It should make no difference wether you use a credit card or your bank account and you have to specify an echeque for that to be sent. Paypal actively encourage you to use your bank account to pay rather than your credit card as they know that you can get your credit card company to do a charge back in case of problems, and they hate that.

Sign into your paypal account and see what sort of payment has been sent to the seller.

Because your account has just been set up I expect it has not been verified yet and paypal are playing safe.