How I made payments on USA websites from Nigeria

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Posted on Thursday May 19, 2016 at 17:38:24:

I remember those times in the past when the internet was still relatively new to us in Nigeria and there was nothing like Visa or Mastercard except for non-Chip debit cards which were basically used at ATMs to withdraw money from the bank. Yes, there was a time when there were no credit cards in Nigeria and card giants like Visa and Mastercard were not available yet but people still needed to make payments on foreign websites like Amazon and eBay.

I used the internet quite a lot but there were certain things I saw that I wanted to buy and had money to buy it but there was no easy means of making payments for them. Even if it was possible to make payments, there was still no easy way to receive the item you ordered for in Nigeria unless you had a friend or relation living in the USA.

Well, a popular site I liked window shopping on then was Amazon.com and I also checked out eBay and some other US websites but Amazon wanted me to pay with a credit card while eBay wanted me to pay with Paypal. Then, I didn't have either of those things but did purchase a Virtual Credit card which I used to purchase a few things online and it worked but the problem that I purchased the VCC at a dollar rate higher that what I'd even get from the black market.

Nowadays, Visa, Mastercard and Paypal are readily available in Nigeria and those are the platforms I use to make payments from Nigeria when buying things on US shopping websites. For Amazon, I make use of my debit cards which are powered by Visa or Mastercard while for eBay, I make payments using a US Paypal account I use along with a US IP address.

In 2016, I've made payments with my Visa and Mastercard which were funded with both Naira and US dollars but I later switched to my US dollar funded card so that I could have a better control on the exchange rates I'm charged. I got the USD card by opening a domiciliary account and inked a debit card to it. I've also made payments with my US paypal account from funds I got from my internet affiliate commissions.

Some US websites accept Visa/Mastercard or Paypal even if it has a Nigerian billing address only cards or cards/Paypal accounts with a US billing address and I've been able to make payments on most of the websites I wanted to get stuff from.

I made use of a US VPN service to change my IP when necessary such as when visiting US websites that block Nigerian IPs and it really helped open up more services and options for me.