Anyone know a way to quickly obtain any means of ordering in South Africa.

[Sneakgab]

Basically, all I have access to is a bank account. No credit card or such like. I urgently need to obtain a particular item (a book) however. So does anyone know any way of quickly obtaining the means for ordering or for otherwise rapidly obtaining a book?

Feel free to move this to the tech issues section if you feel it is more appropriate there.

[Andrew]

And where is the book that you need to acquire? ebay/amazon?

Any chance of finding someone you know to order the book with their credit card and you pay them cash?

[Sneakgab]

I was just about to attempt that. This time of night would be a most unreasonable time to contact somebody though.

Well, Barnes and Noble offers expedited delivery of 1-4 wrk days as opposed to the slower delivery times of the online delivery services you mentioned. Hence I am trying to order from them. It matters little from who or how I obtain the book however. I am also willing to pay a significant amount to decrease the delivery time. The only concern is rapid acquisition of the item.

Btw, thanks, you somehow always seem to be around and willing to help.

[Barbarossa]

Paypal allows you to transfer cash to and from a bank account, as I recall. If you pick it up on Ebay, this method may work.

[Sneakgab]

Yeah, but Paypal only seems to grant that function to USA banks. It grants nearly no functions to South Africa, so even if they actually allow that for some countries as well as for the USA....

Thanks anyway though. If it turns out that it is in fact possible to use Paypal in SA though, please do correct me.

[Barbarossa]

https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-approved-signup-countries-outside

Hope this helps. It has SA listed in the last box, which names the country's capable of sending money via PP.

[Sneakgab]

I made a paypal account. When using it it of course asks for credit. If you don't have that you can add funds to the account. There is a link for this if you have logged in to you're account. It only presents one option: ''Transfer Funds From a Bank Account in the United States''.

(edit3). It seems that maybe the question posed should be: How can I get a pre-paid credit card in South Africa? Anybody know?. I think this is probably the most attainable solution amongst my options. (edit3)

Not much that is unclear about that. If you do somehow find a way using paypal then I will be very grateful. If you do, then might I ask that you give me step by step instructions. I'm not really well acquainted with this sort of thing and the process is evidently sufficiently obscure (if one exists) that I would require this.

(edit2)

''Send Money to Anyone in the Growing PayPal Network'' The label for the last category of countries. The problem is that they don't give any explanation on how to actually DO that. If it requires a credit card then essentially all PayPal offers for these countries is a small convenience (don't need to re-enter credit card details all the time).

However, the useless of that suggests that maybe there IS a way to use Paypal for these countries otherwise why even bother extending the option?

(edit2)

(edit1)

Is anyone familiar with Barnes and Noble's ''pay by phone'' option. I tried using it but upon following the instruction I was led to an answering machine which eventually asks for the first five digits of a billing or shipping address zip code. Not really sure what it was speaking about, but SA zip codes only have 4 digits. I tried customer service... but hey, have you ever encountered useful customer service? they didn't even seem to know that their company offered this as a payment option. (edit2) I wonder if it is only available to the US? (edit2)

(edit1)

Normally I wouldn't be so impetuous in asking, but if anyone who can physically purchase the book (seems to be widely available in USA and UK) would DHL it to me they would have not my only eternal gratitude but also extra money to make it worth their while. Obviously you may fear fraud but unless I move or something (which would be ridiculous) I don't see how I could do that (since you would obviously have my address and whatnot). You could also order it with you're card and give my shipping address reduce fuss.

I would definitely send the money in advance by method of your choice (well, I am limited to physically mailing the money of transferring via bank as  of course have no credit card) even though I would be completely dependent on your good will as you could just pocket the money and proceed to enjoy your ill gotten gains with no fear of any consequences.

Well, most of the people here are probably fairly well off and/or busy so I guess there isn't much incentive (other than being a really really nice guy) but I'm desperate enough to throw the suggestion out there.

Obviously, the suggestion is probably pretty ludicrous and I feel bad and silly just for asking... but you know, I'm just throwing it out there (since desperation has taken hold), take it if you want or leave it, lol.

[Falconius]

i had the same problem, so i got a Clicks credit card. Used it maybe 3 times per year so far, so i can understand your reluctance to get one. i want to go cancel mine because it irritates me to have to go and stand in a qeue every month to pay a service fee. Things were very different in the UK. You only paid if you used credit on your card.

What i would suggest is that you (spend half your day) go to ABSA and ask if they can help you open a Barclays account. Barclays owns them. It should be possible to manage your new UK account through the internet and buy stuff online. An added bonus is that the pound is more stable than the rand. Less inflation. If you try this please let me know too.