Paypal forces you to use a bank account for one reason. Money.

When they charge your credit card, they pay a 2.2% fee to Visa/MC/whoever. It's likely lower than 2.2% as they do such a massive volume (volume discount) but 2.2% is pretty much the standard.

Every time money is moved inside paypal to a Permiere or Business account, paypal skims 2.9% off the top. Now, for a credit card payment, I understand that. They pay 2.2% and want to make a profit. Thats cool. I'm all for capatalism.

Personal accounts have no receive money fees. But, personal accounts cannot accept credit card payments. Again, I get that. They'd pay 2.2% to the credit card company, and they'd not recoup that cost.

So, why 'force' a bank account transaction? Because paypal skims 2.9% off ALL money going to a Premiere or Business account REGARDLESS of the source. If you own a Primere account and a seperate Business account, and you move $100 from one to the other, you'll have $97.10. Move it back, $94.28, move it again, $91.54 - ad infinitum until you have no money.

So if they "make" you use a bank account they clear a cool 2.9% on every transaction. Every time you use a credit card you slam the hell out of paypal's profits.

Personally, paypal is the devil incarnate and I despise it with all passion I can muster. Unfortunately, they are THE online payment solution. There are others, smaller, unknowns... untrustworthy... (if its possible to be more untrustworthy than paypal) and no one uses them. Everyone uses paypal, so I suck it up and hate them while I do it.

I've been screwed so many times by paypal, to the tune of $1100 out of MY pocket and Paypal says "Oops sorry, too bad for you"

Bah now I'm just ranting. My only advice here: If you sell on ebay using paypal NEVER ship to an unconfirmed address. If you do, and the buyer is fraudulent, paypal's policy is short and sweet: They take the money back from you, and too f'ing bad. I had this happen to me, and I had the fraud's name, home address, home phone number, etc... gave it all to paypal, they actually told me "We're not interested. We returned the funds to the victim (the guy who's credit card was stolen). If you'd like to persue this on your own, feel free. We're done."