Gift Addresses in US for Canadian Accounts

[JWF]

I live in Canada on the US border. I often buy from US web stores for delivery to a nearby US address. I have registered this address with my credit card company; but some websites will not accept a Canadian credit card, but they do accept PayPal, but require the address be registered with PayPal. Can this US address be registered, the form does not allow the country to be changed.

[PayPal_Olivia]

Hi JWF, and welcome to the forums!

Only Canadian addresses can be used on a Canadian account. Since you reside in Canada, having a Canadian account is correct, but a credit card used on your PayPal account will have to have a Canadian address.

Olivia

[Alex34972815]

Is that a new restriction?  I have, in the past, used a wide variety of hotel addresses in the US where I was staying to receive things paid via PayPal.  These are all visible in my shipping addresses when using a merchant's PayPal payment option, but I cannot see or edit them here on the PayPal site.   How do I edit or delete these addresses?

[PayPal_Olivia]

Hi Alex34972815, and welcome to the forums!

Addresses added through the PayPal site using Add address can be edited, deleted, and selected. The addresses added during checkout on a merchant's website can be used for that transaction only.

I hope this helps!

Olivia

[Alex34972815]

Hi,

It helps somewhat.  What is not clear is how I can edit the addresses I see when interacting with a merchant's account.  I saw probably 8 or 10 addresses I have used in the past, and was able to either select one of them or add another (all of these addresses were in the US).  These addresses are obviously somewhere in PayPal's system, yet I cannot access them except through a merchant's account when paying for a purchase.  That doesn't make much sense, does it?

Please clarify....

Thanks,

Alex

[PayPal_Olivia]

Hi Alex34972815,

It's definitely odd that they are cropping up through the check out process.  PayPal keeps records of anywhere, anything, is ever shipped - we have to, since we give that information to the merchant.  If you can't permanently remove the information, I'd use the "Contact Us" page and ask a representative to see if they can remove it for you.  That might help with the pop ups a little. 

Olivia

[Mowby]

Seems a bit shortsighted on PayPal's part as many Canadians, including myself, do have relatives and friends in the US. Does the same apply globally? Can you only ship within your account's country?

My problem was using a Canadian account am able to add a US address to a specific transaction but when trying to use "Pay Now" it consistently errors out with "Sorry, we could not complete your request at this time.". Was like that for weeks. Despite the destination being US the PayPal side still shows shipping $$ to Canada with no means to add a US address or even edit the amount sent.

Given that eBay and PayPal are global doesn't really seem to make much sense. In hindsight I probably should have bypassed both and went directly to a US merchant.

[fuzqueen]

Does this mean that I am unable to ship to family in the U.S. using my account is Canadian?

Thanks!

[PayPal_Frank]

Hi everyone,

Sorry for any confusion.  While PayPal does not allow you to manually add any Non-Canadian address to your account, eBay and other merchants will allow you to use a U.S. shipping address.

For eBay, you can log into your eBay account, and go to your My eBay page.  From there, go to "Addresss" under the Account tab.  Under the "Primary shipping address" section, click "View all Shipping Addresses".  On that page you can view all the shipping addresses you have on file and add any new ones.  You'll notice that you have the option to select a different country when adding an address.

For other merchants the process can be different.  PayPal allows all merchants to collect shipping information during their portion of the checkout and forward that information to PayPal when you pay.  Ultimately it's up to the merchant to decide if they want to accept shipping addresses to other countries or enable that option in their checkout process.

So why doesn't PayPal allow you to add a U.S. shipping address to your Canadian PayPal account?  The short answer is for security but there are also some regulatory concerns as well.

PayPal is a financial instrument or "online wallet", so just like banks and credit cards, our site has billing addresses on file.  We do not refer to addresses as "shipping addresses" in the PayPal profile.  But we're also unique in that we do send shipping addresses to merchants that use our service.

Thanks for all your feedback on this.  I can assure you that it does not go unheard. 🙂

I hope this information was helpful to clarify the situation and give some options to help get items and gifts sent to locations outside of Canada. 😄

- Frank

[jedaffra]

PayPal_Frank:

Please tell us all what these "regulatory concerns" are?