Transfer money through PayPal in Beijing

[elina]

Our company runs an online shop only having the payment method of bank transfer and Western Union for overseas customers. It’s said that any person with an email address can receive/send money through PayPal free of charge. If it is true, we could add it as online payment method, which could cut down our customers’ cost and give them convenience when purchasing. Anyone knows something about this matter? Any feedback would be highly appreciated!

[roddy]

Paypal now has a Chinese subsidiary, Paypal.cn, which should make things considerably easier.

Basically, I think Paypal is the way to go for small-scale online retailers. It's easy to use, a recognizable name that people feel fairly safe using, and while there are fees to pay they're bearable.

What you need to do is check that international payments can be transferred to a Chinese bank account - otherwise the money will just sit in your Paypal account and you won't be able to access it directly.

I assume this is possible, but you'll need to check.

An alternative is that you get someone in the US or elsewhere (HK?) to set up a bank account for you there, and the money gets transferred into that account, and then to China (or you can leave it in the US, for when you go on holiday )

Roddy

[mr.stinky]

http://www.51qb.com.cn/index_en.asp

i found this online....what appears to be a chinese paypal. home page is in chinese, but

with an english tab. i was able to set up an account, and i think (?) i can make payments

by depositing cash into the account through the post office. i haven't tried yet.

unfortunately, once you log in on the english screen, there is no english for the

transactions page. guess i'll wait until i learn some more words.

[roddy]

I'd be reluctant to use 51qb for international customers, as it's not a recognized name anywhere outside of China.

[elina]

Thank you very much, Roddy and Mr. Stinky.

We have seen the website: www.paypal.com.cn, but when requesting a payment, it shows as follows:

收款

您可以向中国境内拥有电子邮件地址的任何人收款。您可以为客户开具账单，即使他们没有贝宝账户。要发送更详细的付款请求，请尝试贝宝全新的开具账单工具。

收件人电子邮件：

（如需向多人收款，请用逗号或回车分隔邮件地址，并在下页指定不同金额。）

金额：

币种： 元

So I think it can only receive money from customers inside China mainland, excluding overseas customers. And the received currency is only in RMB.

We are studying on www.paypal.com, in order to make sure if it is possible to use. There is something we don’t understand. After some time studying, a few questions may be raised here.

Thanks again for your help.

[smalldog]

The new Chinese Paypal, Paypal 贝宝, is completely separate from the original Paypal, and you are right in saying it couldn't be used to receive payments from abroad. You would have to use paypal.com and receive payments by check in the mail.

[mr.stinky]

when i go to paypal.cn and log-in with my email/password, my original us-based

account opens.

[smalldog]

when i go to paypal.cn and log-in with my email/password, my original us-based

account opens.

Hmm, that's interesting. The paypal.cn faq said they are different systems.

[elina]

The new Chinese Paypal, Paypal 贝宝, is completely separate from the original Paypal,

when i go to paypal.cn and log-in with my email/password, my original us-based account opens.

I think both of you are right. I ASSUME that It SEEMS to be:

If you have an account from www.paypal.com, then you can enter www.paypal.com.cn, no problem. But if you start to register on www.paypal.com.cn, things are like what I said in the above post.

Now we are in the process of enquiring something with Paypal representative through emails, when we get all the answers, I’ll make an update here.

Thanks a lot for your very helpful informations!

[sima99]

Well I have just signed up to 51QB and made a transaction using it, I found it very simple and easy to use and best of all free. The good thing is you can set up a paypal account in the US and then just transfer money into the 51QB account using a credit card. (Minimum 80RMB at a time). So I think this is a great way to pay for things in China when your overseas.

[elina]

Hi sima99, thanks for your information! When visiting 51QB, we found this: http://www.51qb.com.cn/help_en/Fees.asp

So I think it may be not free, and the Minimum Withdraw Amount ($2,000.00) is too high.

We’re still in the process of discussing something with PayPal representatives through emails and confirming with different Chinese banks.

During the period of contacting PayPal representatives, every time there’s a different person randomly among their customers support team answering our questions, even some of the representatives are still not clear about the PayPal solution in China mainland and give us wrong information. Sometimes their reply cannot 切中要害 / hit the points, we have to 追问 / ask the questions again which we have already asked in our previous letter.

And we’re very surprised that Paypal representative can answer an email enquiry after 3-4 days when we send our email (excepting one letter). We ourselves always reply our customers within one day. Once, Paypal representative even sent us a customer satisfactory investigation without answering our former letter after 3 days. Their working style seems strange to me. I know Paypal is a big company, they may be really quite busy, but if things are like this, I think they should have added manpower in their customers support team. And recently, there were Christmas and New Year holidays, so till now we have not got all the answers. I think we will need more time to make things clearly.

[mr.stinky]

paypal is a nice tool if you're selling on ebay, but be careful. if you receive a payment

made by credit card, the buyer can dispute your payment, and you have to prove that

everything is legitimate. in the meantime, you've still been charged a transaction fee.

and their owners (ebay) have charged you auction fees.

how to resolve things? don't even try to contact customer service. you won't find a

contact email or telephone number or even a physical mailing address. they live in

cyberspace, much like ebay (owner of paypal). you are allowed to provide any

info on prescribed webpages, with the format giving you very little space to enter

info, that is if they even give you that option. often it will be check the box only.

the only way to protect yourself, as a small-time seller, is to constantly empty your

account. never carry a balance.

[elina]

Thanks, Mr. Stinky! I think you should change your name to Mr. Wise-adviser, or Mr. Kindness, or something like that.

but be careful. if you receive a payment made by credit card, the buyer can dispute your payment, and you have to prove that everything is legitimate.

Yes, we’re told by our friends that it’s because of receiving credit card, not because of using PayPal, we’ll take the risk of this kind of things. So in the future, we must adopt some methods to avoid these.

the only way to protect yourself, as a small-time seller, is to constantly empty your account. never carry a balance.

This is what we want to do. But there is a regulation in PayPal: the Minimum Withdraw Amount is USD 150.00, i.e. if there’s USD 149.00 in our PayPal account, we cannot touch the money.

in the meantime, you've still been charged a transaction fee.

We’ll be charged the transaction fees by 3 times:

1. when our customers transfer their payment from their PayPal account to our PayPal account

2. when we withdraw the money from our PayPal account

3. when we deposit the check funded by PayPal into our Chinese bank account.

And when our customers transfer their payment from their PayPal account to our PayPal account, if the currency is not in USD, we’ll be charged an extra fee for changing it into USD. So we’ll ask our overseas customers to exchange their payment into USD from other kinds of foreign currency before transferring by PayPal. Is it too trouble or convenient for the foreigners who are not in the countries using USD?

Thanks again to those who gives kind answers!

[elina]

We have added PayPal online payment to our site. We should sign up on this website: www.paypal.com, and then deposit the check to the Chinese bank，which will last 60-80 days for the money reaching our account every time after withdrawing from our PayPal account, the detailed information:

http://shop.aaawww.net/mod8/1.php?dirid=288335&id=312205&userid=7912

[Bazza]

Well I have just signed up to 51QB and made a transaction using it, I found it very simple and easy to use and best of all free. The good thing is you can set up a paypal account in the US and then just transfer money into the 51QB account using a credit card. (Minimum 80RMB at a time). So I think this is a great way to pay for things in China when your overseas.

How exactly do you transfer money from Paypal to 51QB?