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27 Comments
- NSMike, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12Person-to-person mobile payments... What a concept!
What to call it though... I mean... Person-to-person mobile payments isn't exactly endearing...
Um... Let's call it... Cash! Is that taken? - Kazrog, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8The important thing in this article is that there's a guy named Dan Schatt.
- Otto, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Cash has a downside, that being you have to have it on you and you have to deal with counting it and such.
With Paypal's mobile to mobile payments, I can paypal cash to any of my friends right then and there, straight from my account to theirs. So if I'm at a restaruant, we let one guy pick up the tab on his credit card and the rest of us just paypal him the money. I can save the small amount of cash I have on hand for the bars, and not have to worry about hitting an ATM or anything.
Mobile to mobile payments are very, very handy. - vibhavm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Settling is actually pretty useful for me in two situations. I hang with a lot of college friends who are all across the country. We see each other often enough where the $20 tabs add up and someone spends the majority of the cost (hotels, dinner tabs, etc). Also, with roommates you have utilities bills and expenses that pop up and sometimes it's good to track it to make sure you aren't getting the bad end of the deal. Being in law school might have made me one of the "cheap people" but I think something like BillMonk makes the awkward end of the dinner or end of the trip moment more manageable. There is no need to spend the time dealing with the money then, because you know it will handled efficiently when you get home.
Payment is fairly easy with Paypal or an old-fashioned check in the mail (some banks will do this for you online). - DrSkrud, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Paying a friend that loans you money isn't always the most straightforward thing to do. Let's say your friend waits in line to buy concert tickets and buys enough for your whole group. You *could* go to the bank, take out cash, wait until you meet your friend in person again and give him the cash... or you could write him a cheque, and he'll have to wait for it to clear.
Or you can just jump online and send him the money via PayPal. Better yet, use something like PayPal Mobile and send it from your cell phone next time he calls and says: "Dude you still owe me for those tickets". - crilen007, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I'm just cheap and won't lend money out to people who screw me over once.
Who keeps track of a 20 dollar dept to a friend anyways? Cheap people, thats who. - Bullsnot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Myself I have looked into alternate payment methods for smaller amounts, for software and ahem.. web sites. I thought cell phone billing using premium rate messaging was the way to go, but the carriers are way over pricing it. You know the service like those tv shows that say text in your vote to this number, and in small print, $.99 per call. for those $.99 per call, the phone service takes 60 cents or more and give 40 to the business. That's not including the setup, service and monthly fees that add up to several hundred dollars.
- siestaguy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Back in the olden days when PayPal was brand new, they had a Palm Pilot application that would allow you to "beam" money to another Palm Pilot owner. They killed that off about a year later. This seems like a revival of that, just using cell phones.
- NSMike, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Well, yes, I understand how handy it is, and I actually like the idea...
...I was just having a little sarcastic fun. - killerz298, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I hardly ever carry cash on me. I use my CC for pretty much everything I can (I don't have a problem overspending or keeping track of money like some people do). I have been looking for a simple mobile payment system for a long time now, can't wait for one that actually works well and is widespread enough that I can acutally use it because others do.
- Otto, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Zed: No, I got that point of BillMonk entirely, but I think you missed my point.
You ask "Why was paypal even usedl?" Well, that is a valid question, but let's say you do the same thing with BillMonk. Why was BillMonk even used? You used it to track the accounting in near real-time. And that's all well and good, but with something like Paypal Mobile, you used it to track *and* settle, in near real-time.
In other words, with BillMonk, if the accounting gets large, then you have to settle it somehow. With Paypal, you never have to settle at all. The accounting and the settling are identical. Yes, you used paypal twice, but that only makes any difference if Paypal actually costs anything to use. Since it doesn't (for non-premium accounts and direct bank transfers), then it's a heck of a lot easier to use Paypal's service, since I never have to settle with anybody or ask anybody for money. I already have the money, they paypal'd it to me.
>>>"So the first time you paid, the next time, I paid, and poof. We're even. With no paypal."
My point is that using Paypal Mobile is just as easy as using BillMonk's mobile. I do an SMS to paypal that says "send $X to Bob", or Bob sends something to me in the same way. I'm done. We settled. I never have to settle again. I never have to deal with looking at BillMonk to see who owes me anything. Nobody ever has to ask anybody else to pay them what they owe, because nobody ever owes anything. It's *way* simpler than BillMonk.
When transfering money is just as easy as recording the debt, then why not just transfer the money?
>>>"Basically, you can avoid having to do most $ shuffling."
Shuffling cash back and forth does not bother me in the slightest, as long as it's easy to do. - jp0692, on 03/01/2008, -1/+2I can definitely see a use for this...what if you don't have cash but you've got your cell phone? Now you won't have to live with that guilty feeling knowing your friends had to buy the beer!
- Zedoriah, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@otto:
I think you're missing one of the points of BillMonk. Sure you can record a transaction and then pay it off immediately. You and I go out to dinner, you pay, and I paypal you my half. The next week we go out again, I pay, and you paypal me back you half. Why was paypal even usedl? In the end we each paid the same, owe each other nothing, and managed to use paypal twice.
If you know who owes who what, then you just pick the person who owes the most to pay the next time. So the first time you paid, the next time, I paid, and poof. We're even. With no paypal. BillMonk even provides this as a service. SMS "v (groupname) " and it returns the "Victim" who owes the most and must pay.
Basically, you can avoid having to do most $ shuffling.
You can "Settle up" when the informal debts start to grow - adamdwilson, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I've been an avid Billmonk user for months. It's perfect to keep track of dinner out, shared roommate expenses, and weekend road trips with friends.
In the past, I've had a hodgepodge of receipts stacked on my desk, which I've now replaced with this convenient web site. For me, I know that it's meant fewer hassles and more time to spend the money instead of accounting for it! - vibhavm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I've been using BillMonk for about 6 months. This summer it has come in handy with my mini-vacations. Besides learning which friends pay me back and which don't, I also keep better tabs on the slackers and get more of my money back quicker.
- zbeast, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Well I'm very happy to see other ways to get paid besides pay-pal.
being that because of the content of my website i.e (porn) it's against pay-pals for people to use them
as a way to pay me. I just want to be able to put up a virtual tip jar again.
I wont setup or direcly take credt cards as the last thing I want to do is be resposable for peoples card
Information. Besides its costs a lot to "clear credit cards" and "tip Jar" payments are sapose to be like $1.00 and $5.00 payments. - weeds, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1The story is kind of misleading. Bill Monk is about tracking informal debts (both cash and goods), not settling them; it's not a payment system. Settling, mobile or not, is the less useful part IMO. If they're you're friends, sooner or later you'll get to buy them dinner & drinks and the pendulum will swing back the other way.
- crilen007, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1"Hey man can I borrow 20 bucks? I don't have any cash on me".
*you whip out cell phone*
"WTF are you doing you useless bum, I wanted cash!" - Otto, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1weeds: If settling is just as easy as using tracking systems like BillMonk, then there's no point in having the tracking system at all. I don't need to know I owe somebody money, I need to just send the money to them. I don't want to know somebody owes me money, I want the money. I don't necessarily need it *in hand*, but I do want it somewhere where I can transfer it to, say, my bank account, at any given moment of my choosing.
Look at BillMonk's SMS service. Yes, it's advanced, but if somebody wants to settle, they have to deal with it some other way, later. Whereas with, say, Paypal's mobile service, when I send cash to somebody or somebody sends cash to me, there's not necessarily any need to take it out of paypal. Setting happens only when I remove the cash into my bank account.
Now, in point of fact, I do take the cash out of Paypal because I don't trust Paypal a damn bit, but my point is that I don't need tracking, I need settling that is as just easy as tracking. If some service provides me a way to send cash to other people and receive cash from them, easily, then that takes care of the whole nine yards.
I do have money. I just don't want to have it on me all the time. - komatsu, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0really? I was just thinking it was a kick butt idea...
- JasonPrini, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2"social money"?!? is that like "liquid water"?
Lame. - redthumb, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1And how long will it take someone to hack this?
- Kazrog, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1No, I think it's more like "lunar moon"
- sameerb, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1billmonk is my favoruite site
- striker100, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0Few hours or less!
- bankabanka, on 10/12/2007, -8/+3billmonk.com is my favorite website on the internet!!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -6/+0Oh..the competition will become very intense.
i found an interesting artlice..you guys should check it out
who will win eventually?? checkout or paypal
ebay vs google
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20060710/checkout-google-paypal-ebay-shopping.htm
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