How can you "urge all people to register" for a company you obviously do not know beyond a reasonable doubt is legit? And if you accept payments into an account with them, that money, sent by your customers, is at risk whether or not they have your bank acct info. If they're not legit, you'd never see any of the funds for sales made through them (or the $25 bait you took to join them, or your (very pyramid scheme sounding) "rewards"--the bounty they're dangling for all members of your "community" who join.
I'm sorry--anytime anyone starts talking about their business being a "community" and about how much money I'll make if I get my friends to join up (and that's the key to their marketing strategy) I check to make sure my wallet is still there.
There is no such thing as a "safe level" of participation." if the company is not legit. Any level of participation puts money--yours or someone else's--at risk.
in five minutes of research I saw claims that individuals involved in the operation of this company have been involved in previous internet scams. I saw information that stated this company's mailing address is a grocery store in California--that this company has no tax id number--that this company stores its website on the server of another company that makes them anonymous...All claims, and I don't know what to think, but certainly enough to make me slam on the brakes.
Hell, maybe they're for real, but they sound very very fishy to me. Right now I'd feel safer leaving my money out on the sidewalk and hoping nobody came by and took it. Just because Paypal is not what we want it to be is no reason to go running like lemmings for the first outfit that claims they have a better plan.
There IS risk in endorsing and signing up for something like this--even if it's just the risk that OTHER people could get hurt if they think, well, everyone's doing it, and send in their bank/credit card info.
I urge all people to stop, think, research, and wipe the drool out of the corner of their mouths. --These people are trying to attract business by telling everyone how much FREE MONEY they can get by luring their friends in.
It is, as you say, JR a great IDEA. That doesn't make it a great company.
on 4/28/05 11:54 AM, JRS at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Naturally I think this could be a great thing -- we've needed an alternative to PayPal ever since eBay bought it out. While I would urge all people to register, I would also WARN them: Do not give Greenzap your checking account number or credit card number until they have proven themselves a little bit. Instead, I would simply accept payments to my Greenzap account for a while, and maybe put in a small deposit using PayPal or a money order mailed to them.
I did the same with PayPal when it first started. You just never know with the internet. This could be a scam attempt to get hold of a lot of people's bank account info and credit card numbers -- so far they have not released enough corporate information on themselves to be independently verified as authentic, trustworthy and financially viable.
Second, even if they are genuine, there is the question of how secure is this new operation? After all, major credit card companies and corporate data storage sites have been hacked and hundreds of thousands of credit card numbers stolen in the recent past. So, it would be a good idea to be cautious about what kind of information you give this new service at first.
But I do think it's a great idea and will start participating at a safe level immediately.
www.greenzap.com <http://www.greenzap.com>
-- JR
