This is an issue i know that has really affected a lot of online marketers.its exclusionist policy is making a lot of people lose out on effectively doing online business. Why don't paypal allow certain countries to use their services? I am originally fron Nigeria,and back there we cannot use paypal.i wonder why we are being actively encouraged to use the internet when we are not allowed to use services from certain websites. My folks only use the internet to do school work on google and to check their mails,but miss out on the mega bucks that are being made everyday on the internet. This is a big problem for all the countries exluded by paypal.And to think that every where they are talking about stamping out online fraud,when they are in effect promoting fraud by excluding a section of the online community from enjoying some services.thsi folks turn to fraud as the online alternative to survive online and then every one turns around and blames them something they are forced into by the big players.i know people who use fake US addresses to open their US paypal accounts,though they then face the problem of not being able to withdraw their monies from the accounts. This is my current dilema.i have a US paypal but now need a US Bank account to enable me verify and then withdraw from my account. My question is why are we treated like second class citizens? How can paypal's attitude be changed so that a majority of us can benefit from their services? Post your comments please,thanks
I hope you can take this but Nigeria is well-known as a country where the majority of mail and now online fraud originates. Paypal just want to protect the rest of their members and thus are slow in including high-risk countries.
Its not about discrimination it is more on the local laws that protects paypal users. Paypal look into existing laws and of course they also consider the risk and economic viability of having paypal operate in some countries as mentioned by eddy2009. Our country was previously not included by paypal but we are now enjoying, just recently, all the features that paypal are affording to their members. And I am very happy for that.
Paypal is charging me anything from 5-9% on payments i receive...not acceptable. I'm desperatly looking for an alternative. I'm in europe. Any ideas?
Yes because right now i am holidaying with my family friend in the states,i hope i could make the stay permanent. As for the fact that Nigeria is high risk country,i do not argue that some of my country folks have found the internet a haven for crime.But lets look at critically,maybe if companies like paypal could make it easy for the good guys to use their services,these guys would not go into fraud. I have been doing online business for about 5 years and not for once have i scammed anybody,probably because i am privy to better information than a lot of my folks. I believe in building a name for myself,a name will stand the test of time than run after quick monies that will tarnish your online image and prevent people from doing business with you. Thanks anyway for the comment
How open is the Nigerian economy ? Do you get lots of foreign investment ? The point made by Eddy is a valid one, but you also need to remember that the local authorities must allow Paypal to offer its services.
The Nigerian fraud existed even before Paypal came into existence or even before the internet came about. So you cannot blame paypal for it. I would believe that only when your countrymen clean up their act then I am sure the world will be more receptive of Nigeria but at the moment, it would be difficult. I know you are honest and all but it is difficult to know who is and who is not especially if paypal cannot see each person who applies for an account.
I have to agree with eddy and sakto and none of us are directing those remarks to towards you personally. There may also be some implications from homeland security or the CC companies that we are not aware of. PayPal has to meet many federal guidlines in order to remain in business.
I believe paypal is a pvt company and they have the right to include/exclude countries. They are always looking forward to improve their service. Its totally up to em.
I am so happy for you.where are you from if i may ask? so you can now withdraw to your home bank account? that is so cool,and that is what i am asking for from paypal.just the opportunity to make a living online and be able to cash my money when i want to.
The previous government really took steps to open up the economy and we are now getting lots of DFI(Direct Foreign Investment). I am not oblivious of the points made by Eddy,and about the local authorities here,well i think that is where we are getting it completely wrong.we are not being encouraged to use the internet for business and that i think harms our chances of getting accepted by most sites online
well I think eduoku got it all right ! in fact not only paypal is pursuing this policy there is plenty of websites that victimize ppl of underdeveloped countries just because they don't get much revenue from those countries I mention here my experience with an affiliate website , where I got banned along with many others for no reason after collecting some amount of money then it turned out that only people from poor countries got banned ! let's take the widgetbucks example which is rising more dispute these days I bet most of people who got banned are from under developed countries ! briefly , paypal is not worldwide as you might think it targets us and can rather say it targets money,that was pronounced by the chief supervisor I talked to yesterday for getting my money back i asked him why they're asking verifications with impossible means ?(they know there's no CC in algeria) he said to me "algeria is not our number one market" ....he gave a blank expression while I asked him why they're lying to people saying paypal is worldwide ? why different limitations on sending and receiving? even for verified accounts anyway we've seen recently paypal start caring about india , we know all it ranks among first 5 in terms of traffic and internet industry
Yesterday, I was about to get scammed by a Nigerian guy who sent me an email saying that my "PayPal account access is limited", I clicked on the link in the message and a website just like PayPal opened only the link didn't say "http://www.paypal.com..." that what made me suspicious. I emailed PayPal and they confirmed that it's a scam. I did a little research on Google and apparently Nigeria is the source of this scam http://forums.gumtree.com/topic18831.html . I don't see any valid reason why PayPal should allow such a HIGH-RISK country to use their services.
Let's be fair here! That scam may have been from Nigera. I get at least one of those almost daily, many of them are from China and a good many of them are US Ip numbers right out of Texas and Ca.
I was just about to narrate some experinces i have had online recently with these scammers untill i saw this reply,you have put it so well.i do get a lot of these scam mails and when i check,it happens they most of the times come from the west.maybe they are trying to imitate the Nigerians and thus giving extending our already battered reputation. I am not trying in anyway to back what my country men do,but it happens that some of this things are coming from right out of the west these days.
It is so easy for you to put it the way you just did,and that is probably because you are an American or at least from the west. The internet is a very high risk community to do business.and if i may ask you,don't you do a research on your offline business partners before engaging them? you can find anything you want to find on google on Nigeria,afterall we have attain a notoriety for scams,but i bet you,if you were from a country on the ban list of some these companies,you would understand how unfair this is and how hurting it can be for an individual trying to make an honest living. We have banks in Nigeria that are currently being rated as some the fastest and best run banks in world at the moment,why can't paypal do their own research view to working with these banks so that they could give us their services?
yooozy has put it well. It is not because NIGERIA is high risk or Algeria is high risk. It is all to do with the revenue. They dont care about you because your country dont generate enough revenue for them to be interested. If it was to do with the fraud then everyone must have banned USA. USA has the highest fraud rate. Even all my frauds for years were done from USA. But I cant stop doing business with US clients, they also generate most revenue. So dont loose heart, it is nothing to do with you or what your countrymen do.