Paypal payment method

[mypopostincks]

Hello, there. I have been in Second Life for a while, and I really wanted to add Paypal as my payment method, the thing is that I only have a bank account linked to it. 

I'd read in many places that you can only use PP if you have a credit card, no matter if you have enough money in the actual account. In spite of that I heard somewhere that you can, and now I'm troubled.

So I wanted to know if there's some way I can pay that way, or if someone knows any other  where you don't need a credit or debit card. 

I don't have RL friends who play SL, so I am not able to pay them in order to get them to transfer me the Lindens (which is a thing someone suggested me).

Thank you for taking the time of reading <3

[Lillith Hapmouche]

So did you actually try to add your PayPal account and see for yourself?

[Innula Zenovka]

Depends on the type of bank account, I guess, and what country you're in.    Certainly when first I opened a PayPal account in order to use SL, initially I connected it only to my UK current account and it worked perfectly well.  You need go through the account verification process, obviously.

[Amanda Crisp]

I use PayPal w/o a credit card and have for years. The issues -I- experienced where when Linden Lab/PayPal (both blamed the other)  changed policies about “offshore” banking and my US Based credit union was suddenly not acceptable.

I ended up changing banks and very nearly leaving SL completely due to the hassles and not being able to get a straight answer about what was going on or who was responsible.

Coincidentally, after I notified LL that I was canceling my 10-year long annual membership and dropping all my land as of the next month; my payments mysteriously began processing again.

That -was- probably coincidence, because their phone and email support left much to be desired...

Yet here I still am... :-)

[LittleMe Jewell]

LL's only requirement for PayPal is that it be VERIFIED.  Typically, in the US, you can do that simply by linking it to a bank account or adding a credit card, and then having PayPall do the verification stuff -- i.e. send a dummy transaction.

One important note though:  If it is funded by bank account only, the bank transfers typically take a few days to happen and LL will not wait for that.  Thus you will need to always actually have a PayPal balance before trying an LL transaction -- i.e. buying L$.

Once upon a time, you could tell if your PayPal was verified by doing the follwing steps.  I have not checked this lately, so they may have changed things on the screens around a bit:
  Log in to your paypal account.  Right under 'Hi again' you'll see "Get the most out of PayPal".  Click that and below it you SHOULD see, with check marks: 'Account Created' and 'Email confirmed'.  Then you should also have something about a Card added / linked or maybe something about a confirmed bank account if you've used that instead of a card.

 

 

Edited April 7, 2018 by LittleMe Jewell

[Syo Emerald]

2 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

One important note though:  If it is funded by bank account only, the bank transfers typically take a few days to happen and LL will not wait for that.  Thus you will need to always actually have a PayPal balance before trying an LL transaction -- i.e. buying L$.

That also depends.

I have my PayPal account linked to my bank account and never have any money directly paid into the PayPal account. Yet, I'm able to buy Lindens and other purchases get treated as "instantly paid" as well.

[LittleMe Jewell]

3 minutes ago, Syo Emerald said:

That also depends.

I have my PayPal account linked to my bank account and never have any money directly paid into the PayPal account. Yet, I'm able to buy Lindens and other purchases get treated as "instantly paid" as well.

For me, this makes sense as anytime I've ever used my PayPal for other things and had it pay via the bank account rather than the credit card, the money comes out of my bank immediately.  Yet everyone else says that the bank transfers to LL take too long, thus we do advise people to keep a PayPal balance.  I guess this is a 'your milage may very' thing. 

[mypopostincks]

Yes, I have tried it myself. And I Verified the account. 

I firstly didn't converted my PP balance money into dollars (because I'm not for US), so I made it and it still tells me that I need to link a card every time I try to buy Lindens. 

In some topics I read I saw people saying that stuff of Linden Labs not into wait for the transaction, and that is necessary an Instant pay. Perhaps that's the problem?

[Innula Zenovka]

1 minute ago, mypopostincks said:

In some topics I read I saw people saying that stuff of Linden Labs not into wait for the transaction, and that is necessary an Instant pay. Perhaps that's the problem?

I think it depends on your relationship with PayPal    LL will accept PayPal's assurance that they (PayPal) are sending the money without waiting for it to arrive, but PayPal will give LL that assurance only if, in turn, they are sure, without waiting for confirmation that the funds are available in your account, that they'll get the funds from your bank.   This depends on the kind of account you have -- if you have an agreed overdraft facility you should be OK.   Even if you don't, banks generally guarantee remote payments up to a certain limit on certain types of account, though not on all accounts.

When first set up my PayPal account as a payment method for LL, as I recall I gave LL my bank debit card (a Visa debit card) details as a "credit card" and they accepted that. 

[LittleMe Jewell]

19 minutes ago, mypopostincks said:

Yes, I have tried it myself. And I Verified the account. 

I firstly didn't converted my PP balance money into dollars (because I'm not for US), so I made it and it still tells me that I need to link a card every time I try to buy Lindens. 

In some topics I read I saw people saying that stuff of Linden Labs not into wait for the transaction, and that is necessary an Instant pay. Perhaps that's the problem?

Are you trying to buy L$ via the viewer or from the actual LindeX page?  If via the viewer, then go to you Account / Billing section and check the info on the right side.  See what all is noted for what your billing method will be used for:

     

 

If you are buying the L$ from the LindeX page and still having trouble, you may want to contact the Billing dept - though they are not available on the weekends:

    https://support.secondlife.com/billing-support/

Billing team is available from 6am to 3pm PST, Monday through Friday.

Local Toll-Free numbers (for Billing issues)

US/Canada: 800-294-1067 FREE

France: 0805-101-490

Germany: 800-724-4552 FREE

Japan: 800-100-3060 FREE

Brazil: 800-878-3076 FREE

Spain: 90-083-9074

UK: 800-086-9081 FREE

Long distance ( not free, but you can use Skype to save some cost ) : 703-286-6277

**Note: Support is offered only in English

 

 

One other thing to check -- log in to PayPal and check your authorizations.  There should be one for Linden Lab, but maybe it got messed up and PayPal doesn't think you've authorized the LL transactions.

 

 

Edited April 7, 2018 by LittleMe Jewell

[Fionalein]

21 minutes ago, mypopostincks said:

Yes, I have tried it myself. And I Verified the account. 

I firstly didn't converted my PP balance money into dollars (because I'm not for US), so I made it and it still tells me that I need to link a card every time I try to buy Lindens. 

In some topics I read I saw people saying that stuff of Linden Labs not into wait for the transaction, and that is necessary an Instant pay. Perhaps that's the problem?

I found a solution in a backwater German language SL forum linked on 3rd page of Google search on topic... (yeah remember the last time you had to search links burried at deep?) according to them you need prepaid value on your paypal if you are outside of US/Canada/Australia and a minimum of 25$ US... asked my sister to send me some paypal money (transfer to family and friends is free) and it worked for me...

Edited April 7, 2018 by Fionalein

[mypopostincks]

9 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

I think it depends on your relationship with PayPal    LL will accept PayPal's assurance that they (PayPal) are sending the money without waiting for it to arrive, but PayPal will give LL that assurance only if, in turn, they are sure, without waiting for confirmation that the funds are available in your account, that they'll get the funds from your bank.   This depends on the kind of account you have -- if you have an agreed overdraft facility you should be OK.   Even if you don't, banks generally guarantee remote payments up to a certain limit on certain types of account, though not on all accounts.

When first set up my PayPal account as a payment method for LL, as I recall I gave LL my bank debit card (a Visa debit card) details as a "credit card" and they accepted that. 

So they are going to take the funds from my bank and not the Paypal balance though I still need to have 'money' in both? 

8 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Are you trying to buy L$ via the viewer or from the actual LindeX page?  If via the viewer, then go to you Account / Billing section and check the info on the right side.  See what all is noted for what your billing method will be used for:

     

 

If you are buying the L$ from the LindeX page and still having trouble, you may want to contact the Billing dept - though they are not available on the weekends:

    https://support.secondlife.com/billing-support/

Billing team is available from 6am to 3pm PST, Monday through Friday.

Local Toll-Free numbers (for Billing issues)

US/Canada: 800-294-1067 FREE

France: 0805-101-490

Germany: 800-724-4552 FREE

Japan: 800-100-3060 FREE

Brazil: 800-878-3076 FREE

Spain: 90-083-9074

UK: 800-086-9081 FREE

Long distance ( not free, but you can use Skype to save some cost ) : 703-286-6277

**Note: Support is offered only in English

 

 

One other thing to check -- log in to PayPal and check your authorizations.  There should be one for Linden Lab, but maybe it got messed up and PayPal doesn't think you've authorized the LL transactions.

 

 

Thank you for the detailed information! I tried both ways (Lindex and Viewer), and none of them have worked out, sadly. 

 

7 minutes ago, Fionalein said:

I found a solution in a backwater German langauge SL forum linked on 3rd page of Google search... according to them you need prepaid value on your paypal if you are outside of US/Canada/Australia and a minimum of 25$ US... asked my sister to send me some paypal money (transfer to family and friends is free) and it worked for me...

So, you are saying that I need to convert my Paypal balance into at least 25$ US in order to make it work?

[Fionalein]

4 minutes ago, mypopostincks said:

So, you are saying that I need to convert my Paypal balance into at least 25$ US in order to make it work?

Not sure if you need to convert it, I did. They just stated it had to be worth at least that amount. It worked for me with 27 dollars + some cents after it didn't with 22 dollars... so yeah that information could not be sooo wrong 

Edited April 7, 2018 by Fionalein

[LittleMe Jewell]

7 minutes ago, mypopostincks said:

So they are going to take the funds from my bank and not the Paypal balance though I still need to have 'money' in both? 

 

Probably not.  PayPal is set up to always use your PayPal balance unless you specifically override it at the time of a transaction.

 

7 minutes ago, mypopostincks said:

So, you are saying that I need to convert my Paypal balance into at least 25$ US in order to make it work?

I suppose this is a possibilty - worth trying anyway.

[Innula Zenovka]

12 minutes ago, mypopostincks said:

So they are going to take the funds from my bank and not the Paypal balance though I still need to have 'money' in both? 

I don't think so, but I don't know for certain.    I think LL simply want two payment methods on file so that they can use the alternative payment method if necessary.    Certainly whenever LL (or anyone else) wants to take US$ from me via PayPal, first PayPal take it from my PayPal US$  balance if there is one, then if necessary from my PayPal GB£ balance, and only then from my bank account if the funds in my PayPal account aren't sufficient.

Edited April 7, 2018 by Innula Zenovka

[Fionalein]

Now, it would be interesting to knwo if having a prepaid balance did the trick.

[Anna Nova]

I always maintain a USD balance in the Paypal account, just for LL.

The only problem with leaving money in Paypal is the imbeciles keep sending me a message: 'You have money in your account'.   Daft gits!  I f....g put it there!

[Cindy Evanier]

14 minutes ago, anna2358 said:

I always maintain a USD balance in the Paypal account, just for LL.

The only problem with leaving money in Paypal is the imbeciles keep sending me a message: 'You have money in your account'.   Daft gits!  I f....g put it there!

Same here, I pay in each month my "entertainment allowance" but those reminders that I have money do get annoying.

[LittleMe Jewell]

6 hours ago, anna2358 said:

The only problem with leaving money in Paypal is the imbeciles keep sending me a message: 'You have money in your account'.   Daft gits!  I f....g put it there!

 

6 hours ago, Cindy Evanier said:

Same here, I pay in each month my "entertainment allowance" but those reminders that I have money do get annoying.

 

There might be a way to turn those off.  I have a PayPal balance most of the time, but I don't recall ever getting any sort of email reminder about it.

 

[Anna Nova]

4 hours ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

 

 

There might be a way to turn those off.  I have a PayPal balance most of the time, but I don't recall ever getting any sort of email reminder about it.

 

I tried, and they said they had done it, but I still get them.

[Amanda Crisp]

In a freaky coincidence - after a long period where SL processed my payments with no issue....less than a week after posting to this thread; they started rejecting me again......

I don't think they watch this thread to look for people to borken; I just think I have uncommonly bad luck :-)

OK, now time to sort this out or find a new virtual world to play in.  If I can't MAKE them take my money.......