PayPal has different acceptance rules for one-time purchases (e.g. buy a scarf on ebay) versus recurring subscription payments. They are much more strict for a recurring payment. In particular, they require that you have a “real” credit card number on file with them that can be used for future payments. I.e. you can’t pay for a recurring $5 subscription even if you have a $10k balance in your PP account unless you also have a linked credit card.

We’ve found that Germans in particular frequently have problems with this PayPal policy because their PP account does not have an acceptable credit card linked to it. Whatever cards they may have associated with their PP records do not meet PP’s threshold for anti-fraud. It is a unique problem to Germany – we haven’t seen it in any other country.

We have no control over this policy; PayPal gives us very limited visibility on their anti-fraud policies. We’ve asked specifically for them to make our account as permissive as possible (since the cost of fraud for us is low).

We suggest you use your credit card for direct payment or via Google Checkout, as those are much less stringent.