I have a website setup and am trying to get ad revenue (wordpress.com site). Issue is that I need a Paypal account, for which I need a phone number and bank account from the same country. I have Canadian bank stuff, but no Canadian phone number. I’ve checked out skype, viber, textnow, openphone, and a few other services but none work (because I’m in Lebanon and they require a phone number to sign up). Any ideas? A VPN won’t work since most services are requiring that I sign in using my phone number, which is Lebanese.

  • Otherbarry
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    5 hours ago

    Issue is that I need a Paypal account, for which I need a phone number and bank account from the same country. I have Canadian bank stuff, but no Canadian phone number.

    I’m in Lebanon

    That won’t go well for you long term, Paypal will eventually catch on and permaban you. You’ll also lose whatever funds were in the account during that time.

    If you still go through with it I suspect you’ll need to figure out how to buy a non-virtual phone number, just seems like a waste of time since Paypal will eventually add it to their permaban/fraud database.

  • deadcatbounce@reddthat.com
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    6 hours ago

    Don’t use PayPal if you can avoid it. There are enough red flags of late to indicate it’s a hard ‘no’.

    Many ISPs in the UK have telecoms licences and can create phone numbers. So rather than looking for a phone number, look for a provider that does VoIP and get a new number from them - obviously it will cost.

    When I tried the same, all of the free for a few minutes websites I tried had numbers that were known to sites like eBay and I failed.

    No idea what Lebanon is like.

  • Eiri@lemmy.ca
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    8 hours ago

    I may be missing something, but why can’t you have the bank account and phone number both in Lebanon?

    • d00phy@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      Honestly, I’ve been using GVoice for a long time as a replacement for my land line. It doesn’t even ring anywhere. It’s the number we give for things like gas rewards and such. It’s been great. I’m actually amazed Google hasn’t killed or enshitified it yet.

      • M600@lemmy.world
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        7 hours ago

        It’s so hard to get a number.

        You have to search for one that’s available and they are almost always not available. And you have to search by area code. They won’t just tell you which numbers are available.

        It’s pretty tedious to try and get a Google voice number.

        • d00phy@lemmy.world
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          6 hours ago

          I didn’t think about that. I’ve only ever used it for 2 things, and only one of them was a new number. That was over 10-years ago.

          • foggy@lemmy.world
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            6 hours ago

            Pro-tip: don’t use it on job applications.

            Many systems auto reject forms with voip numbers to weed out bot traffic.

  • IHave69XiBucks@lemmygrad.ml
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    10 hours ago

    Many services will reject a VOIP number anyway. I know from experience. Its also been a lot harder to get one recently without already having a phone number.

    • r00ty@kbin.life
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      5 hours ago

      Yes, came to say the same. It’s very easy to get a voip number in most countries. But many places that want to use it for ID purposes (finance etc including paypal) will know the voip allocations and block them.

  • venonat@sh.itjust.works
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    8 hours ago

    You might try avoxi.com. They’re probably more expensive than the other ones because they’re geared toward businesses, but virtual phone numbers is the main thing they do.

  • zante@slrpnk.net
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    10 hours ago

    I can’t recommend specifically but you can search for”. voip number” - there are hundreds. Some may not need a number .

    Also, search for “sms verification “. For temporary numbers .

    Alternatively a Pay as you go SIM card ?