Tesco Credit Card - Question.

Gilb501_2

Hi Everyone,

Can anyone tell me:

Does a paypal payment from a credit card count as a purchase? Can I link my credit card to my paypal account and then buy things via paypal, ie from ebay or other websites?

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Thanks

lisyloo

Does a paypal payment from a credit card count as a purchase?

If you are purchasing things e.g. ebay, websites, then yes.
If you are sending money it may be different, but definitely purchases are ok.

Can I link my credit card to my paypal account and then buy things via paypal, ie from ebay or other websites?

Yes, but there are two downsides to be aware of.
1) I recently bought something from ebay in Euros. The ebay price was about £26 and the paypal price was £27, so be aware that there may be around 4% in commission if you buy foreign things.
2) More importantly the protection you have changes from your credit card provider to paypal. Paypal protection for buyers is very good if you are within the time limit, but I don't think you have section 75 protection.
That's fine if you are buying clothes or small stuff, but I would recommend using a credit card for holidays or anything where the timescale or protection may be insufficient. So it's an important point that you lost you CC protection when you go through paypal (although paypal protection is very good for what it does cover).

Gilb501_2

Thank you very much!

I just wondered if it will just show up on my CC statement as a Paypal transaction. The reason I wonder is becuase I know if, for example, you use your card to fund things like gambling then it is not classed as a purchase (rightly so) but I know you can fund gambling sites etc with paypal. So somehow the CC must know what you are buying through paypal?

lisyloo

On my capitalone credit card on-line I can click the transaction.
There is something called "Transaction Type" which says "Purchase"
The merchant appears as "PAYPAL *NAMEOFVENDOR"

So I believe the answer is that the merchant passes the transaction type to the credit card company.
So for example if you went to M&S and bought knickers it would be a purchase but if you bought Euros it would be a cash advance.

I have bought loads of stuff from ebay and occasionally other websites and it has always come up as a purchase.
I would personally be a bit cautious about using paypal on other websites because I know that credit card companies are quite good with on-line fraud, but I'm not sure where you'd stand on paypal. That may be a gap in my knowledge. Obviously you should always be somewhat cautious but credit cards generally cover fraud as long as you aren't negilgent. I don't know about paypal but loads of people use it for ebay.