Peter said:
>This sounds _extremely_ suspicious to me.
Did to me too - I refused to let him post it at first, until I checked it
out.
Bank One, the 4th largest US bank, has started "eMoneyMail" - to compete
with PayPal and X.com, the two existing such services. (X.com is buying
PayPal right now.) I'd never heard of PayPal or X.com, but apparently
they have a working model, and are making enough money to interest the
"big banks" in joining the competition.
The "Internet Fraud" group hasn't listed PayPal or X.com as having any
complaints against them.
The "$10 for joining, $10 for referring" bothered me, since I couldn't
see how they could pay the credit card fees on the transactions, _not_
charge the users a fee, and make any money. I'm still not clear on it
other than interest on the "float" - and eMoneyMail will be charging the
sender $1/transaction. (No word on paying new members.) However, given
the choice of paying $1 vs. getting $10, and as long as it's all done on
a "clean" credit card (I keep one _only_ for online transactions; if that
number gets out, I just cancel that one card) I'm going to give PayPal a
try for accepting futurebasic.org payments. And put the link up on the
site so new members can join PayPal to pay, get $10 of the $20 membership
back, and meanwhile I get an extra $10 from PayPal. (I'm sure the $10 bit
won't last long. It's advertising, not part of their business plan.)
Yes, it's a risk, but as Jay pointed out, if he gets burned, he's in a
lot of company. PayPal & X.com together have already handled a ton of
such transactions. And I don't see the risk as being any greater - and
maybe even less - than giving your credit card number to every vendor you
buy from. This way _only_ PayPal has the number. (Assuming the vendors
accept PayPal of course; that's still a minority so far.) I'm already
disputing one set of charges that appeared on my card. In this case it's
probably just a vendor error, but still, the fewer people I give the
number to, the better I'll feel. Two companies have already had their
entire customer list "cracked" and the numbers stolen.
Bill