friend in the UK and he is having similar problems with a new credit card. The old one expired and he has registered the new one but they still block it - do they not want the business? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cooperlola Posted October 11, 2010 Share Posted October 11, 2010 I'm finding more and more of these software problems on websites. Eurotunnel (and others) won't let me pay in sterling with my UK cards because I live in France, for instance. Other sites behave like Paypal and link the first four digits of the card to the address and if they don't tally (the bank account and the address of the payee aren't from the same country) they won't work. I'm all for fraud prevention but it seems to me that we are going backwards, not forwards, with these things and that as we become more cosmopolitain, the software writers become less so! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sid Posted October 11, 2010 Share Posted October 11, 2010 Jay, I had this same problem when we moved here 6 years ago, I'm just surprised it took this long to flag up.I had had a UK PayPal account for about 4 years at the time, but when we moved I got rid of my UK credit cards and tried to register my French debit card instead. (In fact many, if not most, UK credit cards are not valid once you are not a UK resident anyway). PayPal just wouldn't accept it, for the reasons they have explained. I had to close my UK PayPal account and open a French one. It is a pain because I now have to pay in euros (out of my French bank account) when sometimes I would have preferred to pay in sterling, depending how and where my funds are at the time!Starting a new account means you have to go through the validation/accreditation processes again too, which is annoying.Sid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russethouse Posted October 11, 2010 Share Posted October 11, 2010 For the past few months one PP account I use will only ever display in French despite the account being in the US and me being in the UK !!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay Posted September 18, 2011 Author Share Posted September 18, 2011 I have resurrected this old thread to have another rant about PayPal. Today I received an email (in English) to say my registered credit cards were about to expire and would I care to update my account. I clicked on the link which took me to the US site (US in more ways then one!). When I fed in my account details (an account I opened 10 years ago when we lived in the UK) I was transferred to the French site. I deleted my old card details and fed in the number from my new pay as you go mastercard. This is a direct replacement for the one that had previously been registered on their site, specifically obtained to use on PayPall. The card was rejected! No reason given.The only card I can now register is my French Mastercard even though I have a UK Visa card registered to my French address and a pay as you go card without an address. When I tried to register a card I noticed when you are asked to feed in an address the country (France in my case) cannot be changed. What is it with this shower, do they not want our money?Has anyone else got this problem, and more to the point has anyone found a way around it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sid Posted September 18, 2011 Share Posted September 18, 2011 Hi JayI re-read my post from last year (above); you're in exactly the same position as me now! The only card the the French PayPal system will accept is a French one, in my case the debit card from my CA account. It's really annoying as I'm paying for stuff in euros out of my French account, often for things bought from UK Ebayers, and I've had to transfer the money from UK in the first place in order to pay in euros! I can't have a UK PayPal account, they wouldn't allow me to keep that after I moved here.I wonder if it's a condition unique to France? Anyway, it means that I no longer spend large amounts via PayPal, so while I may be losing out, they certainly are! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quillan Posted September 18, 2011 Share Posted September 18, 2011 This is something to do with different accounting and banking laws in different countries and of course money laundering. Some time back PayPal was split up in to countries which have there own website reflecting the uniqueness within that country. We managed to keep our English account for some time, even adding a French bank card until a couple of years ago at which yime we were forced to change. You can of course still set the language preference to English if you want.May you tried using your French card as the primary and your UK (the one with a French address) card as a secondary or have I misunderstood and that's what you have already tried and it failed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay Posted September 18, 2011 Author Share Posted September 18, 2011 [quote user="Quillan"]May you tried using your French card as the primary and your UK (the one with a French address) card as a secondary or have I misunderstood and that's what you have already tried and it failed.[/quote]Yes, tried and failed. As soon as they realise it is a UK card, regardless of the address, it is rejected. What really bugs me is the pay as you go card being rejected as well when they accepted it last time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay Posted September 18, 2011 Author Share Posted September 18, 2011 [quote user="sid"]I wonder if it's a condition unique to France? Anyway, it means that I no longer spend large amounts via PayPal, so while I may be losing out, they certainly are![/quote]I am in the same position and don't use PayPal if I can avoid it. I have an Amazon account in the UK where I use French and UK cards. I have an account in the US with Barnes & Noble where I use my UK card so the only thing I can think of with PayPal is that you can link a bank account, but they could still stop you doing that for an account outside your country of residence. There must be thousands of people using PayPal in the same position. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nomoss Posted September 18, 2011 Share Posted September 18, 2011 This keeps coming around, new theories each time, but nothing changes......http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/2177598/ShowPost.aspx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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