PayPal use in Suriname is not fully available yet. So in this post I’ll talk about the possibilities of it here.
Long story short:
Can I do payments/send money with PayPal?
Yes
Can I receive payments/money with PayPal?
No
First thing first. What do you need?
A credit card.
Where can I get a credit card in Suriname?
Now you can apply for a credit card at most banks in Suriname. Although calling it a credit card, might not be the right choice. Most banks in Suriname put a hold on your balance, which means if you have a card with a limit of $1000, you have to have a $1000 in your US current or savings account. It’s only when you decide to stop using your card, you get the $1000 back. This defeats the whole purpose of having a credit card.
Edit 2020: I have now been told not everyone gets a hold on your balance at some banks. You can get be eligible for a credit card when you ask and it also can depend on your credit behavior. Say you’ve been late with credit card payments , your account and credit card can be frozen until you fulfill your payments. After that you’ll be able to use your credit card and your usd account again but then they’ll be forced to put a hold as mentioned above. So needless to say, don’t get into credit card debt.
How to add my credit card to PayPal?
After you created your account on PayPal, you can add/link your credit card to your account. You can find these instructions on their website. I did it with their mobile app, very handy; I didn’t fill it in, just scanned it.
Be sure to fill in the correct address when verifying your cc. If you don’t know what this is, ask your bank which address is linked to your credit card (or check your credit card statement). Some banks use 5 zeroes (00000) for their zip code. Numbers are very important here.
After adding you cc, PayPal will charge 1 USD ( or more now) of your credit card to verify (Don’t worry , you’ll get this back Scrooge). If you shop outside Suriname, you can add an American address, some banks allow adding an extra address. It is sometimes handy to add a United States Address, if you have one that is.
How to pay with PayPal?
I won’t go into much detail in this, but it comes down to this: At the end when you’re done shopping, choose PayPal as your preferred payment method , enter your e-mail linked with your PayPal account and other details (like shipping address) and you’re done (after authorizations of course).
Why the hell did PayPal subtract more than what was on my invoice? Why did the bank charge me more? Why? Why ? Why?
Calm down. And No, it’s not your Bank’s fault. Basically it comes down to this: you didn’t read. Like most Surinamese people, you tend to skip a few steps. You only see what you want to see for example: name, e-mail and amount. In our case (Suriname PayPal accounts) PayPal automatically chooses the SRD as our default currency because your card issuer is based in Suriname.
So when you pressed that “Pay Now” button , you probably (most likely) skipped the little part where it said something like “Use default country’s currency or seller’s currency” ( I don’t know the exact words anymore, because I did this correctly the first time suckaaas ). So what happens? PayPal uses their own exchange rate, which is sometimes much higher than your country’s, so you may end up paying more than initially thought.
How to set my default currency to USD?
Send a mail…. that’s it.
Ask PayPal to set your default currency to US Dollars and you’re set. Our PayPal differs other countries, we have limited options. I can’t tell you what they are, because like you …. I also have a Surinamese version PayPal. Did you see screenshots like “manage Currencies” ? yeah….we don’t have that.
So why don’t we have all PayPal options like simple receiving?
Well, from the information I got : Our country is just not ready yet. I e-mailed PayPal and this is their answer:
At this time, the option to receive payments or add money from a bank account to your PayPal account is not yet available for Surinamese accounts as we are complying with the local and international financial rules and regulations.
Each country has different financial laws and regulation therefore we need to ensure that we are fully compliant to the local and international financial law and regulations before we offer a certain feature to avoid difficulties down the line of our services.
Your intention in receiving payments has been taken note of and this will be forwarded to our relevant department and it may help in having the receive feature offered the soonest. We’ll be sure to notify you once additional services and features are available in your country.
As you can see they’ve been trying to get something done here for quite a while now. You would think that the government would do something about this with the shortage of US dollars here. But I won’t get into that, last thing I want is get all political. But yeah, if you’re like me, you’ve been searching for a way to receive online payments from abroad. And I also know a lot of people who are interested in this….Yeah..At least three people! ….
So what? I’ll just register in my PayPal that I’m from the states
Sure, try it.
The only that stopped me was entering a social security number(SNN). You want to enter a fake one? Well….enter at own risk. Some people had some experience that they could receive money, but could not use it. It’s there in their PayPal wallet…but frozen. So unless you could prove from the states (like having a SSN), I would not recommend this.
Anyways, if this were to happen , I know for sure a lot of business would be done here. So if you have anything to add/correct, please let me know in the comments.
