This week I tried to purchase something on Ebay.com using my Revolut card but I failed miserably. For the record, I’ve never bought something from EBay before, so this would have been my first purchase. (Not sure it’s relevant though)
First time, I tried to buy without creating a PayPal account. I entered the details of my Revolut card, I got a notification in my phone about $1 transaction from EBay, then Ebay just informed me I cannot use this card for the purchase and I have to provide a different one. The $1 transaction remain pending as of now.
Second time, I went and create a PayPal account, linked the Revolut card to it, set it as default preferred payment method. When I tried to buy the item again, I selected the paypal option, I got a second $1 transaction on my phone Revolut app, then nothing…EBay refused to comply. The second $1 transaction is still pending. (The balance of my USD account in Revolut was at least $30 larger than the price of the item.
One day later, I chatted with Monika (from Revolut support) without shading too much light on the reason this didn’t work.
Therefore, I’m kindly asking the Revolut community if you were able to buy on EBay.com using Revolut cards recently? If so, can you please share any special procedures you had to follow in order to make it work?
Two thoughts: does Ebay accept prepaid cards? Or are they imposing any other limitations like Apple, Sony … do, where credit card country code has to match account billing address? (Revolut cards only work for UK iTunes accounts for example).
According to this, Ebay accepts prepaid debit cards since 2013.
As for your second question, I’ve just checked and there is no “Confirm” option for my Revolut card marked as preferred payment method in my PayPal wallet. But PayPal did send me the $1 transaction, so they linked the card to my account already…
Your issue probably doesn’t lie with Revolut. I’ve used my revolut card in every ebay website, including ebay.com and I also pay my monthly selling fees with revolut.
If you’re using PayPal, eBay has no knowledge of what card you’re using in PayPal, meaning if there is an issue, is not with eBay.
Are you able to use Revolut through PayPal outside eBay?
No, my card is not virtual. And I haven’t used the revolut card with PayPal on any other occasions.
Could have been a problem the fact that I 'm located in Europe and I tried to buy from a US store and ship the item to a US address? (a friend of mine is temporarily staying in US and he will get it for me)
It certainly has nothing to do with that. I buy from US stores all the time and to multiple addresses in multiple countries.
The problem probably has to do with eBay buyer restrictions. Sellers on eBay can decide not to sell to buyers with no or not much feedback. Since you mention this is your first purchase on eBay.com…
Just like there is no tell to know if an account is virtual, same for cards. The way they block accounts is by knowing a certain entity, say transferwise only has virtual accounts, so they block all accounts from transferwise. And as far as I know they only enforce that virtual account policy to USD accounts.
I can assure you as someone that uses paypal and ebay for 10 years and has a significant revenue stream on eBay that paypal doesn’t care at all about addresses matching. Also paypal currently has no access to any ebay data and the reverse is also true.
There are companies like spotify that you mention, that need the address in the card to match. That has nothing to do with the card being virtual or not.
As I mention previously the likely issue here is that the OP is being automatically locked by the eBay seller he is trying to purchase from by not having enough feedback in his eBay account
is virtual or isn’t it?