It's a problem sending relatively small amounts of money around the world.
In order to pay Catman for the CMDIII dinner, he gave the option of using PayPal.com. It's an interesting site but very much slanted at the US market.
I had some fun trying to get PayPal.com to work.
For a start, international users need a credit card and only Visa is currently being accepted. And today I received this from PayPal:
Dear PayPal Member,
When PayPal expanded its service to non-US residents in November, we broke new ground by allowing our members to withdraw funds from their PayPal account and deposit them to their VISA card. The process of depositing funds to a credit card was a new one and something that the credit card associations are just now beginning to explore.
VISA and MasterCard are currently developing programs to permit fund transfers to their cards, and PayPal is discussing with them ways to participate so that our members can transfer funds to their cards in a manner approved by both associations.
However, until such a program is operational we will be suspending the practice of withdrawing funds from PayPal accounts and depositing them to VISA cards starting 7 March 2001.
PayPal hopes to soon offer members in Sweden the ability to withdraw funds from their PayPal account into their local bank account, and we will notify you as soon as we have developed this capability. In the meantime, in order to prevent money that cannot be withdrawn from being sent to you, other PayPal members will be prevented from sending money to you unless you have registered a US bank account with PayPal. (Members in any country may register a US bank account in order to withdraw money.)
We apologize for the inconvenience this change in our VISA withdrawal policy may cause. Due to this inconvenience, effective today PayPal will **NO LONGER CHARGE FEES** on withdrawals from PayPal accounts and deposits to international VISA cards. We recommend that you login to PayPal at your earliest convenience and review your account status; if you have a balance, please withdraw it to your VISA card.
So, for international users, PayPal could still be used to SEND money to US users but that's about all.
When using PayPal the following happened:-
1. People without a US checking account MUST use a credit card to initally send funds.
2. Only Visa is currently accepted.
3. Catman did NOT want you to pay with a credit card. But I wondered about a DEBIT card?
4. It took 6 days (4 business days + a weekend) for the PayPal 'PIN' so appear in my on-line Visa debit card account.
5. When I then tried sending the USD65 to Catman, I was told that he had already had reached his USD100/month CREDIT card limit.
6. Then I tried opening another account in order to send USD65 to me (still having the USD100/month available)and then send that USD65 on to Catman. But that couldn't be done because I'd need a second Visa card. PayPal only allows one account per card.
7. So I had to reject the USD65 back to my first account.
8. The USD65 then seemed to look like cash, so I sent that to Catman.
Does anyone know of another service where relatively small amounts of money can be sent around the world?