PayPal is one of the more popular ways of receiving your oDesk earnings, especially for non-US based Providers.  There are other methods of receiving your oDesk earnings, but for me, Paypal works best.  Your situation may be very different from mine, so I suggest that you still checkout the other payment methods that are available to you.

Signing up to a PayPal account is quick and easy.  Once you have logged on to PayPal’s secure site, follow these steps:

1. Choose the PERSONAL account type (this is the free PayPal account, no monthly fees will be charged to you for this account)
2. Fill-up their form with your basic information.  For your email address, use your personal email address and not your oDesk email address.  You may link your oDesk email address later to your PayPal account once the account is created.
3. Once your PayPal account is created, PayPal will prompt you of the next steps through a To-do List box that will be shown on the homepage.

Your PayPal account  verification happens in three (3) steps:

Step 1 – Confirm your email address.

Verify your PayPal account by clicking on the link that will be sent to you email address.

Step 2 – Add a credit or debit card to your account.

PayPal will require that you validate your account by linking to your other financial accounts.  You may link either a credit card or a debit card.   PayPal will charge a $1.95 fee to your credit card or debit card to validate your account, this amount will be automatically debited to your PayPal account once your financial account is validated (see next step).

Step 3 – Link and confirm your card.

To validate the credit card or debit card, you must get the 4-digit PayPal code from the transaction charged by PayPal.  You can get this 4-digit code from your card billing statement, online statement, or via phone inquiry to your card’s customer service.  After getting the code, log on to your PayPal account and enter the 4-digit code in the Verification screen (found in your To-do List)

For providers from the Philippines, I have only tried linking a credit card (HSBC and Bankard) to my PayPal account, but not a debit card.  So I can only attest to those credit cards.  I’ve read in some oDesk forums that there are debit cards that do not work well with PayPal verification.  The debit card that works well is the Unionbank EON card, it has been tried and tested by some oDesk providers from the Philippines.  But please do your research first before applying for a Unionbank EON card, I believe there is an annual fee involved.

I hope this helps! If I missed a step, just email me.

Godbless!

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1. oDesk Payment Methods
2. Getting started on oDesk
3. Hourly Versus Fixed-Price Jobs
4. Tips for new oDeskers