How can I order things online without a bank account or credit card?

I know major sites have giftcards to buy and use, but most of the sites I like don't, and very few sites seem to accept money orders nowadays. :/

Welcome to permies.

Many convenience stores (such as 7-11) sell Visa gift cards.
They are basically a pre-payed credit card.

Some sites take bitcoin, if you can get your hands on some in the first place without resorting to paypal/bank accounts...

No obliging local friends who have credit cards?

1.Call the company you are interested in purchasing from

2. Place a phone order

3. Send in your money order referencing the order.

My site does not mention accepting money orders, but we get someone calling every year or two. It isn't really a problem on our end.

If the company gives you any problems accepting your order, just place it with one of their competitors. Think of it as a way to screen companies for poor customer service.

Open a PayPal account. You can get funds in it either by selling stuff online or asking someone else with a PayPal acct to send money to urs. I'm not sure if there's a limit to how much you can spend/receive before you are asked for your bank details. At which point you open another paypal acct with a different email address.

pretty sure paypal requires a bank account, visa gift cards are reloadable and should work like a regular credit card.

Dillon Nichols wrote:Some sites take bitcoin, if you can get your hands on some in the first place without resorting to paypal/bank accounts...

No obliging local friends who have credit cards?

Nope, I have literally no friends aside from my mate. xD The only kind of people I usually somewhat get along with are usually the kind of people who don't trust bank accounts or credit cards either.

I suppose I'm going to be the bad guy and tell you to get a bank account. Mistrust aside you can easily just keep enough money in there to cover your online orders. Banks can be helpful. We placed an order that hasn't arrived and probably never will. We tried to cancel the order, tried to get our money back. Nothing. Now the bank is doing a debit fraud claim on them and we will hopefully get our money back. Seemed like a reputable selling site. We bought a Halloween costume piece from them and...yeah.

Yes you can purchase the visa cards but they have charges associated with them. It will cost you money that way. Not something I would suggest.

John Master wrote:pretty sure paypal requires a bank account, visa gift cards are reloadable and should work like a regular credit card.

Definitely not the case. I have a PayPal acct with no linked bank acct. I remember a message when I opened it saying it would become limited at some future point until I verified it with a linked bank acct.

I've never yet had a company refuse cash... Go through the online order form. Stop when it asks for payment. Print out the order form and mail it in with cash enclosed.

Steve Farmer wrote:

John Master wrote:pretty sure paypal requires a bank account, visa gift cards are reloadable and should work like a regular credit card.

Definitely not the case. I have a PayPal acct with no linked bank acct. I remember a message when I opened it saying it would become limited at some future point until I verified it with a linked bank acct.

Yep tried to make a Paypal and they wanted bank info before I could do anything.

I would second John polks suggestion, gas stations, grocery stores, a lot of places sell visa gift cards, this is by far the easiest way.