PayPal Requiring Me to Link a Card or Account When Trying to Send Available Funds

[DaniDayan]

I have funds available in my PayPal account which I am trying to send to a friend. Every time I try I get blocked during the sending process and PayPal is requiring me to link a credit card or bank account. I do not have a U.S. bank account I can link since I am using a South African PayPal account.

My bank offers it's own API to PayPal and I can send and withdraw funds through PayPal using my bank's online banking portal.

I have never had this problem before and have successfully sent money to friends and received/withdrawn money from my PayPal account to my South African bank account.

Why am I now being required to link a card/account? Is there a way around this?

[DaniDayan · Accepted solution]

Turns out there's a $4.99 charge for sending international payments so I just had to lower the amount I was sending so that my account balance covered the transfer and the fees... that's annoying but whatever. Problem solved.