Domain Renewal Problem

[felgall]

I have been attempting to renew a couple of domains that I have registered with BlueHost using Paypal to pay for the renewal without success. I have support tickets open with both BlueHost and Paypal neither of which is getting me anywhere toward resolving this. I believe the problem is a bug in the Paypal processing but cannot get Paypal to admit to it.

The problem occurs at the point in the payment process after I have logged into Paypal. BlueHost have disabled the echeck payment option (which is reasonable and I am not trying to pay from the bank account attached to my Paypal account as there are more than enough funds in my Paypal account to cover the payment). Unfortunately it appears that by disabling echeck the option to pay directly from a Paypal account that doesn't have a credit card attached is also disabled even when that account contains more than enough funds already in Paypal itself to make the purchase.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can renew the domains with BlueHost using the money in my Paypal account (I don't have a credit card)? Alternatively, if BlueHost will not let me renew the domains with them, does anyone have any suggestions for an alternate domain registrar who has reasonable prices for .com and .net domains, who will accept payment by Paypal, and where the domains work properly with BlueHost web hosting?

[farcaster]

Stephen, I don't know how the banking system works down under, but in the states it's common to get a debit card with a checking account. It has the benefit of being able to be used as a credit card also. (A debit card purchase is applied directly against the checking account, and when it's used as a credit card the bank will just take the amount out of the checking account when they get the transaction, rather than bill you monthly.)

[felgall]

Barry,

I have a personal debit card but do not want to link that to my company Paypal account (as it belongs to me and not the company). There are all sorts of issues in getting any sorts of accounts in a company name here with regard to proving that you are authorised to have that level of access to company money. That's why I just have two accounts for the company - one with a local bank and the other with paypal. There is always enough money being deposited into the Paypal account by advertisers and buyers to cover any purchases I want to make on the web and usually lots left over that I eventually transfer into the bank account.

The only reason I have a bank account attached to the Paypal account is for these transfers of money out of Paypal. There is always more than enough in the Paypal account itself to cover anything I want to pay for from that account. I can see no reason why I should need to go into a bank and pay the fee for them to run the checks that I am authorised to act on behalf of the company just in order to get a credit or debit card to link up to the Paypal account in order to bypass what I think is a bug in the processing.

Paypal have advised me of the following:

Paypal does not have an option for disallowing direct payment, nor do they have one requiring that the buyer must have a credit card.
Paypal does have an option to disable echeck (which I believe BlueHost are using).
Where a Paypal account actually has a positive balance the payment would be made using that balance and would not be made using either credit card or echeck unless there were insufficient funds in the account to make the payment directly.
BlueHost must have used the option to block direct payment in order for it to be asking me to enter a credit card as Paypal only blocks what the seller asks them to block.
The bug I have been trying to report to Paypal that their echeck block is also sometimes blocking direct payment is not a bug and that there is no connection between the two types of payment.

BlueHost have advised me that Paypal has a requirement that all buyers have a credit card attached to their account.

Based on all of these statements I can only assume that I am just imagining that my payments have been blocked and that with all of the attempts that I have made to renew the domains they must have about 500 years to go before I need worry about this again and that the tooth fairy will be delivering a billion dollars to me every week until the domains do expire.

[farcaster]

As Charlie Brown would say - "Good Grief!"

So have you looked at GoDaddy as a registrar? I've been considering it myself. There are a lot of other ones out there, but I don't know much about them. In my prior work I used Network Solutions for a boat load of domains that we owned and they worked well for us, but we were a public company and worked hard to adhere to the payment card rules, and it gave us some flexibility that we needed to separate responsibilities and access to certain function.

I'm sure we an get some of the members to post their experiences with others, including GoDaddy.

[Jolly]

I use http://www.domaincentral.com/

When you get there DO NOT click that you are from Australia - you will pay $AUD24.

I login via "Asia" and the rate is $US8.99 (click on Indonesia in the world map that presents itself)

i have used them for 3 years including domains transferred away from Bluehost - they take paypal (mine is also only connected to my bank in the antipodes not credit card)
Free domain privacy.

I believe it's owned by the chap that was in the news in Australia for making about $4.5 million from shares in the Brisbane toll road that required shareholders to tip in loads more money.

Has worked perfectly for me. Was with Godaddy for a while but went back to DomainCentral

Cheers
Jolly

[felgall]

As Charlie Brown would say - "Good Grief!"

Very appropriate.

At least I have plenty of time to get this sorted out.