*Correction note*
I previous stated the company was founded by Ted Leonsis and Steve Case. They are indeed investors and board members in the company. Jason Hogg and Patrick Graf however are the founders of Revolution Money, previously called Gratis Card.
Revolution Money Exchange is a new online payment system launched last year. The company founded by Jason Hogg and Patrick Graf and run with current investors and board members Ted Leonsis and Steve Case has placed itself in direct competition with PayPal. Offering free online money transfers and currently drumming up business by offering a $25.00 sign-up bonus. A deal that is spreading fast across sites like Slickdeals.net, FatWallet.com and Dealighted.com.
InformationWeek and USAtoday did stories on the site back in November however until recently I hadn't heard anything about it. Of course once I heard of the $25.00 sign-up bonus I had to investigate. After reading several articles and several blog posts I saw I was just in the dark.
Revolution its self is more tied to a next-generation credit and debit card that promises to be more secure and less expensive than current cards. According to the InformationWeek article the card itself is anonymous, so it doesn't have the cardholder's name on the card nor does it contain any information about the cardholder in the magnetic stripe.
The MoneyExchange side of the business is the online money transfer. They offer FDIC insured accounts issued by First Bank & Trust. For most services there are no fees, however there do seem to be high fees for things like check withdrawals, check stop payments, paper statements, ACH returns, and overdrafts. You will also need to be prepared to enter your SSN, a step that can not be avoided to sign-up.
In addition to the $25.00 sign-up bonus they offer $10 refer a friend bonuses (up to 50/yr).
**They have recently changed this and now allow direct referrals. If anyone is interested in signing up please use the button below.**
Follow up 4/7/08
Having used the service now for a couple months, I can report no issues. I received my $25 instantly, attached my bank account and withdrew my funds. The only real drawback I've ran into is that eBay does not currently allow the service. I have seen a few questions regarding its use on eBay and from what I can gather it won't be approved, or endorsed by eBay because it doesn't allow buyers to dispute payments. (not to mention eBay doesn't want to loose out on Pay-Pal fees)
According to eBay's Accepted Payments Policy as a seller you can only accept payments through approved methods. So at least for now I won't be able to fully rid myself of Pay-Pal.
9 comments:
Anyone looking for more information on Revolution Money Exchange should check out Ted's Take.
Its Ted Leonsis' blog and he has several great links including a few to stories I missed out on mentioning.
Ted seems like a great guy, he was nice enough to let me know that i made a couple errors (which have been corrected) and gave me kudos for the corrections.
I'm sure if anyone has any questions regarding the company you'll be able to find answer there or he might be nice enough to answer your questions personally.
I really like your blog- have to check on it more often. If you are interested in
web-businesses maybe you should have a look at my blog :)
You can use Revolution MoneyExchange on eBay.
If whomever posted that said you can use R.M.E. on eBay could follow up with more info that would be greatly appreciated.
Obviously you can use any payment method that both the buyer and seller agree to however according to eBay's own policies they don't back them as an accepted payment.
I am not going to touch this one... I just had to close a bank account because of those scammers connected to GreenZap... Paypal and Google Checkout are both respected companies and more than anybody needs.
I emailed Griff from Ebay Radio about two weeks ago, re whether Ebay would accept RME as a valid form of payment; his email reply to me was an emphatic NO! I agree that part of this is that Ebay / Paypal knows they will lose a huge ton of cash if RME gets used because they wont' get the transaction fee ... still, RME owners and their financial backers need to put some pressure on Ebay Execs to make this a viable option. They're going to have to align themself with some major online player if they want to compete against Paypal and survive.
I used RME to accept payment for a laptop valued at $1150. I sold it for $700 plus express shipping of $55. I went to withdraw my $755 directly to my bank account and was denied and account locked. Seems that the sender had NSF and the payment from the sender's bank was returned and I'm out my $755 and a laptop. There is no seller or buyer protection with RME. I have to go after the person that I sold the laptop to. Even though a person has to add funds from their bank account and have them clear before payment can be sent the funds can come back as NSF because they don't directly clear from their bank account (does that make sense?) So I'm screwed!
As I'm not familiar with the conditions of the transaction, or the process in which RME validates funds I can't comment other than to say you need to contact customer service at RME immediately. It sounds as though there is some fraudulent activity involved in which case you might also want to get in touch with the USPS and any local authorities.
Too bad the $25 promotion is over.
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