Ebay payment problem regarding to foreign credit cards

[danny7271994]

Hello everyone! I have a question that I don't think has been asked before, at least 15 minutes of google led to nothing similar. Please excuse my illiteracy if the question seems silly!

I live in Australia, and my relatives overseas are willing to pay for some items I am required for a university project that I couldn't afford right now, due to university study. I do work during the holidays so I can pay them back. However the problem I have encountered was as the following:
1. Filled in correct details, and paypal rejected the payment.
2. I changed the location to the card's country of origin, and it was accepted.
3. Currency was still in Australian dollars.

Basically what I had to do, was to alter the country. However, the shipping address is still a local Australian address, I'm not sure about the country however. I simply typed out the full address -- completed with country, state, suburb, street and postal code. I looked in the webpage and everything actually seemed fine, even the country shows up correctly.

My premature questions are the following:
1. Is this a good method to purchase items? I am very inclined to believe that paypal/ebay blocked my payment for an obvious reason.
2. If the method is bad, are there any way around this? I need some items to fund a university capstone project that I will have to work on next year.
3. I do plan on to acquire a dual currency card in that country, and I would want to use it in Australia. Transfers are obviously a huge no due to the massive fees. $2 is fine, $20 is 3 meals in my book.
4. Silly question, but in which currency will the seller receive the funds in? I'm sure it is Australian dollars, but I want to make sure. I have sold items on ebay of course, but never have I encountered someone else with the same problem listed above.
5. If so, what if I want to buy a gift for someone overseas? Many sellers, me included, enforce this "strictly shipping to paypal linked address" policy. While some sellers are nice and will fill in the receiver's address, I doubt others are. I know I won't be, unless the item isn't worth much. I do believe this question can be found somewhere, sorry if it has been asked before!

Many thanks!
Daniel

[danny7271994]

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Archive-Shipping-Returns/Sending-ebay-purchase-as-a-gift-to-an-address...

A quick google solved question 5. And I have used the proper address of my own, so the seller and I are both protected. Please ignore the last question.

As a reference, basically "enforcing a paypal address only" rule may discourage customers. All the customer have to do is update with the desired address during checkout, and this way, both parties are still protected.

[*tippy*toes*]

You should always send to the PayPal address and it's something you should enforce because if you don't send to that address, you lose your seller protection. Some buyers will change the address during checkout to a different address than their eBay registered address, for many reasons. That is always the address you should look at.

If the buyer sends a message after payment requesting it be sent to a different address, then you shouldn't do it. If they are insistant, cancel the transaction and get them to go through check out again and put in the correct address.

[black*poppy · Accepted solution]

To answer your questions overall... Soz if I've misunderstood your post.

I believe you have confused the card's billing address with your send-to address. Basically the billing address is how the credit card is verified, so that PayPal (or any credit card merchant) can link the transaction to the correct card and put the charge on it accordingly. These details have to be correct or the transaction will be rejected. It can be different to your registered home address in paypal.

The send-to address that you put in at EBay checkout is separate agaib and can be any address you like in any country. Yours, a friend's in Timbuktu, whatever. This is where you change the address if you want to send a gift for instance. From checkout it will link with paypal so all the send-to addresses match and the seller has the correct PayPal address. But it only changes the address for THAT transaction, not your registered/usual addresses in eBay &paypal.

Because the seller's location is Australia then the transaction will be aust.dollars, but there will be higher fees for the card holder for the currency exchange. I think the seller might get slugged international transaction fees too but I'd have to check.

[lyndal1838]

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@black*poppy wrote:


Because the seller's location is Australia then the transaction will be aust.dollars, but there will be higher fees for the card holder for the currency exchange. I think the seller might get slugged international transaction fees too but I'd have to check.

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International transaction fees are charged to the cardholder but it is at the discretion of the bank concerned.

Most Australian banks slug their customers, but not sure of overseas banking rules.

[lyndal1838]

And how is that going to work if everyone takes that advice and are selling the same things?

All the advice on the boards is to find something that will fill a niche market, not find the cheap items that everyone else is selling.

[danny7271994]

Thanks! You are right. This was verified earlier with my seller. 

I believe an exchange fee will incur as well, I had $63 AUD fee from a $699 USD purchase on Kickstarter. I will take that into consideration!

Daniel

[phorum_junkie*]

The easiest way IMO woud be for your overseas relative to open up a Paypal account then they could send you a personal payment to your Paypal account that you can use to pay for anything you want.

Set your Australian account up to accept the overseas currency then although you would still have to pay a conversion fee there woukd be no other Paypal fees as it would be a personal payment and a buyer payment.

[rebpre1971]

Hello iv been billed as usd 145.00

which ends up being $226.oo 

for a purchase I haven’t received.. not even sure what the purchase was

[springyzone]

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@rebpre1971 wrote:

Hello iv been billed as usd 145.00

which ends up being $226.oo 

for a purchase I haven’t received.. not even sure what the purchase was

I can see you look new. It would have been better to start a new topic of your own.

But here goes. 

I cannot see any completed sale on ebay with that number, maybe some other boardie will manage to track it down.

If you are new then most likely you have not made many ebay purchases.  You certainly would not forget a $145 purchase.

How, exactly, did you find out about this bill? Was it in email or phone text? If so, it could be a scam, if you are being asked to pay it.

A genuine purchase would be in the 'My ebay section" of your ebay account. You would be able to see what you purchased.

If the $226 has appeared on one of your bank statements as a deduction, you may need to contact the bank about an unautorised transaction.

You could also contact ebay help, not via message or email but via live chat. They will be able to tell you of any genuine purchases made under your account name.