I've been transferring money OnLine for a few months now, but was wary of FastPay as unlike other IMAs (Internet Merchant Accounts) the sender of the money is charged, not the recipient.
Anyway, I had a customer that wanted me to send me money, advising me that it cost the sender just 20p so I decided to compare.
The disadvantage is that in auctions/transactions the buyer is charged £0.20, whereas with the other providers listed above there is no fee. However, many sellers add a fee of their own typically around 3%, so this actually works to the buyers advantage, especially on transactions with a high value. As a seller this also a vastly cheaper way to handle sales, especially if the seller is willing to reduce the amount due by 20p and in effect paying the buyers fee.
Having compared the fees I signed up, which was a remarkbly simple process of entering personal, eMail address and credit card details. It was necessary to reLogIn with the details, but an initial transfer was completed within minutes.
This was done by uploading (remembering to add the £0.20) and then sending money. The whole transaction was completed within 10 minutes, from signing up to confirming the money had been recieved by seller.
However, since I had used a credit card FastPay make a small hidden initial charge to your credit card. To permit continued use of your credit card you need to click on the confirmation eMail they send, and confirm the additional amount charged to your credit card. Although this is a small amount (1p to 99p) to return this money back to your credit card will cost you £0.20 (the standard transaction fee). This could be inconvenient if you only intended FastPay for a small number of transactions (or only once).
Overall, another alternative to making OnLine money transfers, and possibly avoiding sellers/buyers additional fees. So if you are considering signing up to Fast Pay, by credit card remember they will also withdraw an unknown amount and load it onto your account.
[added 04/05/03] I've only completed a small number of OnLine transaction, but compared to PayPal money transfers are almost instant.
I have queried the confirmation fee using the 'e Me Help' service and all queries were answered by eMail within 12 hours
[added 04/06/05] The service has now closed to new customers, and closes to existing customers at the end of June A great loss as an alternative to PayPal
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May 4th, 2003
(Jun 4th, 2005)
very helpful by (57%):
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