+1. That's the only way to use PayPal as a consumer. If you're just a buyer and not a seller, there's no advantage to you to tell them about your bank account. They make some noise about a sending limit until you verify with a bank account, but I've never had any transactions run into that.

I had my bank account connected to PayPal once, but deleted the association a few years ago. Somewhat surprisingly in the modern world of phantom deletion, there's never been any sign of it reappearing or Paypal trying to use or access it for anything. Each Paypal purchase uses only my credit card with no accidental way to do anything else.

Consequently PayPal make no shortage of effort to get you to add your bank account.

I'm surprised they don't allow people to transfer money to you (and then force you to connect your bank account to get the money).

Every frakkin' time, they have to ask. But whatever, I only use PayPal for donating to charities and other non-critical stuff.