[tomhr]

Has anyone tried paying a Russian music site from the USA using the Secure Card (aka the Paypal Virtual Debit Card)? Did Mastercard allow the payment? What extra fees were tacked on?

[MBillings]

Although PayPal conveniently doesn't tell you this until after the transaction, there is apparently a fee (20 cents for me when paying 20USD) for Secure Card use to foreign banks. Fortunately, it was only 20 cents, but I still don't know how it's calculated: 1% vs. set fee vs. etc........... Good luck.

[Cornutopian]

Originally Posted by MBillings

Although PayPal conveniently doesn't tell you this until after the transaction, there is apparently a fee (20 cents for me when paying 20USD) for Secure Card use to foreign banks. Fortunately, it was only 20 cents, but I still don't know how it's calculated: 1% vs. set fee vs. etc........... Good luck.

It is 1%, and it has isn't just SecureCard. That is a foreign exchange fee PayPal imposes on foreign currency transactions even using the regular physical PayPal debit card. It IS mentioned in the fine print somewhere. I am not sure if it also applies to straight PayPal payments to other currencies. It may.

[MBillings]

I'm sure it is documented somewhere as you mention, but it would be nice if they indicated this at the time of the transaction. That may be difficult if PayPal cannot immediately identify the destination bank's country. I think this has more to do with a Mastercard requirement than a PayPal imposed fee. Thanks for the confirmation about how the fee is calculated.

[tomhr]

So, the transaction went through okay, it wasn't declined, and the money was credited to your MP3SPARKS account? There was none of the usual "Your payment was declined, because the credit-card merchant is RIAA's butt-monkey"?

[solaris]

Originally Posted by tomhr

So, the transaction went through okay, it wasn't declined, and the money was credited to your MP3SPARKS account? There was none of the usual "Your payment was declined, because the credit-card merchant is RIAA's butt-monkey"?

Hi tomhr and welcome to the forum


I think that the pressure might be too heavy on MP3Sparks to succeed using the PayPal plug-in on it right now.

The other Russian/Ukrainian sites are still so much below the radar that you can use a secure card and get your balance replenished without too much hassle...

[tomhr]

Solaris wrote, "The other Russian/Ukrainian sites are still so much below the radar that you can use a secure card and get your balance replenished without too much hassle..."

I haven't checked the other Russian/Ukrainian sites too much, but it seems to me that none of them have a music selection anywhere near as good as ALLOFMP3/MP3SPARKS. (If I'm wrong, tell me! Recommend somebody!) And if I have to drop twenty-five bucks a site, just to be able to subscribe to a second Russian music service, I'll decline, because I'm not that much of a musichead. (Or is there a Russian/Ukrainian site that'll take $10 payments?)

[solaris]

Originally Posted by tomhr

Solaris wrote, "The other Russian/Ukrainian sites are still so much below the radar that you can use a secure card and get your balance replenished without too much hassle..."

I haven't checked the other Russian/Ukrainian sites too much, but it seems to me that none of them have a music selection anywhere near as good as ALLOFMP3/MP3SPARKS. (If I'm wrong, tell me! Recommend somebody!) And if I have to drop twenty-five bucks a site, just to be able to subscribe to a second Russian music service, I'll decline, because I'm not that much of a musichead. (Or is there a Russian/Ukrainian site that'll take $10 payments?)

Like I wrote: It really depends on which kind of music you normally listen to

[gluteus maximus]

Originally Posted by tomhr

Solaris wrote, "The other Russian/Ukrainian sites are still so much below the radar that you can use a secure card and get your balance replenished without too much hassle..."

I haven't checked the other Russian/Ukrainian sites too much, but it seems to me that none of them have a music selection anywhere near as good as ALLOFMP3/MP3SPARKS. (If I'm wrong, tell me! Recommend somebody!) And if I have to drop twenty-five bucks a site, just to be able to subscribe to a second Russian music service, I'll decline, because I'm not that much of a musichead. (Or is there a Russian/Ukrainian site that'll take $10 payments?)

Wow tomhr, here in UK you could pay 25 dollars for 1 CD. You don't need to be much of a musichead at all for these sites to be a very good deal

gm

[tomhr]

Originally Posted by solaris

Like I wrote: It really depends on which kind of music you normally listen to

True. Is there an old thread that compares the various Russian/Ukrainian sites (or that makes it easy for me to compare) in terms of album count? I've discovered that if a site has only a few albums, all it will carry is Top Forty and the mega-popular artists (Elvis, Beyonce, "High School Musical"). The more albums a site has, the more exotic its selection. And I like stumbling over albums and artists I've never heard of. And when I go searching for a song that I've heard on XM, often I've found that Walmart.com doesn't carry the song but ALLOFMP3/MP3SPARKS does; but very, very seldom has Walmart.com carried a song that ALLOFMP3/MP3SPARKS doesn't carry.

If there's a Russian/Ukrainian site that doesn't have the payment hassles of MP3SPARKS, but has almost as many albums, I'd like to know.