posted on November 8, 2000 11:55:41 AM new
Has anyone here used or heard anything about Western Union Money Zap?
Just read this on their website:
Is there a fee for sending money?
The transaction fee for the MoneyZap service is waived for an introductory promotional period. Once the promotional period has ended, there will be a modest fee for initiating a transaction. If you receive the money in response to a request you made, the fee is subtracted from the total sent to you. Otherwise, the sender pays the fee.
posted on November 8, 2000 12:07:33 PM new
I think they have the right idea, charging the sender, but allowing the seller to pay the fees at their discretion.
Did you see any info about how much they will charge when they begin to? I didn't.
posted on November 8, 2000 12:11:17 PM new
I used moneyzap once. One of my clients sent me a payment even though I didnt have an account. I never got an email from them. He called and emailed them for a week. They kept telling him it would take time for the funds to clear. They never emailed me or suggested that he tell me to sign up. Finally I decided to just sign up and there was the money waiting for me. After that it went smoothly.
I still list it as an acceptable payment method in my auctions but no one else has used it yet. Even that same customer has switched to Exchangepath because he is miffed (and reasonably so) that in a whole week, moneyzap couldnt send me an email or advise me to sign up and get the money.
But I havent heard any horror stories like I have about Paypal, Payme and Paydirect. http://www.ygoodman.com [email protected]
posted on November 8, 2000 12:18:38 PM new
yisgood - you probably have not heard horror stories because no one is using them. You are the first to report a transaction and it sounds like it was flawed.
posted on November 8, 2000 12:57:19 PM new
A customer paid me through Money Zap a couple of months ago. Smooth as silk.
I received the e-mail promptly and within minutes, retrieved my money, which was deposited in my account very quickly.
That's the one and only experience I've had with Money Zap so far.
posted on November 8, 2000 01:21:04 PM new
There are quite a few payment services out there and some of them are really scary. I think customers would feel secure with a service backed by Western Union. WU has years of experience dealing with other people's money and making sure it gets to where it is supposed to. I'm sure they also have a good fraud department and better methods of preventing fraud than some of these johnny-come-latelies.
Payfoe claims 4 million users and rising, despite the horror stories. About an hour ago I got a notice that I received a $5 bonus for a sign up. I have taken PP out of my auctions and off my web site weeks ago. I just emailed the person to ask where he got the link and am waiting for an answer.
Then there's Payme, except the "me" seems to be not the recipient but the service. They hold the money for months and it takes a complaint to the Banking Commission to get it.
Then there's Payindirect, which has been holding payments up for 15 days and allowing charge backs without even giving the seller the chance to show proof of delivery. "Fast, easy and free - just charge it back." But what can you expect from a company that's run entirely by HAL from 2001, with no human beings involved?
There's Exchangepath and Payplace, very good so far, but I dont know how they handle charge backs and I hope to never find out.
Achex which works bank account to bank account, so there can be no charge backs. This is the fastest yet. I have the money in 2 days.
There are lots of choices and knowing which to use and which not to use is very important.
posted on November 8, 2000 01:48:26 PM new
yisgood~ gotta agree with you. There are some pretty scary PSUEDO BANKS out there in cyberland. Paypal scares the crap out of me.
A fancy web site, an email address and VOILA you are in business. Netizens are awfully gullible. YEECH!
posted on November 8, 2000 01:56:24 PM new
>>There are some pretty scary PSUEDO BANKS out there in cyberland. A fancy web site, an email address and VOILA you are in business. Netizens are awfully gullible. YEECH! <<
Remember a site called paymentalt that popped up about a month ago? Lousy graphics, a real cheesy operation, a phone number that was never answered, the only email ID was a yahoo account, the web site was one of those $99 for 10 megs deals. I kept warning folks that at best it was some goof who didnt know what he was doing. At worst it was a scammer trolling for credit cards. A lot of people emailed me back to say it looked legit to them. How can something "look legit"? Based on what? The text was copied word-for-word from Paypal. It talked about buyer protection, verification, international without ever mentioning how it worked. It has a Verisign logo but when I contacted verisign they couldnt give me any info. (That's how I discovered that Verisign is also a joke. All it proves is that someone paid them money. It says nothing about the reputation of the company.)
A week after popping up, they crashed and lost all the account info (or so they claimed). It hasnt come back up. I'm still waiting to see it folks who signed up will start reporting that their cards are being used.
it used to be a sucker born every minute, but I think millions were created the day the scammers hit the Internet.
posted on November 8, 2000 02:04:04 PM new
yisgood~ scary huh? Actually it is no different than ebay. On ebay there is NO barrier to entry into the market. Just start a hotmail account or aohell with a phony CC and voila a ticket to rip off the unsuspecting public.
posted on November 8, 2000 02:20:53 PM new
Re moneyZap... No better for sellers than paypal, because moneyzap allows chargebacks. They'll dig right into your checking account to get funds out! Read their TOS.
posted on November 8, 2000 02:24:56 PM new
Yisgood: PayDirect (aka Payindirect) - I thought they don't allow chargebacks? Are we talking about the same company run by Yahoo? I've been using them for a while now and my money has always been transferred to my bank account within 3-4 days at the most.
posted on November 8, 2000 02:34:26 PM new
From the Paydirect TOS (conflicting terms):
"10.... Once the Recipient receives credit for the Payment, you may not reclaim the Payment through PayDirect, regardless of any dispute you may otherwise have with the Recipient regarding a transaction to which the Payment relates. You agree to pursue any such claims directly with the Recipient...
12... If a Sender makes a claim that a Payment credited to a Recipient's PayDirect Account was unauthorized or charges back, rejects or otherwise disputes a funding transaction, the proceeds of which were used to fund a Payment, the Bank [paydirect] may debit the Payment from the Recipient's PayDirect Account and/or hold the funds pending resolution of the claim. The Bank will notify the Recipient if it reverses a Payment credited to the Recipient's PayDirect Account or imposes a hold on the Recipient's Account."
SO paydirect won't allow the buyer to "reclaim his payment", but he CAN do a chargeback... Makes sense, huh?
So far I'll STILL stay with paypal. (Where, oh where, is a service that will NOT allow a chargeback?)
posted on November 8, 2000 04:33:00 PM new
I received notice (warning) from a group I belong to about paymentalt they tell me that the reason the phone number there was unmaned is because the person who was the CEO of has not been seen or heard from in several weeks
The employees were unpaid for several weeks they stopped manning the phones and now as far as I know you cant get to the index page of there website all you get is an error message.
I believe they said there was still away to get in to the sight to check balnaces on referal fee but none have been paid out as of this time.
posted on November 9, 2000 06:50:08 AM new
>>So far I'll STILL stay with paypal.<<
Paypal is the only service that has been PROVEN to be run by liars and crooks. They are the only service that will freeze your entire account over one charge back without even contacting you, the only one who changed the TOS several times a day and made these changes retroactive. If I was going to choose a service, why choose a crooked one?
Where, oh where, is a service that will NOT allow a chargeback?
Bidpay. Achex. Any service that allows credit card payments and does not send out money orders is stuck with the charge back problem. However, Western Union has been around for years. I believe I can trust them to verify the sender and that if there is a charge back, they will first contact me and give me a chance to show proof of shipping. Moneyzap, Payplace and Exchangeplace say that charge backs will work under standard credit card rules. This means that the seller gets the opportunity to respond. Even if there is a charge back, it will be for that amount only, not eveything in your account.
Paydirect does a charge back without contacting the seller. It's only a matter of time before the same bozos who deadbeat on Yahoo with multiple IDs learn how easy this is.
Paypal will freeze your entire account and may even go into your bank account over a transaction four months old. They will allow others to continue paying into your account but you cant access it. By the time you straighten out the first problem, you have five more angry customers to deal with.
posted on November 9, 2000 07:31:38 AM new Paypal is the only service that has been PROVEN to be run by liars and crooks
Not true, Yisgood. WeCharge was the first (June 1999). There were lots of cautionary posts here on AW about the service that summer. People ignored the warnings and many lost money in the fall of 1999.
