Unable to switch payment method from SEPA to PayPal after signup (English post)

Hi everyone 👋

Apologies in advance — my German is limited, so I’m posting in English. 😅

I wanted to share an issue I’ve run into and see whether others have experienced the same thing, or if there’s any workaround.

Summary of the issue

• During my initial congstar signup, I intended to select PayPal as my payment method.
• Unfortunately, I ran into a technical issue during checkout that prevented PayPal from being set up.
• To proceed, I selected SEPA direct debit as a temporary workaround, assuming I could switch to PayPal later once the contract was active.
• I’ve since been informed by congstar support that it is not possible to change from SEPA → PayPal, only the other way around.

Why this is frustrating

• The website states that payments can be made via SEPA or PayPal, but it wasn’t clearly communicated (at least to me) that PayPal must be chosen at signup and can never be added later.
• PayPal availability was one of the reasons I chose congstar.
• The inability to change feels especially limiting given that the initial issue was technical, not a user choice.

What I’m hoping to understand

• Have others experienced the same limitation?
• Has anyone found a workaround that doesn’t involve cancelling and re-creating a contract?
• Is this something congstar is considering changing in the future?

Support suggested I raise this on the forum, as others have requested the same feature, so I’m hoping to gather some feedback and visibility here.

Thanks very much for reading, and I appreciate any insights 🙏

Alex

Hey Oliver,

Thanks for the reply.

In this case, is it possible for me to cancel my contract/customer account, and just sign back up again?

Thanks,
Alex

Hi Patrick

Sorry - I've updated the contact details in my forum profile.

Any chance you can re-review?

Thanks,
Alex

Hi Oliver,

Thanks for the message.

Does it matter if I decide to not port the number and obtain a new one instead?

Thanks,
Alex

Hey Oliver,

Thank you for sharing this update, and yes happy to be on the same page.

What you suggest makes sense to me. As I understand it:

1. I will sign up again with a new username/email address to create a new customer account
2. I will select PayPal as the primary payment method
3. I can then cancel my current contract once I place a new order in the new account

I can't recall the exact problem I faced when I tried last time, but I do recall it was on PayPal's end saying "Something went wrong" each time I tried to pay. If there are any technical issues again upon sign up, I'll share them here.

Regarding cancelling my current contract, would cancelling it this month mean I have until the end of the month to use it?

Thanks for your help again Oliver, especially in English 🙏

— Alex

Hello Tina,

Yes please. However, before doing so, can you first advise if I purchase a new contract today, then it becomes active for this month too? I'd just prefer to avoid a double up in services, so I would rather wait closer to January 31st if need be to initiate a new contract.

Thanks for your help 😊

— Alex

Hi Christian ,

Thanks for the update. I appreciate your help!

Best,
Alex

Hi Christian,

I see some of the tariffs have since changed since my original subscription.

In this case, I want to just keep everything as-is and avoid the headaches. Should a more attractive tariff be offered at some point this year, I will go ahead with a cancellation then and re-subscribe as mentioned above.

I have since withdrawn the termination request in Mein Congstar. Please confirm that the service ending in 178 will not be cancelled.

Sorry for all the confusion and headaches — would be great if a switch over to PayPal from SEPA would be made available in the future, but certainly can understand why this isn't possible right now.

Best,
Alex