How do you accept payments from Germans?

i really think he refers to some subscriptions where you need a CC, but i am almost sure you do NOT need a CC just for signing up with paypal.

Hello again,

I checked back with the customer support of Paypal Germany, and they told me that if a customer sets up a new Paypal account based on a bank account/money transfer, they have to verify that bank acocunt first. For everybody's convenience, I include both the answer of Paypal and a translation below.

This means that usually the customer would have to wait for a couple of days until the verification process is completed, as this process is tied to a money transfer to the bank account in question.

Please note that they write "in general", the bank account would have to be verified -- I've no clue what kind of a purchase would not be "in general".

If anybody is looking for other payment processors in Germany, a German IM blog recently posted a list of trustworthy payment processors. You would have to check out if any of them transfers money to the US (or wherever you live) in an acceptable way, though -- I've never checked that. The blog post is at Liste seriöser Zahlungsanbieter für den Verkauf digitaler Informationsprodukte | Digitale-Infoprodukte.de (please note that I am not related in any way to this blog or its owner).

Hope this helps,

milkyway

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Answer by Paypal Germany to the question whether a new private Paypal account based on a bank account/money transfer (i.e. no credit card) needs to be verified before the Paypal account owner can make their first purchase via this account:

"Im Allgemeinen muss ein Neu-Kunde sein PayPal-Konto durch Eingabe der zwei kleinen Überweisungbeträge erst verfizieren, um PayPal-Zahlung
erst mit Lastschrift duchführen zu können. Die Gutschrift dauert in der
Regel 2-4 Werktage. Wenn Sie dies ein wenig beschleunigen möchten, gibt es noch einen anderen Weg: Sie können Ihr Bankkonto nämlich auch bestätigen, indem Sie einen kleinen Betrag von mindestens EUR 1,00 auf Ihr PayPal-Konto überweisen - diesen haben Sie dann nach 2-3 Tagen bei sich auf dem PayPal-Konto. Wenn Sie einfach gleich den kompletten Zahlungsbetrag für Ihre Transaktion überweisen, können Sie diesen dann nach Gutschrift auf Ihrem PayPal-Konto innerhalb von Sekunden an den Verkäufer senden."

My translation:

"In general, a new customer needs to verify his/her Paypal account by entering the values of the two small money transfers, before he/she can use Paypal for a purchase based on money transfer. The credit of those small transfers usually takes 2 to 4 working days. If you want to speed the process up, though, there is another way to verify the bank account: You can transfer a small amount of money (at least 1 Euro) to your new Paypal account. This small amount will be credited to your Paypal account after 2 to 3 days. If you simply transfer the amount of the planned purchase, you can then transfer it to the merchant immediately after it is credited to your Paypal account." [my comment: and how would I know a couple of days in advance how the exchange rate dollar-Euro is going to be at the day of purchase?? ]