NinjaFridge said:
Doesn't it take a while (days) before it works? Don't you have to get money from your bank account or can i transfer money straight from my card to the paypal account?
A paypal account works the moment you set it up. It takes a while to verify/confirm your address, which allows you to make bigger purchases (i think the limit without verifying your acount is like 200 usd, so I recommend you to do it) and also makes people believe in you when you're dealing with ebay (since you have a verified/confirmed account, you're not using some stolen CC). Verified and Confirmed are two different things. You can verify any paypal account (they charge 1,50 from your credit card and, when you get the bill, there's a code for you to input on the page. They'll give your 1,50 back in credits and you get a verified account). Confirmed account they have to manually confirm your address or something, and that's only available in the US.
Paypal can take funds either from a bank transfer if you're in America (that takes a while) or it can withdraw the amount you need from the credit card assigned to the account. All the taxes and etc are transparent to you, as they're charged from whoever you're paying to.
So, let's say, you bought Max Payne 1 from steam for 2,50 and paid through paypal. Your paypal has no funds, but it has your Credit Card on record. 2,50 will be withdrawn from your credit card, and less than 2,50 will be given to Steam (as they're the ones paying the credit card and paypal taxes).
That's why some people will ask you for "funds not from credit cards" in the buy/trade/sell thread. But in these cases, YOU can chose to pay the CC usage percentage. It's just easier to ask for "bank funds plz" than to explain the way paypal works. Also, please understand that, usually, these people are the same stupid people that tell you they will mail the goods using Priority Mail through USPS, but won't ship internationally (even tho it's the exact same method of shipping).