The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Completely random question this, but does anyone know why some business/individuals on eBay won't accept Paypal from buyers in other countries??

For example, I've found quite a few business on eBay that are based in the States and will happily accept Paypal from people in the States, but won't accept it from people like myself in the UK. I have a verified Paypal address and all that stuff, so I can't honestly think of a single reason why they won't accept it??? I mean, I've accepted payment from people from all over the world for eBay items and it's been just as easy as selling to someone at the end of my road! Or is there some really obvious reason and I'm just being thick???

_________________
Driver8

Site Moderator

I believe the fee that they will incur when receiving paymen is 3% which is quiet large.

Only reason that I can think off...

Its possible that they don't know that Paypal now has Confirmed Addresses in the UK and Canada as well. Or maybe they don't have confirmed addresses in the UK? It is usually because they are unwilling to ship to an address unless it is confirmed. Too many people got screwed by paypal fraud.

_________________
BreitlingSource Admin
http://www.breitlingsource.com - http://blog.breitlingsource.com

OK, so it seems I'm not being daft and missing anything too simple.
I mean, the Paypal fees are the same the world over, so there's no reason to distinguish between local or international buyers, and vendors can see if your address is confirmed or not (which mine certainly is) when the accept a Paypal payment.... All very odd.
Never mind - if vendors want to miss out on my money, then it's up to them!
Thanks for the replies BTW guys.

_________________
Driver8

Site Moderator

Ok, so here is a really dumb question.....

What's a confirmed address? I have a PayPal account (although never used it) and had to confirm the e-mail address when I set it up, but how do I confirm my address??

May be an academic question as my address is an RR#, but I'm feeling stoopid for not knowing

I don't know how this confirms your address, but as a general rule, Paypal charge you $1.95 and then send you a code which appears on the debit (ie; on your credit card statement) You go into your account, type the code and they 'confirm' your address - well, it worked that way for me.

Seems a bit arbitrary...I mean I actually use my buisness address - which has nothing to do with the address on my CC

PS. What's an "RR" please?

_________________
Navitimer World, Evo, Blacksteel, Avenger
Loads of Panerai
Submariner Date, GMT Master llc

So it's a cash generating scheme - I'm shocked

An RR# is used for areas that are rural and somewhat remote and don't have a proper address - the RR stands for rural route - basically it means that when they sort the mail they just throw it into a pile for RR#1, RR#2, etc and the mailman / woman knows where you actually live.

In Ontario they are starting to privatise some of the mail delivery so there isn't always the same delivery person. The local knowledge is therefore lost and they are starting to move to giving people proper addresses.

There is also something called fire numbers which tend to be six digit numbers that the fire department can use to find a property that doesn't have a proper street address.

Not that I'm at all prone to hijacking peoples threads...it's interesting that in the UK there are 6 or 7 character post codes which narrow the choice down to about 4 houses in a street.

Here in france, my post code is 32000 Auch - 32 for the department (county) and three digits for the village/town. As I live in the 'capital' town (hardy a city even tho we have a Cathedral...) we are '000' - my father once sent a letter to me from London (UK) using my name followed by '32000 Auch' - it arrived in 2 days.

Often wondered what happens when the fire department needs to find an address - perhaps that's why they have so many volunteer (postal workers) firemen...

_________________
Navitimer World, Evo, Blacksteel, Avenger
Loads of Panerai
Submariner Date, GMT Master llc

Canada has postal codes too - six characters (Alpha, numeric, alpha, space, numeric, alpha, numeric), but for some reason it is nowehere near as granular. the first three characters of my postal code are L0L, but that only narrows it down to one of about a dozen small communities, none of which are very close to one another.

One Canadian city (I think it's Calgary) has the same first half of the postal code for the whole city.

To try and drag it back vaguely to the topic - if there truly is an address validation element they may not recognise my address - I have had a lot of trouble with that in the past when trying to have things shipped, etc because it isn't a 'normal' address.

Oh must we? I can't admit to understanding Paypal logic either - to this end I rarely actually end up buying anything on the bay. But it is frustrating when we (in Europe) can't have access to items from the States or Canada

_________________
Navitimer World, Evo, Blacksteel, Avenger
Loads of Panerai
Submariner Date, GMT Master llc

"RR" means that he lives in the middle of nowhere And also means that usually it costs about $10-20 more to ship anything to him

Yeah.. many of the European Postal systems, and Royal Mail's in particular are supposed to be extremely efficient. Canada Post is one of the worst.

_________________
BreitlingSource Admin
http://www.breitlingsource.com - http://blog.breitlingsource.com

Which probably means you haven't received the catalogs yet

_________________
Navitimer World, Evo, Blacksteel, Avenger
Loads of Panerai
Submariner Date, GMT Master llc

Or at least in the (roughly) 98% of Canada that isn't built up

Nope.. no catalogs yet But i have started the design of the site!

I'm kind of glad that 98% of Canada isn't built up.. its kinda cool like that.

_________________
BreitlingSource Admin
http://www.breitlingsource.com - http://blog.breitlingsource.com

Just to haul this one back onto the original point - I think (if I remember rightly) that you confirm you Paypal address by means of it being the same as your credit card billing address - thus giving some kind of audit trail, proving to vendors that your Paypal account is backed up by a credit card registered at the same address that the goods are being delivered to. Within your main Paypal account screen there is some wording by your delivery address that is either in amber and says something along the lines of "Address not confirmed", or in green saying "Address confirmed". This info is available to anyone you send money to, so a vendor can instantly see if your address is confirmed or not.

It's this that gets on my tits when vendors dont accept international Paypal customers even when you've jumped through all the hoops to make it as safe and compliant as possible.

_________________
Driver8

Site Moderator