PayPal in Pakistan

PayPal is one of the top or you can say is the top and most widely used online payment processor worldwide . It supports more than 190 countries to date and new countries are adding up as well but being a Pakistani webmaster and a blogger for the past few years I still find it difficult to do business in Pakistan without PayPal . PayPal in Pakistan is a question that has been asked from time to time on many webmaster forums including the DP forum but the fact is that PayPal is still not available to the people of Pakistan and many Pakistani webmasters and freelancers are finding it extremely difficult to carry on their online work without PayPal .

Many qualified web programmers and designers loose their potential clients just because the client ( having a PayPal account ) feels comfortable when paying with PayPal but we , Pakistanis can not receive payments through PayPal and this leaves the client with no other option and he or she looks for those freelancers that have PayPal accounts. Pakistanis can only look for an alternative which might not be as good as PayPal.

Very much similar is the case when a Pakistani webmaster tries to sell his or her product online through their website but not having PayPal as an option for receiving payments results in less sales which leaves us with the only option to look for PayPal alternative but the fact is the there is no other option which is as good and as big as PayPal . Many have signed up for MoneyBookers which might not be as good as PayPal but it works fine and has over 5.8 million users across the globe.

As a Pakistani and as a blogger I someday might decide to sell advertising on my few blogs and still then if there is no PayPal in Pakistan then I am afraid there is not much I as a Pakistani can do because PayPal has established itself for the past few years as a symbol of trust and when people spend their money online they also make sure that they do not reveal their credit card details to everyone and PayPal takes care of this as well .

I did some google search on "PayPal in Pakistan" and there is not much I found just few frustrated Pakistani webmasters and freelancers cursing themselves just because PayPal has not yet allowed them to open their accounts.

I myself have contacted PayPal support several times but have not received any positive reply on this matter . On my most recent query ( DATED : 1st Jul 2008 ) about when PayPal will be listing Pakistan in their list of supported countries , I got this reply from one of their support representative :

Thank you for contacting PayPal, my name is Robert and I am happy to assist you today.

Hi there Kashif, how are you doing today? We sincerely appreciate your interest in becoming a PayPal member. Unfortunately, we are not yet providing services for the country or region in question. Establishing our service in each new country or region involves complex changes due to different regulations. We are always looking to expand our availability; however, due to the complexities of global expansion, we cannot provide a specific time frame. We are working hard and look forward to expanding our services to additional countries and regions in the future.

Visit https://www.paypal.com/ and click the "Worldwide" link in the footer of the page for more information on the countries and regions that PayPal supports.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us again.

Sincerely,
Robert
PayPal Consumer Support
PayPal, an eBay Company

I am leaving this post as an open discussion on what would be your mind set if PayPal was not in your country or what problems you might be facing when it comes to buying and selling online without PayPal . So are you a Pakistani or from some other country which is still not supported by PayPal.