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IslamQA: Are virtual credit cards halal?

Salaam. I was planning to create a PayPal account, but I'm unemployed, have no credit card, and thought of creating a VCC or Virtual Credit Card to get a full access to PayPal and to make overseas online payment or transfer. Unfortunately, the VCC service asks their users to take up 1,9% to 4,5% from users' account balance. Does this count as usury? If so, I will undo this.

Since it is called a credit card and since a percentage is mentioned, it seems likely that it involves usury. Try to find services that offer debit cards rather than credit cards. Debit cards do not involve usury. You can go to a bank that offers VISA or MasterCard payment cards and open a checking (rather than savings, which involves usury) bank account with them, and first make sure their cards will work online.

Another way to pay with PayPal without having a bank account is to use prepaid gift cards (here is the PayPal page about it). You can buy a prepaid gift card at most Western supermarkets. Make sure they have a MasterCard, VISA, American Express or Discover logo on them. You can them use the prepaid gift card during checkout in PayPal. But I do not know if you can use them to transfer money to others.

If you ever have an urgent need for money in your PayPal account, let me know and I will try to help you.

And God knows best.
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Anonymous
Anonymous
5 years ago

Thank you very much for the answer. I very much appreciate it. I live in South East Asia and I don’t really know if they have a prepaid gift card. I do have a debit card, and it says MasterCard on the bottom right. Can I just use my debit card to sign up for PayPal?

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Ikram Hawramani
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Ikram Hawramani
5 years ago
Reply to  Anonymous

You are very welcome. Technically you should be able to use your debit card to sign up for PayPal, but it depends on your bank. You may have to find out the exact home address associated with your card otherwise PayPal may reject it. Try to add it to your PayPal account and if you run into problems call your bank.

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Anonymous
Anonymous
5 years ago

I have come to the nearest bank office and the customer service said they do not know anything about PayPal, VCC, and how their card would be used for signing up to PayPal. Anyways, thank you very much for helping me providing with some information.

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Ikram Hawramani
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Ikram Hawramani
5 years ago
Reply to  Anonymous

Ask your bank about making online purchases with your card. If that is possible, then it should be possible to add it to PayPal.

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