So, according to their blog,
Paybox is planning to launch person to person transactions soon. I was really interested in checking out their person to person transactions so I poked a few good friends about it. My basic thought was well, this is free money, and it is for testing a site and a function, so why not right?
A good friend helped me checked out some stuff about Paybox that I wished existed when I first joined a week ago (a number of those links are dated 25 September, about 3-4 days after I joined the site, you have no idea how annoying that is). These are the things that scream "WRONG" about Paybox according to such sites.
1. Their TOS says they can change their TOS anytime they like
Considering that I see this quite often in most of the TOS of sites I join, I'm not adverse to it. Especially the bit about no warning.
2. Their currency is in a fictional currency, i.e. Paybox dollars
This was mentioned in their TOS, which I did read before I signed up. While this may seem dodgy to you, the thing is Paybox bills themselves as money you use for small businesses and the like. The first thing that came to mind was e-currency ala
ACash, GCash (from Gaiaonline) and other game premium currency, so it was not something I was unused to. I was actually quite ok with the idea that they were going to be trading in a fictional currency (MMO games can be quite the influence, as you can see).
3. They can terminate your account if they feel like it
I facepalm at this, I really do. This is because if you read the TOS of every site you sign up for, (including Paypal) they can and will do this. Sometimes it's arbitrary. Most times it's for good reasons (violating other parts of TOS etc etc). So again, not something I find enough to warn me off the site.
The above are things that for me, are not really that big a deal. I signed up with Paybox via my spam email (which is also semi-legit, just to be on the safe side) and they do not have any of my financial details. There's a chance that this site will be a hit, there's a huge chance it'll fall flat. Truth to be told, hey, if I can help out another dot.com dreamer, why not, right?
One of the reasons why I'm usually skeptical of beta sites is that they rarely post roadmaps of where they intend to go. Paybox on the other hand, did. They also seem to be hiring staff, so in my opinion that's always a good thing. However, there are things that this payment processor "Paypal Challenger" wannabe is doing that raises the warning signals for me:
1. No contact given
At this point in time, the only way to contact them is.. zilch. They have a blog, but you cannot post comments on the blog (which I tried as I wanted to give them a suggestion). Rather, you have to wait for their forum to come up before you can comment anything. If ever.
2. Things are moving suspiciously fast
Usually if your roadmap says that your site will be up in three months, and your site comes up in two or even one and a half month before, I can understand. Having worked for a website development company, I understand flexible timelines are quite possible. However, when you say that your person-to-person transaction is going to happen only in March and you're telling me that your service is going to be up by September the year before, I'm skeptical. Quite skeptical.
3. Who is being hired and how?
As per the subject. So far everything is via their website, but I'm suspicious because a company excited about growing would also take pains to show that they ARE growing. Which they seem to be not.
So my verdict? Until as time they can prove themselves, I'm not going to promote
Paybox unless my friends are willing to take a risk. I'm really interested in playing with their transaction system, but I admit I am kiasu enough that I'd only transact with people I know and whom I can contact via IM. :D Which for now, means none cause I don't trust this site enough to ask them to do it. :3
