PayPal to Offer Text Message Payments
Popular online payment site PayPal is set to offer its customers methods to pay or receive money via text messages on their cell phones, the company confirmed Thursday. The service, called PayPal Mobile, would initially launch in the United States, Canada and Britain in the coming weeks.
Rumors of the new feature first began to circulate the Internet after bloggers discovered links to the service on Wednesday. No official press release has yet been issued, however pages describing the service have already appeared on the PayPal Web site.
Using a set of keywords, payments can be sent to another cell phone or e-mail account by texting 729725, which is "PAYPAL" spelled out on the phone keypad. The user includes the amount of money to be sent, for example "Send 5 to 4150001234," and the service will call back to confirm.
After the sender verifies the payment by entering his or her PIN, the recipient is alerted and given instructions on how to claim the payment. PayPal said it will also additionally provide a voice-activated method of sending payments by allowing users to call 1-800-4PAYPAL.
PayPal is by no means the first to offer such a service here in the United States. Companies like TextPayMe already offers a similar text message payment service, and OboPay is close to launching its own version as well.
A feature known as "Text to Buy" will also be introduced to allow customers to text codes to PayPal and purchase items. The merchant will be alerted of the text payment, ship the product to the address PayPal has on file, and the funds will be deducted from the user's PayPal account without visiting the Web site.
The company said it expects partners to use the Text to Buy codes in magazines and newspapers, on TV, billboards, posters, Web sites, and elsewhere.