I have a long issue I need help with

[lltacoma]

This is for an expensive Christmas gift for my wife I plan on buying off of ebay using my Paypal acct.  The item is $500

I am getting two gift cards that I want to add to my Paypal balance in order to purchase the item.  I want to use the gift cards and my Paypal balnce before I use my checking account, so my wife doesn't know how much I spent.

They are Visa gift cards worth 200 and 50.

What is the easiest way to use my Paypal balance in addition to the Visa gift cards? Should I add them to the credit card section? 

Or can I buy a money pak thing with the giftcards and then transfer that balance to my paypal acct? 

Any help is appreciated.

[PayPal_Olivia]

Hi lltacoma, and welcome to the forums!

Your wife is lucky! I can't remember the last time I received an expensive gift! 🙂

I wish I had better news to help it happen. 😞

Stored value cards are not meant for use with PayPal. All funding sources on an account need to be associated with your name and address. The system may possibly allow it to be added if it doesn't detect that it's a prepaid or gift card, but it will present problems later during validation, and would be a total headache in the event of a dispute or refund. Additionally, the system isn't designed to allow multiple cards to fund one transaction.

It sounded like your thought of using the gift cards to purchase a MoneyPak was a great idea, so I did a little poking around on their site to see if it was possible. The website has a FAQ that says the cards have to be purchased with cash. 😞

I understand what you're trying to achieve, and it's a really beautiful thing. I hope you find a solution for getting it purchased. Maybe a local family member can buy it and have it delivered to their own address and you can hand-deliver the gift cards to them?

Good luck and happy holidays!

Olivia