You could open a new account at the bank for say $1,000 just for your purchases on ebay but you will need to give them that account number. We once bought something from a man in China but Paypal refused to pay him so he was obviously a bad risk and not approved by them. I have never had any trouble, they are efficient and safe IMO and you have an instant record of your purchases, when you bought it, and how much you paid.

Hi Phyl, you will need to give Pay Pal an account number of some sort as  when you pay for something it gets drawn immediately from that account.  The safest is to put an amount into a seperate account to your main one and use that specifically for pay pal.  Pay Pal does have an upto $20,000 insurance for loss of monies in certain circumstances.  Probably a good idea to read as much of the terms and conditions that you can. :) :) :) I'm not an expert on paypal as I'm sure a lot of others are, but that is the way most of my family use it.   BTW once you get started with it you will find it great, I was so hesitant when I started, and like you, very cautious but now I don't think twice, have been doing it for a few years now and have had no losses up to this point in time.  Good Luck with it.

Thanks Toot and Deanna.

I think I am er losing a bit of interest and maybe just going shopping is the way to go for us lol. Looking at Amazon US but think the shipping is prohibitive and what if the machine has a fault? All fun and makes for interesting decisions.

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Will see what happens :)

Phyl, the above posts give great advice and info. I use Paypal fairly extensively and yes, I understand you can just put $1000 or so into your Paypal account, but then, you dont have easy access to this money if you need it. I have Paypay linked to my bank account (with direct debit/deposit) so if I do pay with Paypal, I dont have a credit amount with them, they just debit my account - easy peasy. It works the same way if you sell something on Ebay.

You do have to be careful who you allow direct debit acces to with regard to your bank account, but there are great "consumer protection" laws in place these days, so if you are dealing with well known and reputable traders, there is very little chance of taking a loss by fraud.

I think that if are really set against direct debit from your usual bank account, setting up another one just for Paypal would be a good idea if you plan to use Ebay relatively often.

Thanks matey. Not sure with our way of thinking Pay Pal would be for us.

There is not much we cannot buy paying by cheque which really does suit us and cash (with a receipt) or by card where we sign and of course pay before we pay interest :)

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We would not need the money we put into Pay Pal but the procedures will take a bit for us to digest re opening another account to have just a few thousand in it  with a card attached  might be the go. Thanks again as it is very interesting so by hook or by crook I will get myself a Pilates machine lol.