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I'm trying to buy a game on Origin plateform in Ireland with my french credit card (which works perfectly in the country). This is the first time I buy a game on this plateform. When I complete my informations, it says: "Credit Card number invalid".

Then, I thought that with a Paypal account it may pass through this problem if my bank is blocking the payment throught this plateform. So I registered, fullfilled the form with my credit card, and now the same thing : "Card Number: You have entered an invalid or partial credit or debit card number. Please check your entry and try again."

I'm very sure of the informations. What is this issue?

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    Did you use your French or Irish address?
    – user141
    Commented Sep 24, 2014 at 20:10
  • Irish address on both.
    – Elfayer
    Commented Sep 24, 2014 at 20:11
  • For all the details, I've tried once with a french address on Origin. I had the same problem. At this stage, I though it could come from the fact that i'm on a student residence WiFi. So I tried to pay using my phone with 3G. I had the same problem. And only then I tried to register to Paypal and also had the same issue. That's why I'm asking now, because I don't really understand what is happening. ^^
    – Elfayer
    Commented Sep 24, 2014 at 20:15
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    First, put as the billing address the address registered with your credit card. I think they sometimes try to match them.
    – Vince
    Commented Sep 24, 2014 at 22:16
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    AFAIK you can't register a credit card issued in country A with a Paypal account created on the Paypal website for country B (if A ≠ B). One way to proceed would be to create an account on the French Paypal website, and pay wth it. You will also need to enter a French address, but if what you are buying is a downloadable game, this should not matter.
    – fkraiem
    Commented Sep 24, 2014 at 22:59

1 Answer 1

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Credit card numbers are nation specific. The first numbers of the CC number indicate the country where the card originates from. While a french card might work perfectly well in real life, in some case it doesn't online.

I have a similar issue with my Dutch credit card, while I live in Belgium, so Belgian address, with a CC with a Dutch number (I do work in the Netherlands, hence the Dutch card). There is no way I can for example pay in Apple's App store, nor in iTunes. I am getting similar messages like you, when I try. Everywhere else in Belgium there is no issue when I pay. In this specific case, the only solution is to buy the iTunes vouchers in the supermarket.

I suspect that you are facing a similar issue. I guess it boils down to fraud protection. While in real life they can verify who you are (signature, pin code etc), online they have to trust you. Unfortunately, in many cases an online payment in one country, with a credit card from another country, where the delivery address isn't even in the same country usually is online fraud. Some vendors then simply block payments from cards originating from other countries. In my case a verification on my address to which the card is registered would proof my card to be legit, but I guess if even Apple doesn't want to do that, many other won't either.

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  • Makes sense (the fraud thing). Anyway thanks, I'll ask someone to pay for me (an Irish in Ireland or a French in France) ;)
    – Elfayer
    Commented Sep 24, 2014 at 20:26
  • Maybe you can also buy a prepaid Irish credit card for these purposes, but be cautious for the fees with prepaid credit cards.
    – user141
    Commented Sep 24, 2014 at 20:29
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    I think it's more about regional pricing and IP rights than about fraud prevention. I use Finnish credit cards while living in Chile, and I've never had any problems in buying services and physical products online. It's only some companies selling software or other intangible products that take issue, because they can't figure out which region they should assign me to.
    – Jouni Sirén
    Commented Sep 24, 2014 at 21:50
  • @JouniSirén It makes sense that you can buy services and physical products online, because you prob. had a delivery address. I am pretty sure that an IP case solely based on foreign credit card payments would not hold in court, especially where there is a single market (Ireland/France). IP rights are typically dealt with on the network address level and not on the credit card level.
    – user141
    Commented Sep 24, 2014 at 22:45
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    @andra The idea is that if you have a credit card from country X with a billing address in the same country, it's a proof that you live in country X. If the billing address is in country Y, you can't prove that you live in either country X or country Y, so it's safer not to sell you anything. And while EU would like to think that it's a single market, the reality is more complicated. For example, Steam divides Europe in two pricing regions, making people from the rich West European countries pay more for their games than the rest of Europe.
    – Jouni Sirén
    Commented Sep 25, 2014 at 2:43

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