Hi All,

I recently signed up to Ebay & Paypal in order to purchase components from China. I haven't yet made any orders. I'm using my UK bank & billing address and have my Thai address as a 'shipping' address. I'd appreciate some feedback from others re;

a) Contact phone no*: My Thai mobile is shown as my contact no but Ebay/Paypal aren't able to ring me because their automated system doesn't allow for the fact that i'm abroad on a foreign number. Is there a straightforward way around this? I don't have a landline at home (Thailand) & my family (billing address-elderly parents) won't know what to do unless I call them before and after the security calls come in, which to me seems ridiculous.

b ) I don't want a local/Thai account as I prefer the 'safety net' of UK/EU financial protection if I encounter some of the probs listed elsewhere on this board.

If you can think of anything else I should be aware of i'd appreciate some help:)

(*I might have a valid UK SIMcard from a recent visit if I look hard enough!)

Don't want to hijack your thread, but I have a similar setup as you, although a different European country, for at least 10 years and never had a problem using Paypal to buy goods from China and have them shipped to Thailand.

Now recently I want to buy glasses from Zennioptical and check out with Paypal. From the moment I log into Paypal from the merchants site I get a window that says paypal doesn't allow citizens from ( my country ) to ship purchases to Thailand.

I'm in a email conversation now for over a week with both Paypal and Zenni, and both keep denying that the restriction is from their side.Though they also don't offer a solution.

the only way is to get a uk sim i take it you are uk..then register that...it may work..

if not pm me ..i have many uk sims and i return to thailand in a few weeks

I really don't understand the OP's problem

I have a US Pay Pal account, not using a US Bank but using a US based credit card (Discover)

When I wanted to buy some electrical parts from an Ebay seller (in Hong Kong) they would only ship to my registered Pay Pal address

Since my registered Pay Pal address was in the US, I opened another Pay Pal account using my Thai address (all I had to do was use a different email address as my user name) and still used the Discover card to "fund" it while my Bangkok Bank account was being verified with their test debits. I ordered the items to be shipped to my "new" registered Thai Pay Pal address and got them in 10 days from Hong Kong at Christmas time, and they were charged to my US Discover card

I had some questions about the test debits and after sending an email to Pay Pal ( [email protected] ) and I got a phone call on my Thai mobile from an excellent English speaker who explained exactly how the process worked

I have been avoiding Paypal since they had a major ballsup some six-eight years ago. Have been having good success with China electrical and electronics at AliBaba and AliExpress. Huge collection of sellers, great shipping to Phuket and just use my Thai K-bank shopping card.

Thanks for the replies. On looking into the 'phone number' issue it looks like a Skype number would be cheaper than re-activating my Uk sim card.

Re Langsuan Man post #4;

I opened another Pay Pal account using my Thai address (all I had to do was use a different email address as my user name) and still used the Discover card to "fund" it while my Bangkok Bank account was being verified with their test debits

Did you have to use a Thai card/bank? If not this could be the way ahead. I don't want to use a Thai bank as explained in my OP.

Thanks for the replies. On looking into the 'phone number' issue it looks like a Skype number would be cheaper than re-activating my Uk sim card.

Re Langsuan Man post #4;

I opened another Pay Pal account using my Thai address (all I had to do was use a different email address as my user name) and still used the Discover card to "fund" it while my Bangkok Bank account was being verified with their test debits

Did you have to use a Thai card/bank? If not this could be the way ahead. I don't want to use a Thai bank as explained in my OP.

I only learned later that it was not really necessary to be "verified" to use the Thai Pay Pal Account. The sellers only want a verified Thai Pay Pal address and were more than willing to accept my Thai Pay Pal account which used and still uses my US based Credit Card

I am still not verified with Pay Pal in the US even after over 10 years of use, since like you, I was never comfortable with giving Pay Pal my US Bank details. Since there is never more than 500 THB in my BB account and now that Pay Pal is owned by Ebay was not as fearful establishing the link with my Thai bank account

I really don't understand the OP's problem

I have a US Pay Pal account, not using a US Bank but using a US based credit card (Discover)

When I wanted to buy some electrical parts from an Ebay seller (in Hong Kong) they would only ship to my registered Pay Pal address

Since my registered Pay Pal address was in the US, I opened another Pay Pal account using my Thai address (all I had to do was use a different email address as my user name) and still used the Discover card to "fund" it while my Bangkok Bank account was being verified with their test debits. I ordered the items to be shipped to my "new" registered Thai Pay Pal address and got them in 10 days from Hong Kong at Christmas time, and they were charged to my US Discover card

I had some questions about the test debits and after sending an email to Pay Pal ( [email protected] ) and I got a phone call on my Thai mobile from an excellent English speaker who explained exactly how the process worked

This is part of the email I received from Paypal, so it seems that this is no option for the OP.

when you did not permanently moved to Thailand, and don't have any financials registered we can understand that you do not need to open a Thai PayPal account. You can only have a Thai credit card, Thai bank account or US bank account linked to a Thai PayPal account.

Don't want to hijack your thread, but I have a similar setup as you, although a different European country, for at least 10 years and never had a problem using Paypal to buy goods from China and have them shipped to Thailand.

Now recently I want to buy glasses from Zennioptical and check out with Paypal. From the moment I log into Paypal from the merchants site I get a window that says paypal doesn't allow citizens from ( my country ) to ship purchases to Thailand.

I'm in a email conversation now for over a week with both Paypal and Zenni, and both keep denying that the restriction is from their side.Though they also don't offer a solution.

i have a U.S. PayPal account and a few months ago a similar thing happened to me when ordering something from a company website (not off Ebay) and opting to pay with PayPal and I wanted to use my Thailand shipping address which I've used many times in Ebay buys. But in this case when I got to PayPal to pay, it would not allow me to use my Thailand shipping address...but it would ship to a U.S. no problem. A few emails to the company (which said they shipped worldwide on their website) finally revealed their website statement of "worldwide shipping" was not true and they didn't ship worldwide as did have country-specific shipping restrictions setup with PayPal.