It’s nearly time to resubscribe. But this time round, Paypal is demanding I create an account.
I’d really rather not do that. Is there any way around it?
PayPal is playing games – you CAN use your credit card or debit card but they are making it more difficult for you to find it.
Here’s what you do, in order:
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UserCP/Paid Subscriptions.
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Indicate the time you want 1 year/2 years.
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CLICK on the button that says “Order Using PayPal.” You’re not necessarily going to use a PayPal account to PAY for this subscription BUT the processing is being done by PayPal. Don’t stress over this.
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You will be coaxed, enticed, etc. to use a PayPal account to fund this transaction. That will be large and obvious. Unless that’s what you really want to do disregard this. Instead there is a little (damn little) hyperlink that says “DON’T HAVE A PAYPAL ACCOUNT?” Click on that link, if you intend to use a credit card or a debit card.
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Now you can either register for a new PayPal account OR you can pay using a card. There will be a adropdown box on the right hand side for you to enter your country. When you do the page beneath that choice will show you the credit card options for your country.
Indicate your country of choice (default is "United States) and hit the button.
The pane will now display “PAY WITH A CREDIT CARD.” Fill in the blanks as appropriate and process.
You do not have to open a PayPal account to pay your subscription. If you already have a PayPal account you do not have to use it.
I am going to make this a sticky and mark it so people will (hopefully) understand. Making it deliberately confusing is profitable to PayPal but you don’t have to fund your subscription through PayPal unless you really want to.
I can vouch for this, as I managed to muddle my way through PayPals process and find the use credit card part to renew my subscription recently…and it worked fine. Just adding my two cents (and cheap at triple the price). Sucks that they have to make it difficult, but that’s why I stopped using them a few years ago.
When I click on that link, it forces me to create a Paypal account. Note that this does not happen for American users. Change the country to U.K. it comes up with ‘Create a Paypal account’.
I had the same issue as Quartz, although I do have a Paypal account somewhere so I’ll probably just end up using that eventually. But since I have moved to the Netherlands, I changed the billing address on my American credit card to the Netherlands. As he mentions, the two options are ‘Pay with my Paypal account’ and ‘Open a Paypal account’. I tried filling in the information and leaving the password fields blank, but it won’t allow you to proceed beyond that.
I will say though - thanks for the detailed instructions for American users. Last year I was pretty tired when I signed up, so I somehow managed to process the payment through Bill Me Later, which I had to call to cancel/get out of.
That’s the ONLY option you have? It won’t let you access a credit card on the other side of that prompt?
ETA: No, I just checked it. When I entered “Netherlands” into the dropdown box on the right hand side I saw:
Pay with PayPal account [Betalen met mijn Pay-Pal-rekening]
AND
Pay with debit or credit card [Geen PayPal-rekening?]
you just have to go to that next page to see it and indicate your country.
You do not have to have a PayPal account. You do not have to open a PayPal account.
Good to know. I already re-upped my subscription with my PayPal account, but it will help others without an account. 
It is now listed as optional (the page looks somewhat different than it did a few days ago). Sorry, didn’t get a screenshot of it back then.
I changed the country to UK and saw the following:
Choose a way to pay
Pay with my PayPal account
Log in to your account to complete the purchase
Pay with a debit or credit card
(Optional) Sign up to PayPal to make your next checkout faster
I must be doing something wrong because the two options I get are ‘Pay with my Paypal account’ and ‘Create a Paypal account and pay with your debit or credit card’ - nothing optional about it.
See here.
Quartz, I do not know why it’s weird like that for you – I did get it to pop up with the “take credit card” option. For what it’s worth, I was in Windows 7 using Chrome, did that perhaps have some bearing on the situation?
Take a bow! I use Chrome. I tried with IE 9 and it didn’t want me to create an account, so I’ve signed up for another 104 weeks.
Glad to hear you’re good to go here. Sorry for all your difficulties in this.
Does Paypal charge SDMB a processing fee/transaction fee?
The reason I ask is I’ve been boycotting Paypal for about a year (after my last re-up) and I’d prefer to not give give them another penny of my money, even just some measly percentage of $7.48.
I don’t think so, no.
I used paypal (paid up until 2015, woo hoo!) but if they do charge you a fee I’ll change my payment method next time…
Tuba, thanks for answering my PM.
But it’s simply not working. I’m USA, and all the option I’m offered, once I say I’ll pay for two years and hit order, is to pay using a PayPal account. No further pages, no other links, nothing.
At least none that I can find.
It’s darned frustrating, to have to fight to pay like this. I don’t want to lose my Charter Membership and become a guest, but I simply won’t use PayPal.
Several times yesterday and today I tried resubscribing (using my Debit card via the PayPal link) and each time, after completing the form asking for my name, address, etc., I got this error message (on two different computers) from PayPal:
Each time I was using Chrome, my preferred browser. I didn’t bother clearing or deleting cookies, but I just tried tried Firefox and I was able to resubscribe without any problem. For what that’s worth.
Ooh, that’ s a good point to make. A lot of us do use Chrome and it’s not always compatible in these situations, I’ve had similar conflicts on other sites.
vBulletin was written around IE so that may have something to do with the root of the conflict.
I have the same issue. As soon as I pick “France”, I’m only left with the options of paying with paypal or creating a paypal account. I tried with IE and Firefox : same result.
I’m not able to complete the re-subscription process. I get to the PayPal page, enter my credit card details, click “Review and continue”, and get shown my credit card details again. The “Continue” button below them just reloads them over and over again - on Chrome, Firefox, IE, and the BlackBerry browser, on three different computers.
Any thoughts? I called PayPal, and they don’t see any record of an attempt at a transaction; this leads them to blame it on the vendor’s webpage.