PayPal keeps telling me to add a bank account but I already did

[McMaster102]

Hi! I've set up my PayPal account a couple of days ago, the account is confirmed and so is my bank account which I've added to the paypal account (because I don't own a credit card). So anyway, any purchase that I try to make (except some really cheap ebay purchases) leads me to a window saying I need to add a method of payment (either a bank account or a credit card) so I entered my account details and after clicking confirm it says that the bank account is already added to this paypal account. Which is ofcourse true but I don't know why its asking me this when I've already added and confirmed my account. This is very annoying for me because there's no way to bypass this and this pretty much rendered my account useless. I've sent an emai lto paypal about this but all I got is an automated reply. So If anyone out there knows why this is happening or how can I fix this I'd be very glad to hear from you. Thank you!

[sharpiemarker · Accepted solution]

@McMaster102 

If you already have a bank account added, and it is only letting you buy relatively inexpensive items successfully, then that means, you need to add a card to back up the bank payment. Oh man, I wish PayPal would write a screed about this...how the checkout and payment methods work, aggregated on one page because it will save me repeating this over and over. lol 😉

What adding a card does on a bank account payment method is to initate what is called an Instant bank transfer by PayPal so the payment is immediately fronted by PayPal to the merchant immediately. Some merchants may block eCheck payments (not backed up by credit card, which take forever to clear and merchants want to receive money quick, instant and process orders) and so you won't be able to complete the purchase without adding a card, sorry.

And the technology is increasingly moving in this direction, needing to have a bank account and/or card to pay/complete checkout so ya'll better 'chop chop' and get a credit card.