Finally PayPal is available for Romania... but we are restricted to send-only

3-minute read
paypal • romania

During the last days I have seen a lot of buzz regarding the addition of my country, Romania to the list of available countries on PayPal. Heck, I know that I needed something like this years ago when I started to work as a freelancer and I had problems retrieving the money I was working for. Every client was saying: let’s use paypal… and I had to explain to them that unfortunately this is not available for me and my country. Obviously during all this time I have found alternatives to paypal, as I could not wait for this fabulous event we are seeing now. Still, when I’ve seen the buzz generated by this news, I rushed immediately to check it out.

Here are my thoughts on this ‘fabulous’ news:

  • most importantly the accounts we can create are restrictive… They are SEND-ONLY… Personally, I am not interested in sending money, but receiving money from outside. Even so this type of account can be useful to some peoples (maybe the ones that have not found moneybookers or other alternative solutions).

  • why were we added on the first place? Some might think that because Romania has joined European Union in 2007 might have helped. Some might think that PayPal has realized the potential of our country… Neh… Wrong… On their press release we can see that they have added 87 new countries. Without any offense, about some of them I have heard from the TV show Survivor (like Vanuatu, Palau or Cook Islands)… Just read the list and see for yourself what countries were added: Albania, Algeria, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Azerbaijan Republic, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Chad, Colombia, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo, Cook Islands, Djibouti, Dominica, El Salvador, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Faroe Islands, Gabon Republic, Gambia, Greenland, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Honduras, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kiribati, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Mauritius, Federated States of Micronesia, Mongolia, Morocco, Mozambique, Nauru, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Niue, Norfolk Island, Oman, Palau, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Romania, Rwanda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, San Marino, Sao Tome and Principe, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Svalbard and Jan Mayen, Swaziland, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu, Vatican City, Yemen and Zambia.

  • basically if Romania would have not been added at this time, when I assume PayPal has tried to add all the possible countries, it would have been more interesting… By the way, if there are any other countries left over, I wander why? Probably because they could not locate them yet on the map ;-).

Uff… This has been a great disappointment for me as I was expecting something else… Until we will be able to have full type of accounts, I will continue to use the alternatives I’ve found during the last years (mainly moneybookers).

Still I believe that even so, many of my conationals will be happy on this news and will rush to create their paypal accounts and use it to pay online for various services.

Update: this post is left intact for the reference, but as ClaudiuDesign noted in a comment bellow the accounts available for our country are no longer limited to send only.

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