Living abroad, and can't link my paypal account to my bank.

[glwt76]

Greetings...

I am living abroad and am trying to link my Paypal account (which I've had for years) to my Bank of America bank account. The problem is, I do not have a cell phone with a US number and the service will not allow me to enter my foreign phone number (which includes an extra three digits for the country code). The site is giving me no other options to verify my identity. It wants a cell number it can text that is registered in my name, and I don't have one.  I did not realize a cell phone was becoming such a requirement as a form of identity now.  

Help!!

[TheDevoider82]

Paypal takes us all for eejits and thinks people stay in their home countries 100% of the time and if there is activity from you coming from outside the country it must be a fraud. 

They are a pain in the a ss to deal with and I am sick and tired of this

[sharpiemarker]

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@TheDevoider82 wrote:

Paypal takes us all for eejits and thinks people stay in their home countries 100% of the time and if there is activity from you coming from outside the country it must be a fraud. 

They are a pain in the a ss to deal with and I am sick and tired of this

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That is unfair to say because there are intl banking and finance laws. Some countries don’t want funds coming from outside their borders. Some countries, PayPal do not even provide their services. It’s political and economic. You can use PayPal when abroad but people don’t think to figure out how to and they we can do whatever, but no. Being borderless and on the net is different from what is customary in real world.

[sharpiemarker]

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@glwt76 wrote:

Greetings...

I am living abroad and am trying to link my Paypal account (which I've had for years) to my Bank of America bank account. The problem is, I do not have a cell phone with a US number and the service will not allow me to enter my foreign phone number (which includes an extra three digits for the country code). The site is giving me no other options to verify my identity. It wants a cell number it can text that is registered in my name, and I don't have one.  I did not realize a cell phone was becoming such a requirement as a form of identity now.  

Help!!

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First, you have to notify PayPal that you’ll be out of the country. The security system will see you log in from abroad and want to protect your account. PayPal accounts are country specific. You can open a local PayPal account in your current resident  country and link US bank account if allowable for expats use and put your foreign cell number and foreign mailing address. Be sure to close account out if you return to USA.

[glwt76]

Thank you for the info! 

We have been living abroad for 4 years now though, and have never had a problem with using Paypal for anything. The only issue we have had is this one, trying to link our bank account to our Paypal account as our bank cards have been cancelled as they are being replaced. Until we have them, we need to be able to link our bank account to our Paypal account so we can continue to use Paypal services without an active debit card.

[Solarain]

This was written over 2 years ago but this is still a real issue in 2021!

I travel and reside in both the US and Germany. When I opened a local PayPal in Germany, it effectively CANCELED my US PayPal, that was linked to my US bank. If I'm in Germany, it forces me to log into my German PayPal and I can't even access my US bank account to receive a US payment. I've had that US PayPal account since 2004 or even longer ago than that. I do not want to receive US dollars converted to Euros here in Germany. I need my US money to remain in my US bank account, and paid in US dollars. Why does PayPal not allow me to use my US account when I'm abroad? I went through all the verifications long ago. US bank accounts don't have IBANs, and it does not recognize my US bank because it only recognizes German banks, which is nonsense. I need access to both.