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Tom,
Your advice may be "the safe bet" but if everyone had followed such
advice when PayPal started, PayPal would have failed and never got off the
ground. We desperately need an alternative to PayPal, which is why I'd
advocating that people give this company a chance by participating in a
reasonably safe way -- by using it only to receive payments (and then see if you
can actually get real money out of your Greenzap account the way you can from
PayPal, by having them send you a check). Also perhaps, if you really want
to help a company become an alternative to PayPal, by making a small deposit in
your Greenzap account using a money order only and see what happens when you use
the service to pay someone else... or perhaps later try to withdraw that money
again.
I very clearly stated I did not feel it would be safe to give them either a
bank account number or a credit card number (and, by implication, certainly NOT
a social security card number -- I don't even give PayPal that) until the
company has developed some kind of a track record. And until we can get more
information on the company and its officers and how secure their servers are,
etc.
I personally think that's a level of reasonably "safe" level
participation to start out with. Everyone should make their own choice, of
course, I'm merely offering my opinion. I'm not a financial advisor and I don't
play one on the internet. But I think it's obvious that if you want an
alternative to PayPal, and someone seems to be making a genuine effort to create
one, that you need to support that effort in a cautious way. How else are we
ever going to get another viable online payment service and get some competition
in this industry?
As for the rumors of this being a scam... who knows? It certainly does bear
more investigation. But let's also be aware that if someone were running
PayPal and someone else tried to start a competing operation that the first
thing someone might do would be get on the internet and start spreading
some rumors about this new service being a scam. So, real information from
credible sources is called for in the long run.
-- JR
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2005
14:31
Subject: Re: [MOPO] New Paypal
Alternative - GREENZAP
JR-
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
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