@barbaramary Some online goods/services require a credit card as back up funding source to set up a billing agreement in your PayPal Automatic Payments profile. If you can't add a card, then you won't be able to complete checkout. There are also merchants that block eChecks (only bank account linked to PayPal account) because payment has to clear first. If you also have a credit card linked PayPal can do instant bank payment: PayPal pays ahead to the merchant for you and wait for your bank payment to clear.
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