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Get a US Based Visa Card

Sometimes I can’t purchase stuff online because they require a US based Visa card or a Paypal account. My usual action then is to ask a friend who lived in the States before and has an American Visa card to purchase the item for me and then I pay him back.

Now there seems to be a way around this.. epassporte.com. Basically you get a “virtual” visa card from them which has a US billing address. You can then fill up your virtual card using your regular visa card here in Kuwait. By virtual they mean digital as in you won’t get a physical credit card you can hold in your hand, you just get the numbers.

Anyone tried this service? I am thinking of trying it out myself. [Link]

update: OK seems they are not very trustworthy.. [Link]

25 replies on “Get a US Based Visa Card”

It looks interesting and quite useful. I haven’t been able to convince anyone to open up a PayPal account for me yet, even with promises of treasures heh.
Have you tried contacting PayPal? I never got a response when I suggested they should try to affiliate with NBK here.

Sorry, I’d like to add something else that caught my attention on epassporte.com

“ePassporte cards are issued by St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla National Bank Ltd., Basseterre, St. Kitts, West Indies.”

West Indies? Can we say fraudsville? Or great offshore laundromat? I’d rather wait & see who’s willing to try it before risking it lol..

Hey Mini R a lot of these virtual credit card issuers are based in the Carribean area.. I have seen this type of thing before! some of them might be legit..

But a lot are just money-laundering schemes with no means of really getting to them.

So mark I wouldnt even bother with it!

Why don’t you just change your billing address at NBK? When I went to sign a friend up with Aramex a few months back, the Aramex rep said that we should go to NBK and change the billing address to the credit card we want to use and add the Aramex Mailing address instead of Kuwait!

Yep NBK needs at least 10 grand last time I asked.

Marzouq: In my previous work at the bank, I’ve noticed that the majority of fraud cases orginate from the Carribean area.

I’ve had an account once upon a time at the Caymans, and my bank here kept delayed all my transactions to make sure they’re legit. They have NO clue where the money comes from before the Caymans.

I barely even trust PayPal themselves due to their security flaws. But nobody’s perfect eh?

I’d trust epassporte as far as I can throw a horse.

Mark: open an etrade account and they will give you a visa card, us based, and you can purchase whateve you want. Only things its a debit card and not a credit card. you need 1000$ to open the account.

You don’t need to open an account in the NYC branch, all you need to to is fill out a change of address form at your local branch and by doing that you will change the billing address!

Mark, if the retailer only ships to the billing address that should be a US address, all you need to do is change your Kuwait-based CC billing address to Aramex or USWS US address.
But keep in mind that your CC statements will be mailed to this new US address, so you’d better ask your bank to stop sending you these statements! ^_~

I tried Stallion’s IDEA almost an year back….I asked NBK to put my US address for credit card billing…what they did was they posted me a card statement to my US address! LOL….I never tried the same with them as I dont want another credit card statement!

fadibou

well i am in the states, and i use my debit card for online purchaces, most banks now offer a check card instead of a normal debit card
it is tied to ur checking account and you can use it as a credit card too, but u dont have credit, money will be deducted from ur checking account.
however i dont know if etrade is offering that, but i think it can be used online cause etrade is an online company.

Yazeed, its working fine and its a debit card, i had same problem as mark and had to beg friends for a favor each time i need to renew flickr or buy us products. Etrade card rocks and its delivered in 10 days max

Aqib how did you get a US based CC ? you can share with us instead of just telling us about it and then start laughing.

I just got back from NBK. I changed my billing address to my US mailbox. Will see if that does the trick.

While there I asked guy about NBK NY. He told me I could open an account there but they dont have visa cards. He told me I could open an NBK London account and they have something called the Delta Visa there. Opening an account is an easy process, I would need to open an account with an amount of like KD250 or KD300. He told me there are yearly charges though and some other minor things. So if changing my biilling address to a US mailbox wont work will probably open an account with NBK London. Atleast I could use PayPal.

Mark, I hope you didn’t forget to ask NBK to stop “mailing” you the card statements; otherwise, they’ll be mailed back to you for the US and get charged for each one! =P

There are some services such as iTunes that check where the VISA was issued, so changing the billing address won’t do you much good at times. The card needs to be issued in the US.

However, my brother managed to get a debit card from eTrade. Even though the billing address was in Kuwait, the purchase actually worked even though I chose “USA” for country and Surra etc for the address.

I live in Ireland and have a ePassporte virtual visa card. I used it to buy from a US store. The store emailed me that the order was cancelled because the card is not a US issued card. Don’t waste your time and money on ePassporte if you want a card that is acceptable by US online stores. The FAQ on their website does not tell users that the card is not issued by a US Bank. It could’ve saved me 15 dollars and plenty of time.

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