WanderLearn Forum with Francis Tapon

Francis,

You've traveled a ton, and I'm sure during that time you've made any number of online purchases. I live in Korea, and I recently tried to order some things from an American company. They wouldn't take my Korean debit card, or the Korean versions of Visa/Mastercard. As I'm currently paid in Korean Won, I need a way to connect my purchases to my savings.

Do you know of any easy way to make online purchases if I bank in a country like Korea? It's occurred to me that this sort of problem may be too context-specific for you to comment on, but many people have no doubt run into this, so maybe there is a general solution I'm missing. I've looked into paypal and transferring funds from my Korean account to my American one, but that seems to be prohibitively expensive.

Although I've been to Korea twice, I never had the credit card problem you describe.

There's two possible solutions:

1. Get an American credit card. This may be easier than you think, especially if you get one that is secured to a bank account. For example, let's say you have $500 in the US bank, they may give you a credit card with a $500 credit limit. There are online banks that might be able to help you setup an account and give you credit card.

2. Use PayPal. Many online merchants will accept PayPal as payment.

Tell me how it goes.

Best,