Hello, I want to open a bank account in the stats.
I am French, living in Paris and want to buy stuff in the US on Ebay,
pay with paypal. But in most caese I need a verifed account on
paypal, i.e a US bank account with checks linked to paypal with a
shipping adress (I have a shipping adress already which needs to be
the same than the bank account adress). I don't want to open a company
as i won't be selling in the US.

Hi kotik,

The good news is, you don't need a U.S. PayPal account to pay U.S.
eBay sellers. PayPal France is fully integrated with eBay and when you
send your payment to a seller, the payment will be automatically
converted to whichever currency you select. As an added bonus, if you
ever have an item that you would like to try and sell on eBay, it will
be easy using your PayPal France account.

PayPal Continues International Expansion with Site Designed
Exclusively for French Users:
"SAN JOSE, Calif., Aug. 17, 2004 - PayPal, a leading global online
payment service, today introduced its services on eBay France and
announced the availability of a fully localized Web site
(https://www.paypal.fr) designed exclusively for French users. PayPal
France is fully integrated on eBay.fr, allowing online buyers and
sellers to securely, conveniently and easily send and receive payments
to more than 50 million PayPal member accounts in 45 countries around
the world. "
http://www.shareholder.com/paypal/releaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=141783&Category=US

PayPal France:
"Payez votre achat en Dollars USD, Dollars Canadiens, Euros, Livres
Sterling ou Yens."
"Votre paiement sera automatiquement converti dans la devise que vous
avez choisie et votre vendeur recevra un email de PayPal indiquant le
montant et la devise du paiement."
https://www.paypal.com/fr/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/sell/mc/mc_send-outside

Q & A:
https://www.paypal.com/fr/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_help&exloc=mc-outside

Open an account:
https://www.paypal.com/fr/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_registration-run

I hope this helps. If I've misunderstood your question or if you have
any questions, please post a clarification request *before*
closing/rating my answer and I'll be happy to reply.

Thank you,
hummer

Google Search Terms Used:
paypal france

Hello,

If you want to purchase on ebay with your paypal account then it will
work if you are from france, it can take the money from your credit
card, which you can link to your paypal account. You can verify your
paypal france account linked with your credit card easily as per
userfriendly steps on paypal.

But I can make out that you want to sell something on ebay, and you
will be getting payment into your paypal account and unfortunately
paypal allow only withdrawl to account with US banks or US based bank
account. If this is what you want, then you need to open account
through someone who is in US, Either you can do it through you known
person OR through people / companies who are doing this as their
business.
One of such is http://www.office-center.info/en/bank-account-opening.html

Or you can search & select as per you choice using the keywords below

Offshore US bank account
Virtual US office
Virutal US bank account.

PS: This is my first day and first answer on google.

Regards
Pramod kaushik

Hello pramod_kaushik-ga 

You advised: 

unfortunately paypal allow only withdrawl to account with US banks or
US based bank account.

This is not so!

I live in the UK and I sent a payment by PayPal to one of my daughters
also in the UK, as a test.

Neither of us haa a US bank account and she received the money in her
British credit card account, as expected.

There was the usual charge.

Of course, this facility might not work in all countries but from
Hummer's excellent answer I would expect it to work in France.

I live in the UK 

I've bought plenty of stuff on EBay using my PayPal account
- and had it shipped to a US address

I retract my earlier comment

I've just tried to buy something from the USA and the vendor (who I
have dealt with twice before) now does not want to be paid by PayPal
- he said he has had problems with PayPal from Europe
- a real PITA

To answer the literal question: I don't think you can open a US bank
account unless you are resident in the US. I could be wrong, but, as a
Canadian, when I tried to do it, I was told by a Citibank employee
that it could not be done. You have to have a US address at the time
you open the account; or perhaps there is some very complex process
which the Citibank employee I spoke to was unaware of.

However, the definition of "resident" is pretty loose. It does not
mean citizen or landed immigrant. I think it just means that you are
legally present and at the moment residing in the United States. In
other words, if you ever visit the United States for an extended
period of time, even just as a temporary visitor, you may be
considered "resident" at that time. As a Canadian I was able to open
an account while I was "resident" in California on an extended
business trip.

Once you have opened an account with a US address you are allowed to
change the address to a foreign location. So, in my case, once the
account was opened with my US address I was able to switch the mailing
address to my home in Canada. The account has remained open ever
since.

Opening a US bank account as a non-resident has gotten more difficult
of late as the Patriot Act forced US banks to tighten up on their
acceptance procedures, but you can still do it. As the first commenter
pointed out, there are companies who specialize in opening accounts
for non-US residents.  I used Valis International 2 years ago when as
a UK resident, I wanted to set up a US account.

I was a bit concerned that the whole affair might turn out to be a
scam, but David Gendron who runs Valis provided an immaculate service,
responding to all my questions within hours of my mailing him.

It was all pretty straightforward - I just needed to send ID like my
passport, driver's licence, and a utility bill.  The account (to which
I can send cheque/check deposits, make and receive wire transfers and
pay bills) was set up within 4 days, and I had my MasterCard debit
card (which allows me to make over-the-counter and online purchases,
and to withdraw cash from ATMs anywhere) within 10 days.  You can use
the debit card on PayPal, or link your PayPal account directly to your
bank account.  It's epecially been a blessing having the MasterCard
because it works with those US sites that don't accept my UK credit
and debit cards.

It process didn't cost the earth either - I put in the minimum opening
balance of $150 to open a personal account and paid David a $200 fee,
which proved to be an absolute bargain.

Valis International is available on http://www.allthings-nice.com/valis.htm 


Cheers,


Erika.