Cannot Link Debit Card Because Spouse Has PayPal Account

[databody]

I just signed up for Bill Me Later to get the 6 months no payments no interest and when I went to check out PayPal asked me to add a credit card to my account. Well it just happens that my wife and I both share a bank account, but we have separate Visa debit cards, and PayPal says that the card is not allowed to be linked because it's connected to another account. This is very difficult because we do not have any credit cards outside of your standard department store cards.
 
Please help!

Is there something I'm missing? How can I use Bill Me Later without having issues with the PayPal credit card linking issues, outside of applying for a separate credit card? If there is no alternative I think I'm talking my wife into getting us out of the whole PayPal for online purchases thing. This is very inconvenient and I really hope there is something that can be done because we use the web for over 75% of our purchases and the PayPal with MasterCard logo (which can't be used either because it's a PayPal card linked to the same debit card) for everything else.

[snowshoe]

Although you have separate cards, are the card numbers different?  If yes, then suggest contacting customer support for assistance with linking the card.  If the card numbers are the same and your spouse has it linked to his account, you cannot link your card to your account.

[databody]

I checked and in fact we do have separate card numbers. I just spoke with my wife and she said she linked her PayPal with the bank account directly and did not use her debit card at all; could this affect my card and make it so it cannot be linked? Also we have a PayPal linked MasterCard that pulls from our PayPal account primarily and if there is no funds it will pull from our bank account. Could that be causing the problem?
 
I was just wanting to have an account that I could buy gifts on that my wife and kids would not have access to seeing. I guess that may not be possible if this issue can't be resolved.
 
Thanks for your feed back.
 
If anyone else would like to comment that would be great.
 
 

[snowshoe]

As your cards are different, you should be able to link them.  Where you may run into an issue is the bank account itself, that may be only linked to one PayPal Account.   Unfortunally no one here can view account info so you may need to work with customer support to get your issues sorted out.

[Casztiel]

If you and your wife have different card numbers you should have no problem adding your card even if they are linked back to the same account. I've heard this question a lot and it's normally just because of confusion about whether the bank account number or the card number was added.

Ask your wife to log in to her PayPal account. Go to the Profile tab and then click on 'Credit/Debit Cards'. It will show a list of all the cards on her account with the last 4 digits. Check to see which cards she has added.

Then log in to your account and do the same. Check what cards you have added and then try to add your own card. There's an 'Add Card' button on the 'Credit/Debit Cards' page. If you get an error saying your card is already used on a PayPal account and you can see that it is NOT on your wife's account, there may be a record of your card somewhere else in the system on an old account you may not realise was created. (Sometimes on merchant's website you can go through Checkout and a PayPal account is created with your detailsand it is not entirely obvious that has happened).


If you do get the error that the card is already added, call PayPal Customer Service and give them your card number. They can run a check in the system and help you find out what account the card is registered to and maybe even help you remove it and add it to your current account.

I hope this helps 🙂
C.

[databody]

@Casztiel that is most likely the case. Thank you so much for your time and feedback. I am sure that I have used a merchant in the past who used PayPal for their checkout but was not aware that they were, possibly, capturing my data to create an account. I will need to contact them directly now to see if the issue can be resolved.

Thanks Again!