12 July 2008
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Get Loaded!
PayPal used to be an excellent alternative to the whole credit industry for online payments, but then it got bought by the huge eBay corporation in 2002, and by 2007 had achieved the status of a proper bank in many countries. Now it's charges and fees are much higher and requires its users to have a credit card linked to their account or it will become frozen and unusable. However, it's still one of the most widely accepted and useful online payment solutions.
Until recently this new credit card requirement was a problem for NZ customers who couldn't obtain one due to a bad credit-rating. But now we have some local debit card options such as the Visa "Loaded" card which you can get from any NZ Post Shop (take two forms of ID and $16.50 with you). It's a normal credit card but with zero credit (i.e. it's prepaid), but it still links to your name and address like a normal Visa card so you can use it to get a proper verified PayPal account.
I recently applied for a Loaded card and today I successfully used it to verify my PayPal account. Once you're a verified PayPal user, you have no limit to how much you can receive, send or transfer and you can enable other useful features such as the ability to accept credit card payments on your site, instead of only being able to accept payments from other PayPal users.
