Paybox - Great Business Opportunity or a Scam?

Posted by Unknown Saturday, February 19, 2011

Recently a good friend introduced me to the Paybox program. Paybox is currently developing an "online currency and payment processing service" similar to PayPal. They are offering early bird users the opportunity to earn hundreds to thousands of dollars starting with an immediate $25 when you first sign up. They are proposing to officially launch in April 2011. But is Paybox a legitimate opportunity or a scam?
According to Paybox's blog post released on January 2, 2011, they currently have 272,000 active users. They are aiming to get between 2-5 million users during their stage 2 growth phase before they "open the box" for business.

What's good about Paybox?


Paybox sounds like a wonderful and lucrative business opportunity for those seeking to make easy money. You are paid $25 when you sign up. $10 for every referral. Moreover, you can earn up to $20 per day when you complete their daily survey, vote on merchants, vote of credit card designs, and complete other weekly surveys. Early birds have the potential of earning thousands of dollars, which they can spend online, or off once Paybox launches.

Proceed with caution

Though this opportunity sounds good there are a few things that are stipulated on their terms of service page that should cause alarm bells to go off!
  • All account balances are held in Paybox currency. According to Paybox, their currency is "is autonomous and independent of all nations and governments."
  • Paybox can discontinue the service at any time without obligation, explanation, or notice to you. This means you can lose your balance...your money and there is nothing that you can say or do about it.

Furthermore, Paybox can terminate your account if they desire to and you would lose any balance that you have in your account.

Is Paybox a scam?

A few questions need to be asked and answered before the question as to whether or not Paybox is a fraud or not can be decided.
  • Who owns Paybox.me?

This is a question yet to be answered. A German company owns the name Pay Box and has been doing cellular phone payment processing for 10+ years according to one site. They are a different entity from the Paybox.me people. There is no direct contact information--address, phone number, fax number, country location...nothing is listed on their website or in their e-mail blog posts. The blog posts are written by a person named Scott, but no further information is provided.

Read more at Suite101: Is Paybox a Great Business Opportunity or a Scam?
  • What is Paybox currency?

According to their terms of service, this currency is issued in dollars and cents and is similar to the US currency and 20 other countries.

Terminated without notice

Your account could have $10,000 in it and Paybox could terminate your account without warning or explanation. You could lose all of your balance and there is nothing you can do about it.

Since they don't specify whether this is money that has been funded by your bank, a payment from a vendor, or the Paybox dollars they are currently placing in early bird user accounts one can only assume it applies to whatever balance is currently in the account at the time of termination.

This is in sharp contrast to Paypal who will close your account only if you have not signed in for two years. However, your balance will be sent to you or to the state (where you live) if you fail to respond to the Paypal notice that maybe sent. (To learn more read the Paypal User Agreement item 7 Closing Your Account).

What others are saying about Paybox

Many other writers have voiced their opinions about what Paybox maybe really up to. They have speculated that they are trying to capture email addresses for lists, which they could sell. Others have proposed that at some point they may start to charge people fees in order for these users to access their accounts and balances. This is not so farfetched because of a little statement by Paybox under their Variable Daily Rate section, "the conditions for keeping your account active will be posted within the login area."

They have not posted the conditions as of yet so it is possible that they could charge membership or access fees in order for users to have access to their account and funds. Suppose they charge only $5 for the membership, considering that they want to have between 2-5 million users this would be a sweet $25 million dollars if 5 million users paid the $5.

But what if there is more to it than this? Suppose that they are a scam, if they propose to operate like Paypal consider the information that Paypal has about their users...credit card numbers, addresses, bank account numbers among other things.

What could Paybox do with that information? To whom could they sell it? And would it be on the same scale as identity theft?

I don't know if Paybox is a scam or not but I am issuing a warning "user beware". What is known is that with Paypal your balance will remain your balance until you decide what you want to do with it. Paypal is established and is a credible business. And all their terms are clearly spelled out on their site.

If Paybox is an alternative to Paypal then their terms should be along similar lines as Paypal, thus users accounts should not be terminated unless something fraudulent has occurred. But even in this case if the balance was funded by their own funds (or payments received from vendors, friends, or merchants) it should still rightfully remain theirs!

The question that needs to be answered is whose money is it? Is it the users money or does it belong to Paybox?

With Paybox there are many unanswered questions which leaves a lot of room for speculation. It is free and if it is not a scam you can earn hundred to thousands of dollars which you could spend on or off line (by using their debit card when it or if is issued). In terms of money it costs you nothing now to invest.

But as one writer put it, even though the sign up is free it could still end up costing a lot in terms of time and your reputation at the very least if it turns out to be a scam.

Is Paybox a Great Business Opportunity or a Scam? <<via>>

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