PayPal

WantzChas

Have any of you used PayPal and with what results? Do you have to use a credit card as a PayPal payment method? They say you can use Debit cards, but the @&$*@^ won't work with mine.

Riaan

I've been using it for about two years now. It initially is a bit of a mission to get your account activated. You pay the initial fee, and then need a reference number to activate your account. This number appears on your bank statement only - even if you use internet banking, that can take a day or two. Otherwise you'll have to wait for the printed statement or get one from the bank which may take even longer. After that's done however, it is a very convenient way of paying. Only thing is, you can only pay money, you can't receive payments (only refunds) as a South African - not sure why, probably something to do with our exchange control.

I don't know about debit cards - I'm using a credit card.

A few months ago I had to re-activate my account, some security check or security upgrade they did. Another pain, but now it's going smooth again.

WantzChas

I'll convine my brother that he needs to sign up, I've seen some decent deals, but couldn't bid.

Bob-Dubery

WantzChas wrote Have any of you used PayPal and with what results? Do you have to use a credit card as a PayPal payment method? They say you can use Debit cards, but the @&$*@^ won't work with mine.

You can't use SA debit cards. You can use SA credit cards. I have used PayPal and it works fine.

inflames

Only thing is, you can only pay money, you can't receive payments

I had a chat with a friend last night and had the same question. He said you can receive money
I think it is time to do more homework. Stop, I'ts Googling time! ?

Edit:

https://www.paypal.com/worldwide/

South Africa is only under the: Send Money to Anyone in the Growing PayPal Network Section!
So my friend was wrong!

JoEllis

I've also been using Paypal for the last years or 2. Like Riaan said, setting everything up is a bit of a mission, but after that it's quite a safe and easy way to pay for stuff you want to buy outside of SA.

I might be wrong, but I think I read somewhere that you can't receive money because of something Paypal and SARS haven't been able to sort out, meaning that SARS can't monitor funds that people are being paid or somehthing like that. But like I said: I might be wrong on this.

It is a bit of a pain in the butt, because I do some studio work for folks outside of SA every now and then and it would be MUCH easier if they could just Paypal me my money.

Riaan

Apparently PayPal was designed by a South African - ironic that we can't make use of its full services.

AlanRatcliffe

I use PP with many debit cards - the main criteria is that they're either Visa or Mastercard.

And no, you can't receive money from overseas via PP, you have to ask people to deposit in your account and must give them your bank's Swift code.

PayPal is a US started thing, but much of it's underlying security technology (as with any online transactions) uses the Mark Shuttleworth designed security stuff.

WantzChas

I have one of those Absa student debit cards. What it basicaly is, a normal cheque account, bank fees of R25 a month and tthen you get 20 free transactions in that given month.On the cars itself it says "Maestro" where Master or Visa normally should be. When I tried to the activation, they asked for a 3digit security code on the back of your card, which I can't find. Only my account number is on the back of my card and when using that last 3 digits it also won't work.