posted on September 14, 2000 03:29:14 PM new
There's a lot of pay services to choose from, it takes a players guide to keep up with them at times. Many of them are unknowns, they either have no major backers or no history.
I've seen a lot of support given for Yahoo's PayDirect http://paydirect.yahoo.com I got an account when they first opened and got my address confirmation done, but it has some flaws that will be a problem in the future. They offer no protection of any sort for the buyer, that won't work in the long run, it's been tried, one major news article and they are in deep dooda. They also state that their may be fees in the future, I think that's probably a given. Who will pay the fees?
First Bank's eMoneyMail http:www.emoneymail.com has been around for a long time, but nobody seems to be interested. They have a no nonsense payment method of $1.00 per transaction, which the buyer pays. With First Bank as the parent company I'd think this would be an attractive alternative to anyone wanting a payment service that wasn't going to cost them and would be a convienence to the buyer at a price.
Western Union's MoneyZap http:www.moneyzap.com is free to both the buyer and the seller at present, but in the future they plan to charge the buyer a per transaction fee. I listed MoneyZap as a pay option on my listings for some time, and nobody every took that option. It does have a major backer First Data/Western Union, and the fees when they are added will be to the buyer. I've always thought it was Western Union's answer to the Money Order for the 21st century.
I've not thrown in the towel with PayPal, while they've made some incredibly bad decisions lately, and some very public mistakes I think/hope they'll survive. The need for alternate pay services is proven by the monopoly that eBay became. I don't even consider BillPoint as an option for me because of the extra clout it would give eBay.
I know some are upset and right now the thinking seems to be "lets use them, they are free", and little if any other consideration is being given. I don't think that anyone else will be able to offer the service for free for long when a majority of the payments are made through credit cards, in time they'll have to bite the bullet too.
posted on September 14, 2000 03:56:19 PM new
Hi,
I work for a new payment system called CheckSpace (www.checkspace.com) that you should check out. We work in a similar fashion (via email) that PayPal does, but have a totally different fee structure.
-There is no charge to sign up.
-There is no charge to send payment.
-You can receive five payments per month for free. After that, you are charged a flat fee of 95-cents per transaction.
-You receive $10 is transaction fee credits for each new member you refer that completes one transaction.
It differs from PayPal because it uses your existing bank account – there is no need to deposit money in a separate account, and then wait for them to send it to you when you want to use it in the real world. Plus you get to keep earning interest on it.
I hope it solves some of your problems.
We’re just finishing off our private beta, so we appreciate your patience. We’ll have a button you can use in your auctions available on the site within the next couple days.
posted on September 14, 2000 04:19:44 PM new
Pretty slick site, and VERY nice presentation.
I can't figure out how fast payments arrive in my account, however. If I initiate an invoice (request payment) on day 1, and bidder pays it on day 2, when are the funds available in my account? Does it make a difference whether the bidder uses a CC or debits directly from his checking account? Is the CC debit calculated as a charge or as a cash withdrawal (I'm betting the latter, for no-chargeback purposes)?
posted on September 14, 2000 06:39:13 PM new
Hi all:
I'm back from making rounds on other boards. There are clearly a lot of concerns and questions about PayPal's recent reminder message. I can’t answer all of them in one post, but I want to address some of your most important concerns.
We have always said that PayPal would be free for person-to-person payments. When people started using it for e-commerce, we evolved as a company, expanded our features, and in June created Business Accounts (for companies) and Premier Accounts (for individual entrepreneurs). We told our users that we wouldn't force people to upgrade, but that didn't mean it was OK for business users to violate our terms of use and conduct their commerce with a PayPal Personal Account. That's why we sent out an email in July that reminded business users of our policy.
While 250,000 of our users did understand what our terms of use required and decided to upgrade to or open a Premier or Business Account, a number of users either honestly weren't aware of our policy or else chose to ignore it. Since we assume that most people like to play by the rules and hence wouldn't expect PayPal to continue to subsidize their auctions with free credit card processing, customer service, and fraud protection, we sent the login page as a reminder to our active users. That's all it was, just a reminder of a policy that we've publicized before -- not a new one. It wasn’t meant for someone who occasionally sells personal items online; it was meant for those who are part-time or full-time sellers. We're sorry if the page seemed abrupt or ominous to some of you. It certainly wasn't intended to be. We were just trying to make sure that you all knew about our existing "business use" policy.
We also wanted to be straightforward and notify you that we're considering a new policy to enforce our terms of use. We hope we won’t have to, but if we do, we’ll strive to be fair and we'll be sure to announce the new policy through emails and content on our website at least two weeks before we implement it. Contrary to what has been reported on some threads, no policy has yet been determined; we have not decided on a specific transaction limit, or even whether this would be the best approach. We can say this: We don't intend to surprise anyone by automatically upgrading their account or shutting them down. We may have to limit costly functionality on Personal Accounts (like the ability to accept unlimited credit card payments), but everyone will have a choice, and as we’ve said all along, no one will be forced to upgrade.
Please understand that PayPal can’t subsidize large volumes of credit card transactions -- especially since we'll be giving a big part of the float back to our users starting next month in the form of income on funds left in your PayPal account. So, if you're selling goods to make a profit, we're asking you to play by the rules and upgrade to the account that is most applicable to you (either Premier or Business). We want to make online payments safe and easy for everyone, but we need your help to do this.
If you have thoughts or concerns on what our policy should be, please email us your suggestions (mailto:[email protected]). Since I can't possibly respond to every specific comment or question on the boards, please also use this email for any questions you may have. I will make sure that the whole team (including management) sees your comments, and we will try to answer every question as soon as possible.
Thanks again for your comments, and for caring about PayPal. We appreciate your feedback.
