revolution money exchange - the new way to go?

[netmouse]

A bank in South Dakota is doing the paypal thing - currently without the transfer fees. Will it stay that way? I don't know. But if you'd like to sign up you can earn me a referral fee of $10 by clicking through this button:

Comments

That's Money, Not Monkey, but they are monkeys

[marsgov.livejournal.com]

I kept on reading that as "MonkeyExchange," which on further reflection would certainly be a more interesting name.

Anyway, I'm afraid that they're not entirely clued. The landing page for the referral fee puts me onto a page that asks me for my email address. No "about," no "privacy policy," no FAQ, nothing but some marketing copy that isn't formatted correctly for my browser, and as you might imagine I find this off-putting.

I don't want to dissuade anyone else from signing up. What has been your experience so far, and why would you want to join a network that's smaller than PayPal?

Re: That's Money, Not Monkey, but they are monkeys

[netmouse.livejournal.com]

I have very little experience so far, but as to why I imagine the "free" concept is appealing to people (I still have a free personal paypal account, but a lot of people have "upgraded" so they can take credit card payments and paypal now charges a fee on all money they receive), and plus the real (insured) bank vs paypal, which is not a bank, verified people for IRS purposes (a positive in some cases, downer for others), and hopefully the whole free-from-paypal's-occasional-tendency-to-freeze-funds-based-on-accusations-of-sex-trade-related-transactions thing.

Re: That's Money, Not Monkey, but they are monkeys

[marsgov.livejournal.com]

The bit about bank vs. non-bank is quite compelling; of course that will depend on the terms of service that the bank offers, because until you read the fine print, you won't know if it's truly a bank service or not.

I haven't used PayPal in dog's years, I wasn't aware they had started to grab an extra cut of the cash. That grab makes sense from a purely mercenary standpoint, I suppose — now that they're fat and happy, and the one-and-only method for eBay if I understand correctly, I guess they can get away with it.

But if you have any way to feed back to the bank, you might let them know that a no-fact landing page isn't going to draw many sign-ups.

Oh, and that "accusations-of-sex-trade-related-transactions" thing. I hadn't heard of that issue; you get a lot of trouble with that? :-)

Re: That's Money, Not Monkey, but they are monkeys

[netmouse.livejournal.com]

The potential for anyone to freeze your paypal (and potentially connected bank) account at any point by following this quick how-to (http://www.doomsdayshopper.com/how-to-freeze-any-paypal-account) has made other members of organizations I am in or in charge of extremely resistant to using paypal. The possibility causes me difficulty, yes, though I have so far not been troubled by any real action on paypal's part and have used it trouble-free myself for years.

Re: That's Money, Not Monkey, but they are monkeys

[marsgov.livejournal.com]

That "quick how-to" link doesn't work; the server seems to be offline, and even Google's cache of the page won't load.

And given your other blog that you've posted about... watch your step, young lady.

Re: That's Money, Not Monkey, but they are monkeys

[netmouse.livejournal.com]

*shrug* the link works for me.

Talk Hard! does not currently involve any exchange of money, so I'm not concerned there. The most it ever would is advertising and amazon referral funds (I have already been approved as an amazon associate for that site, despite being blunt and straightforward about the content in my application).

Re: That's Money, Not Monkey, but they are monkeys

[cos]

Paypal always charged a cut for pro accounts, and has never charged anything for personal accounts. The key difference is how much money people can send you from their credit cards. When paypal was new, I think the limit was $100/month. Not long after (that is, many years ago), they changed it to $100/year. Basically, if you have a personal account, you cannot take credit card payments, which makes it unsuitable for commercial use. There's no limit on how much money people can send you from their own paypal accounts, which includes money from their real bank accounts, and there's no charge for that. There's also no charge for transferring money between your paypal account and your real bank accounts.

My housemate who owns this house has paypal, and so do I, so I pay her my rent by paypal. At a previous place, it was the other way 'round: I was on the lease, and my subletter paid me rent through paypal. It was very quick and convenient, and there are no fees.