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What my new business is...

Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2003 2:04 pm
by jason
Okay, I can actually tell you what my new business is. We are already pitching it to enough business that keeping it under wraps isn't really necessary anymore. Thought we haven't launched completely, the site and software is being finished up, I do have something I can show you.

http://www.ezpaynet.com/

Now, beyond the fact that the website needs some work (I have to finish up a few more nice graphics, and clean a few things up, that's the general site, and that's the basic idea.

Now, I can't give you details about which companies in particular we are talking with, but they are big name people (you would recognize them even if you don't live in Canada or the US).

And yes, I know, we are still waiting on the bloody Verisign folks to finish up the SSL Certificate stuff, so ignore the bloody error.

Simply put, it's a prepaid ezPayNet® WebCard. You buy a WebCard in a store, and you can use it online to make purchases. Their is also the ezPayNet Membership WebCard, where you can buy a membership offline to a site online.

Just thought I would let you guys in on this little bit of information.

Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2003 3:25 pm
by m3mn0n
That is a very cool idea. Just as cool as when they invented prepaid long distance cards. :wink:

I really love this, you enabled people under 18 or ones who don't have a major credit card to easily make payments online better than any other method before. I'll be sure to pick a few up (depending on which sites sign up) seeing how I turned 18 just a little while ago and still don't have a credit card. :)

The best of luck to you guys!

Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2003 3:47 pm
by daven
Nifty. Now if you can just get deals with some computer hardware companies (ex: ABIT, ASUS, WesternDigital), I will be very happy. I am constantly being used as the "hey, he has a credit card" guy when my friends want to buy computer pieces. Now I can tell them to sod off and get a card for themselves. *grin*

Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2003 3:53 pm
by jason
That's the goal. :D Hell, even I would use the system, and I have credit cards! Just much easier, and much safe. Can't be too careful these days.

Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2003 3:05 am
by twigletmac
It's a really cool idea - would open the web up to a lots of people.

Excellent.

Mac

Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2003 7:46 am
by volka
yeah, I guess I'm amongst the targeted audience :-]
no credit card and still uneasy about changing my mobil prepaid-card to monthly charges.
Where will it be available and when? (I'm still living in old europe, ancient germany ;) )
Will it be like cash and as anonymous as possible or is some kind of registration mandatory? The latter could limit
Oromian wrote:I really love this, you enabled people under 18 [...]
by some kind of age check (if wanted).
Is it a one-way system or do I have to interact with the ezpaynet-site to authorize a transaction?

Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2003 7:55 am
by jason
We try to keep the process as simple as possible, but still keep it secure.

It works like this.

You buy a card, the card is registered at the store (a simple swiping method using a magnetic strip, the consumer doesn't do anything really).

You bring the card home, and activate the card at the ezPayNet website. You have to have an account. This account requires lots of personal information. It needs:

username
password
email address

That's it.

When you sign up, you also assign the card to your account. That way, you can have more than one card. You can buy 2 $25 cards, and now you have a total of $50 to use.

Then, you go to a website, and buy the product. You enter in your username, and password, and viola! They make the transaction just like a credit card, and that's it. We debit your cards ,and everyone is happy.

Really, really simple for users, and easy to implement for merchants.

As far as distrobution, Europe is on the target, however, we are initially launching in Canada, then moving to the US, and then fan out from there. Europse has definetly come up in our discussions though.

Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2003 8:08 am
by volka
But giving away my password what hinders a malicious vendor to use it twice without approval?

Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2003 8:14 am
by stuart
Wow, im impressed - actually im surprised this has not been attempted before!!
I really hope it takes off over there (an Europe get it soon), it certainly should.
Please tell me you have patented to this idea.... something like this could (am probably will) be worth Billions in a few years. I wouldnt be surprised if someone like ebay or amazon snatch your idea, and with there bucks and contacts push it.

Best of luck.

Stuart

Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2003 11:51 am
by jason
The patent issue has already been taken care of. While I can't comment much on this, let me just say that we aren't the first to think of something like this, their is no patent problems (we won't get sued).

Volka - That's easy. =) We have several advanced features to cover this. One of those features, particularly targetted for this type of potential abuse, is the temporary password and charge limit.

It works like this, you sign into your ezPayNet account. You have ezPayNet create you a random password. This password, with your username, can be used once, and only once.

You can also assign a limit to that password. Let's say you want to purchase a $25 CD, so you set a limit of $35 (to cover shipping, whatever). This means the company can't charge more than $35 to your cards. Yes, the company could charge $35 exactly, even if the actual cost is only $31, but they would have to know the limit, and they could only perform the transaction the first time (because the password could only be used once.)

Anywas, you would go to the website you want to purchase from, and make your purchase using that temporary password and your username.

Very, very safe, if you ask me. The danger of course is that their are no chargebacks. We are treating this like cash. If you purchase an item, and it never comes, you have to deal with the merchant. However, we do have the right to investigate all purchases, and can, and will, credit customers back if merchant's are committing fraud (in which case, the merchant will be deactivated).

Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2003 11:53 am
by jason
Oh, and just to clarify. Their is a cost to the user. We charge $1.00 per transaction. We have to cover costs somewhere. But when you look at the costs of credit cards, and even prepaid credit cards, this is a very low cost.

Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2003 12:34 pm
by volka
ah ic, the random password+limit is the participation of the ezpaynet-site in the transaction I meant (one way of doing it).
A fee of $1 is not too much, esp. for people like me that make seldom use of e-commerce ;)
I'm eager to see more of. Count me in as customer when available (user, not merchant :D)