RSSPayPal to Offer Text Message Payments
By Ed Oswald | Published March 23, 2006, 11:45 AM
Popular online payment site PayPal is set to offer its customers methods to pay or receive money via text messages on their cell phones, the company confirmed Thursday. The service, called PayPal Mobile, would initially launch in the United States, Canada and Britain in the coming weeks.
Rumors of the new feature first began to circulate the Internet after bloggers discovered links to the service on Wednesday. No official press release has yet been issued, however pages describing the service have already appeared on the PayPal Web site.
Using a set of keywords, payments can be sent to another cell phone or e-mail account by texting 729725, which is "PAYPAL" spelled out on the phone keypad. The user includes the amount of money to be sent, for example "Send 5 to 4150001234," and the service will call back to confirm.
After the sender verifies the payment by entering his or her PIN, the recipient is alerted and given instructions on how to claim the payment. PayPal said it will also additionally provide a voice-activated method of sending payments by allowing users to call 1-800-4PAYPAL.
PayPal is by no means the first to offer such a service here in the United States. Companies like TextPayMe already offers a similar text message payment service, and OboPay is close to launching its own version as well.
A feature known as "Text to Buy" will also be introduced to allow customers to text codes to PayPal and purchase items. The merchant will be alerted of the text payment, ship the product to the address PayPal has on file, and the funds will be deducted from the user's PayPal account without visiting the Web site.
The company said it expects partners to use the Text to Buy codes in magazines and newspapers, on TV, billboards, posters, Web sites, and elsewhere.
That's awesome.
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|I love this. Maybe finally I can have a working micropayment-donate system on my websites that actually gets me some money for bandwidth charges...
-Jar.
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|Interesting service. Signing up is painless. You need to have a PayPal account first, then you log your phone number with them. A minute later PayPal's robot calls you on that phone, says your name and gets you to verify your PIN for the service.
Amazingly, PayPal does not appear to be charging for this new service - at least it is not adding anything to its usual ludicrous charges.
This item from the PayPal FAQ is worth repeating here:
[Q] Does PayPal charge me to send and receive payments by phone?
[A] No. PayPal does not charge you to send payments by phone, or to receive payments into a PayPal Personal account. If you have a PayPal Premier or Business account, you’re charged the standard rates for receiving payments into your account. Your phone carrier may charge you for text messages or airtime minutes per transaction.
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|I think the reason they are charging for the service (presently) is because their competitors aren't. For example, TextPayMe has a deal where all who sign up during the beta period can use the service for free, for life. Good deal. Once the beta period is over, charges will insue for new customers. I'll bet that PayPal implements the same policy in the longrun, or at least something similar.
It's a good idea and a good service, and I'm glad there is competition to "keep it real".
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|I meant to write "not" charging for the service... my bad.
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