PayPal - do you use it?

[Kryton]

soon im looking at buying a new RC monster truck but will need to get it from the states for various reasons (cheaper to land here and the US truck has a better radio than we get here), so i have done a bit of looking around at various places that ship from the states. that part of the research is fine.
the next step was to research my payment to the U.S, how i could get it there quickly and not have to wait a month for it to clear. not having a valid credit card sort of ruled out a lot of options so i thought id look up PayPal and see WTG with that is.
the website has a lot of info but really wasnt informing me of exactly what i wanted to know. they say you can put money in your PayPal account from a credit card, debit card, checking (thats how they spell it) account or bank account.
BINGO!!! bank account is what i want to hear so i sign up since everything is free to do and use. get to the 'enter your account details' bit and it has 2 choices = Mastercard or visa card. great.
now what im lead to believe is if you have a normal atm card with either mastercard or visa written on it then you can use it. is that correct?
what banks have card like this? the CBA has maestro written on it so that wouldnt be the same thing.
would it be easier to just go get a Debit card which will allow you to use it like a credit card but will only allow you to use however much YOU put on the card of your own money?
what do people use for their paypal account?

dont say get a creditcard either coz i cant