Paypal / Taiwan Bank Account question

Hi there,

So this is my first time posting on this forum…I hope it goes well as the Forum has been very very good to me so far.

Well I am sitting in Los Angeles right now planning on heading to Taiwan (the homeland of my parents) to teach english this coming semester, and am consequently working out the logistics of this plan. A big issue for me is how I will continue making monthly payments on my US debts (car loan payments, student loans, etc etc) while in Taiwan with the money I will be making teaching english. So far after sifting through many posts here the answer seems to be that I should open up a Taiwanese Bank Account once I get to Taiwan and wire transfer money I make and save from teaching english over to my US (Bank of America) bank account, from where I will then make the assorted payments out of.

Given what I have read here about the wire fees, exchange rates and all that mess my post then is a question about the functionality of Paypal as a different option in transferring money between my Taiwan and US bank account. Basically does anyone know if the following is possible and advisable: Set up a completely new paypal account linked to my Taiwanese bank account from where I would send payments to my already established paypal account that’s linked to my US bank account.

I thank everyone in advance for any advice they can give me in response to this question…and I hope I will be able to contribute into future discussions on this board, once I get to Taiwan of course.

You sure can , I am doing exactly that. You just need to set up a taiwanese paypal account. register a taiwan bank account into that paypal account. When u get paid, retrieve money from your taiwan bank account into your taiwan paypal account. Then you can pay whoever you want in the US. Or, you can register your american bank account into your taiwan paypal if you want to move the funds. You don’t even need a US paypal acount if i’m not mistaken.

Check out these threads:

[url]You can withdraw $ from your PAY PAL account in Taiwan Now

http://forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtopic.php?t=13720&start=30

Awesome…man that cleared a lot of nagging concerns in my head I couldn’t thank you guys enough :smiley:

I think you will find a Taiwan paypal account next to useless since you can’t transfer money into it from your bank like you can with a US paypal account. You would have to fund the account by a Taiwan credit card to move your teaching funds back to the US.

A potential solution would be:
If you have an Taiwan ID card then get a China Trust Visa debit card and use that to move bank account funds to Taiwan paypal.

wait…now i’m confused you’re telling me it won’t work since i cant transfer money out of a taiwanese bank account like i can with a US account, yet aceman is saying that is exactly what he is doin right now? someone mentioned in the post linked above by ben that the taiwan bank account to paypal account to us bank account is theorethically possible…

damn now i dont know what to think…has this definitively worked for anyone so far? aceman have any of these types of transactions worked for you to this point, thats the impression i got from your first post.

[quote=“amishrock”]wait…now I’m confused you’re telling me it won’t work since i cant transfer money out of a Taiwanese bank account like I can with a US account, yet aceman is saying that is exactly what he is doin right now? someone mentioned in the post linked above by ben that the taiwan bank account to paypal account to us bank account is theorethically possible…

damn now I don’t know what to think…has this definitively worked for anyone so far? aceman have any of these types of transactions worked for you to this point, thats the impression I got from your first post.[/quote]

With non-US bank accounts paypal is uni-directional - you can withdraw the money to the foreign bank account only. Funding a paypal account by bank account is only possible in the USA.

If your goal is Taiwan salary earned cash --> Paypal Taiwan --> withdraw to US bank account/send money to others - you will find that you need to use a credit card or a Visa Debit to get the Taiwanese funds into the account.

I have a Taiwan Paypal account - advice for non-Taiwanese ID holders - make sure your account is in your English name and if you have a really old account (before the advent of the new ID numbers on ARCs) then
open a new account with the new ARC ID number or else Payrip will screw you too. Lost US$22 on their lousy exchange rates (US$->NT$->US$) when my transfer to bank was rejected (return fee is only supposed to be NT$70nt).

thanks a lot gazza that was my goal…i guess that just closes one avenue down for me…now i got to learn how to work the credit card/debit card system. i must admit once i thought the paypal route was clear i didn’t check out how to move funds through a credit/debit card.

I really wonder what the heck aceman was talking about then if he said that’s exactly what he is doing right now. i guess he didnt really understand what i was trying to do.

Gazza, I’m trying to finish setting this up today using my Taiwan account. I’m a little unclear on what you’ve just said about not being able to fund your Paypal account with a Taiwan account because I thought this changed this year. [url=http://tw.forumosa.com/t/you-can-withdraw-from-your-pay-pal-account-in-taiwan-now/8176/1 you added a Taiwan bank account[/url] to your Taiwan Paypal account?

I think I understand now. You can set up a Taiwan Paypal account with your Taiwan address, add a Taiwan bank account and US bank account, withdraw Paypal dollars into either account, and fund the account with your US account.

So what I’m thinking is if you have the Taiwan Paypal account, along with NT and US bank accounts added, and are ‘verified’ with a credit/debit card, then you could fund the Paypal acct with your card (just one ‘payment’), then transfer the money to your US (checking) account, then write checks to your creditors. Right?

Also, “payrip” is right. Must be the Ebay connection. I have my own issues with them with my US account.

Braxton,
The only thing that changed this year was that Paypal allowed you to add a Taiwan bank account for withdrawal purposes. There is still no way of getting money in short of receiving it from someone else or using a registered credit/debit card.

Yes, I added a newly opened account with Hwa Nan bank. I have received two withdrawals from Paypal already so it does work. Check that your account is registered in your English name and with your current ARC number or else the withdrawal to account might be rejected.

amishrock,
The solution is: a Taiwan Visa Debit card - available from Chinatrust, TaiShin and some other banks (Taiwan ID card holders only accepted - no credit check should be made). Money goes out of your bank account thru the Visa Debit and into Paypal Taiwan account. Non-Taiwanese have to use a Taiwan credit card to do the same since we can’t get a Visa Debit.

I keep repeating it but still it needs to be said…thanks y’all.

Gazza given that i’m not taiwanese (my parents are, but i’m US born and raised) i dont think the visa debit card option will work. thanks though. so a taiwan credit card can transfer money to a taiwan paypal account? i think i might go through that avenue, now i only have to find out what it will take to get a taiwanese credit card as it seems from skimming other posts that it takes a lot of effort for a non-taiwanese to get a credit card there.

Per my previous post, you can add a US account to a Taiwan Paypal account, and you can transfer funds back and forth between your Taiwan account and US account. So, in essence, you can use it to get money from the US. The only catch is that the exchange rate is really bad.

Gazza, how are you pulling this off?

My experience has been that Paypal won’t let me fund my account with my verified Taiwan credit card. It will only allow me to fund it from a US bank account. Basically, I have not been able to get any money from Taiwan to a US account through Paypal.

One way to do away with all of this is to buy US dollar Traveller’s Cheques with your NT, make them out to yourself, and mail them in as deposits to your US bank (I’ve done this a few times). Saves on headache, international mail is pretty reliable, and since it’s Traveller’s Cheques, you can report them missing if they really don’t arrive.

i have a tw paypal account… but havent been linked to my bank account or visa debit card… because it always get rejected by paypal…
so i want to ask some question to make it clear :
1)my name on my taiwan paypal account is written in chinese, and i want to open a new bank account… but i dunno which name that i need to fill in for registering a visa debit card? my chinese name or english name?
2)what about the address? in chinese or english?
3)can chinatrust visa debit card work for online purchase or paypal?
4)im an indonesian that study in taiwan. my name in my passport is just A*****. I dont have any last name. what do i fill then? just “adrian”? or do i need to put a “chen” as my last name… because my last name in chinese is “chen”
please help me… im a newbie in this case! thanks.

Bumping this thread.

Does anyone have any recent experience using TW Paypal? I would like to cut down on some (alot, actually…) bank expenses, and if I can just transfer money using Paypal that would be a dream come true. I could just direct all the NTD at the Paypal NT account instead of the bank and avoid the NT->HKD->NT then remit headache I currently have to go through…not to mention Paypal is not bitchy about accepting TW debit cards unlike other gateways that verify the name, which of course is not on our cards here.

Is it possible to link a TW Paypal account to a domestic bank? I could potentially convince the Taiwanese I have to pay to use Paypal by telling them it’s ‘easier to buy things from abroad’ or something but I need to be sure first it will work before I attempt to go down that road…

Mike029, did you have any luck getting the paypal route to work? I’m also hoping to give this method a shot.