Selling to Canadians with US addresses

A lot of sellers don't wish to ship to Canada these days.  The reasons why are not the topic here.

However, a lot of sellers sell to Canadians every day, but they ship to a US address. The seller doesn't even know.  For example, if you're shipping to Pt. Roberts, WA, the buyer is almost certainly a Canadian.

There are levels of difficulty which a seller can establish to defend against selling to Canadians. 

1. Don't specify any Canadian shipping.
   Result: Any Canadian can bid/buy. Seller and the Canadian can figure it out later.

2. Don't specify Canadian shipping, and block bids from buyers whose primary shipping address is in a place I don't ship to.
   Ebay Result:  Default Canadian account is blocked. Canadian has to create a different account with a USA shipping address (and maybe a registration address).

That's where we leave Ebay and move to Paypal.

By default, a seller Paypal account can accept payment from a Canadian Paypal account.

The Canadian with a US address Ebay account can bid, then pay, specifying his US address, usually in a border state where the Canadian will pick the stuff up.

However, a seller who wants to block this technique has a further barrier: configure paypal to refuse payment from a non-US Paypal account.

Paypal will not establish a Paypal account registered to a US address but using a Canadian bank.  However, Canadians can open accounts in the US on US banks, and create a Paypal account associated with that US bank. That's the total solution. A lot of work, but it effectively creates an alter-ego American who does the bidding of the Canadian.

If a seller who want to sell to anyone with a US address, such a seller should avoid blocking payments from Canadian based paypal accounts.