PayPal wants me to “add a bank account”, another funding source. Credit card isn't working. Why?
I'm guessing that you've reached the value limit of a payment that can be made without linking your account to a bank account. While you want privacy, PayPal wants to not be a money launderer. You may need to seek an alternative way to pay for this if you're trying to be private about it. Visit paypalblows.org to find out more reasons. PayPal wants your bank account info on file before they allow you to take payment. So setup a bank account strictly for this service, and if they give you trouble or suspend your account, simply never use them again and tell others of your experience.  I think the only reason why PayPal wants a bank account is so they can dip into it and take chargeback money. Have you checked to make sure that your card isn't at the limit, or at risk of expiring soon?  Maybe PayPal has a policy to reject credit cards with expiry dates that fall within their buyer/seller protection periods? But to answer your question, no, I've never had this happen to me before. I would guess that this is due to the card issuer, not Paypal. Credit card transactions are tagged with a code describing the type of purchase, and some issuers disallow certain types (such as gambling). It's possible the recipient of the payment is not setup to receive funds form PayPal from a credit card, too. I'm pretty sure it's merchant-dependent.  If a credit card transaction doesn't go through, PayPal will automatically charge your bank account.  Some merchants may want that extra insurance. I've used PayPal for my business for a long time. Sometimes PayPal doesn't trust credit cards. Debit or direct bank transfer are reliable. There is also a charge for using a credit card but I don't think that is the reason. You may be trying to purchase a high value item. That would be a possible reason why PayPal allowed you to use credit cards in the past, but will not allow you to do so now, for these particular transactions. It's always a good idea to check your credit history on a regular basis - try checking your credit score from one of the independent providers recently (like Equifax) ?  Maybe that will offer a clue what PayPal is doing.
I was having issues with transferring money from my UK bank (HSBC) to my paypal... HSBC was asking for an IBAN code to complete the transaction. I couldn't find an IBAN code listed anywhere on my Paypal acct. What finally solved it for me was when I entered the last 4 digits of the Paypal account number, HSBC then threw up a message saying that payee was listed in my payees and to do a search for payees. (I had never manually entered my Paypal as a payee, but it was there in a huge list of companies already known and listed by HSBC.) Then all I had to do was put in the reference number Paypal had given and the amount. It was in my paypal account within minutes.  Hope this helps :) There's never been a good micropayment system on the internet.  Credit card and paypal transaction costs are too high, and the whole thing takes too long.  The hassle of a credit card transaction only makes sense if you are making a major (5$ and up) purchase.  For micropayments there should be no lower limit on amounts, and contributing should take under a second.  Like a button that contributes 5 cents. The answer is no. Paypal will always ask for permission before adding or withdrawing money. Just create him a regular PayPal account, then so to the Pay Pal prepaid card page, https://www.paypal-prepaid.com, order a card an attach it to his personal paypal account. Unlike student account, you have to do 2 transfers, one into his paypal account, and then to the prepaid card. That is an answer! Unlike those of use with teenagers under 18 who now have their student accounts jacked from them and there really isn't a good option. Not happy with PayPal right now.I am sure there is a government bureaucrat somewhere behind this decision. Every reward program has to have a funding source. If the card gives you x percent back on all purchases. That means that their business is structured to entice you to pump more transactions through the system. Either their other costs are lower, or the increased business allows them to make more money off of late fees, and interest. If the card has you earn extra points for buying a type of item or from a type of store (home stores improvement in the Spring), they are trying to make sure you use their card for what can be a significant amount of business during a small window of time. Sometimes they cap it by saying 5% cash back at home improvement stores during the spring but only on the first $1500 of purchases. That limits it to $75 maximum. Adding more business for them, makes more money for them. Groceries and gas are a good year round purchase categories. Yes there is some variation depending on the season, and the weather, but overall there is not an annual cliff once the season ends. Gas and groceries account for thousands of dollars a year these are not insignificant categories, for many families are recession proof. If they perceive a value from this type of offer they will change their buying behavior.  My local grocery store has a deal with a specific gas station. This means that they made a monetary deal. Because you earn points at the grocery store and spend points at the gas station, the grocery store is paying some compensation to the gas station every time you use points. The gas station must be seeing an increase in business so theoretically they don't get 100% compensation from the grocery store.  In cases where credit cards give airline miles, the credit card company buys the miles from the airline at a discount because they know that a significant number of miles will never be used. Like Bluetie Grasper have said. Can I create a PayPal account and receive €200 (or a similar amount) without adding a bank account, credit card, or anything but my email address? The answer is No. You can transfer the money to your PayPal account but until you verify it with your personal information with at least a credit card or mostly likely a bank account, PayPal will hold those funds until otherwise. Can I then use that money to buy on Amazon, still without adding anything but my email address? If not, can I buy gift cards and use those on Amazon? Amazon does not accept PayPal. "Paypal has an account called ""micropayments"" for those who have a lot of transaction under $10 with ""better"" commission structure, 5%+5c per transaction (rather than 2.9% + 30c with regular merchant accounts)" Opening Bank Account in US without physically being present is difficult. I'm having number of clients in USA to pay for my work, but I’m really confused to get money from my clients to my saving bank account. You can get money via PayPal or if they are repeat customers, ask them to send via remittance services like Money2India or Remit2India etc. Your chief problem seems to be that you're mixing Visa (credit cards) and Step2 (a European Automated Clearing House). Credit cards are primarily an American concept, but do work worldwide especially in travel&tourism industry. The Credit Card companies are financial institutions themselves and operate similar to international banks They're typically acting as intermediaries between the customer's bank and the retailer's bank, so this works even if those two banks have no existing agreements.  This is expensive, though. Step2 is a cheaper European system which eliminates the middle man. It allows the consumer's bank to directly pay the retailer's bank. VISA is not a member of Step2. As an Indian resident you can open an Resident Foreign Currency Account, i.e. an USD account. This facility is provided by all major banks.  I am not sure if PayPal would transfer money to these accounts or would convert. The alternative is to give this account number along with other Bank details to the company in US and ask them to send money via remittance services. If you have a deposit account (like a checking account) and a credit card at the same bank, it is common for the bank to have a clause that lets them make automatic payments to the credit card. I've also seen this happen in the case of death where the deceased person had $2,000 in a checking account and owed some on a credit card.   Upon death, the bank took the $2,000 and applied it to the credit card without asking. In most cases, a debit card can be charged like a credit card so there is typically no strict need for a credit card. However, a debit card provides weaker guarantees to the merchant that an arbitrary amount of money will be available. This is for several reasons: As such, there are a few situations where a credit card is required. For example, Amazon requires a credit card for Prime membership, and car rental companies usually require a credit card. The following does not apply to the OP and is provided for reference. Debit cards don't build credit, so if you've never had a credit card or loan before, you'll likely have no credit history at all if you've never had a credit card. This will make it very difficult to get any nontrivially-sized loan. Also, some employers (typically if the job you're applying for involves financial or other highly sensitive information) check credit when hiring, and not having credit puts you at a disadvantage. A credit card is not a bank account.  It is, essentially, a contract to extend a line of credit on an as needed basis through a process accepted by the provider(purchase through approved vender, cash advance, etc).  There is no mechanism for the bank to accept or hold a deposit.  While most card issuers will simple retain the money for a period of up 30-60 days to apply toward transactions, I have had a card that actually charged a fee for having a negative balance in excess of $10 for more than 30 days(the fee was $10/month). So no you can not DEPOSIT money on any credit card.  You need an account that accepts deposits to make a deposit. "We also have a ""minimum daily balance"" account that requires a decent balance, but I'd much prefer to have my money elsewhere, growing little to any interest, versus sitting around collecting dust. Ours is a daily average, so you could have a lots in there for a few days to help make up the days when you're under." "In this answer, I won't elaborate on the possibilities of fraud (or pure human error), because something can always go wrong. I will, however, explain why I think you should always keep receipts. When the (monthly or so) time comes to pay your credit card bill, your credit card company sends you a list of transactions. That list has two primary purposes, both of which I would consider equally important: While for the former item, a receipt is not necessary (though it certainly does not hurt showing the receipt along with the bill to provide further proof that the payment was indeed connected to that bill), the latter point does require you to store the receipts so you can check, item-by-item, whether each of the sums is correct (and matched with a receipt at all). So, unless you can actually memorize all the credit card transactions you did throughout the past one or two months, the receipts are the most convenient way of keeping that information until the bill arrives. Yes, your credit card company probably has some safeguards in place to reveal fraud, which might kick in in time (the criteria are mostly heuristical, it seems, with credit cards or legitimate transactions here getting blocked every now and then simply because some travelling of the actual owner was misinterpreted as theft). However, it is your money, it is your responsibility to discover any issues with the bill, just as you would check the monthly transaction list from your bank account line by line. Ultimately, that is why you sign the vendor copy of the receipt when buying something offline; if you discover an issue in your list of transactions, you have to notify your credit card company that you dispute one of the charges, and then the charging vendor has to show that they have your signature for the respective transaction. So, to summarize: Do keep your receipts, use them to check the list of transactions before paying your credit card bill. EDIT: The receipt often cannot be replaced with the bill from the vendor. The bill is useful for seeing how the sum charged by the respective vendor was created, but in turn, such bills often do not contain any payment information, or (when payment was concluded before the bill was printed, as sometimes happens in pre-paid scenarios such as hotel booking) nondescript remarks such as ""- PAYMENT RECEIVED -"", without any further indication of which one of your credit cards, debit cards, bank accounts, stored value cards, or cash was used."