Hello everyone ...


Before I talk about what the PayPal alternative I’m proposing here is, I think it’s important to mention WHY I’ve been looking for such an alternative in the first place. So here’s a short (at least, I tried to make it short), boring (sorry; that I couldn’t help) introduction...

For quite a while now, PayPal has been a recognized brand name when it comes to Money Transfer services online. This recognition, I think, hasn’t been due to the amazing quality of PayPal's services, but rather because of the lack of similar services offering the same ease-of-use.

You see, there are many things that aren’t exactly perfect with PayPal. But the most noticeable and most detrimental downside probably is that it offers its service to a very limited number of countries. Ever since the birth of PayPal, they’ve claimed that they were going to expand their reach to cover many more countries around the world, but to this day, their list of supported countries hasn’t grown at all. And since I live in Egypt – one of the countries that aren’t supported by PayPal, you can imagine why I’m not raving fan of PayPal.

So I’ve been looking for a PayPal-alternative for a while now... an alternative that offers all the services of PayPal, with comparable ease-of-use, AND that covers a wider geographical range. And I think I found it...

This service is called iKobo. It’s actually been online since 2001, but due to the overwhelming publicity given to PayPal, the iKobo service never had its fair share of popularity, even though it darn well deserves it.

Here’s the link to the iKobo Website: www.ikobo.com

Hopefully very soon, I’m going to amend this thread by actually discussing the iKobo service and mentioning some of its most interesting features. I’m hoping that, using your opinions and feedback, we can decide whether this service can be a true alternative for PayPal. And who knows... perhaps in the mean time, one or two will find it useful as well.

And finally, just to make things clear, I’m in no way affiliated with iKobo.com. Well, I use their service, but I do not get paid by them – or by anyone else – for publicizing their service. I simply believe they provide a decent service, and wanted to share it with you, guys .

All the best...

If iKobo works for people, then I hope the service does well and offers great benefits to users. One question I have is: is it a free service for individual users, like PayPal?

Since I use eBay a lot, I'm basically tied to PayPal. And my employer pays through PayPal. But if I could use an alternative like this one, I would gladly check it out. Maybe in the future, as more alternatives pop up, PayPal won't be the major monopoly.

And have you tried eGold? I've heard that it's not bad, but never used it before. Same for StormPay.

I have made a couple of credit card purchases through iKobo, mostly to register shareware games. It worked; it was convenient. I don't know that there was anything particularly to recommend it, but there were no problems.

So far as e-Gold is concerned,they have employed a different type of system altogether. With e-Gold, your account balance is denominated in terms of gold and not in dollars. So it relies heavily on the price of gold and your account balance will fluctuate depending upon the price of Gold on a particular day. Therefore, it is better to cash-out from it as soon as possible if you want to avoid these fluctuations.

Now here is the second half of the story. You cannot cash-out from e-gold directly. They will give you gold instead. So to get cash, you have to sell your gold to an outexchange service provider and they will give you cash, either via check or any other e-currency after cutting a commission. You can cash-out from e-gold via OmniPay.
Here is the link to e-Gold.
And this is the link to OmniPay.
Regards,
Sid.

Had a look at the fees page:

https://www.ikobo.com/?scr=fees

I didn't quite understand all the fees, can you explain better?

Cheers

Hello, Berserker... I'll try to explain as much as I can ...

Here's what the Fees Page looks like:



So let's see. First, The Money Transfer Fees...

Let's say I'm going to send you $100 (assuming we both live in the United States). That means iKobo will charge me $108. Why? Because they take 3% of the amount sent, which in this case will be (3% x $100) = $3 PLUS a $5 transaction fee. So it'll be $100 (the amount I plan to send) + $3 (the 3%) + $5 (transaction fee) = $108.

About the Visa Electron i-Kard Fees... You see, i-Kard is basically a Visa Electron card. If you have used one of those before, or most any other credit card for that matter, you know that whenever you use it, you get charged a certain amount of money by the issuing bank. So that is what this section is all about .

Now, for the Card Shipping Fees, I suppose this one doesn't require much explanation. When I send you money, for example, iKobo will ship you an i-Kard (their fancy name for a Visa Electron card). But since this costs them money, they charge me, the sender, a fee for shipping. This fee depends upon where you, the receiver, are, as explained in their own words.

I hope that clarified things . If you have any more questions, please post them.

All the best.

What i would like to know is the interoperability level. Can I transfer paypal funds to I-Kard?

I really can't be sure, but after looking at basically every FAQ they have on their Website, and reading all I found on their policies and rules, I didn't anything that mentions any form of communication with PayPal.

About StormPay there is a problem right from the sign-up process, you need to have a paid email accout. I mean the regular free Yahoo!, Hotmail, Gmail, Rediff, Indiatimes, etc. email ID will not work for signing up. I dont know why, I think its because they dont want fraud.

Yeah well when I first signed up to eBay, naturally I also signed up to PayPal... but that's when the problems hit. I got so many issues with PayPal it wasn't even funny... I can't remember exactly what happened now but I remember my account was frozen and then unfrozen about three times, I actually lost my money from them in the end and they kept stuffing me around.

I too have tried iKobo, not much but enough to know that it is far better the paypal. There are actually a lot of people out there that, like me, very much dislike paypal. There's even a site: www.paypalsucks.com filled with horror stories and testimonials as to very bad experiences with paypal.

I sincerely hope that sometime in the future some of the other competitor companies take away PayPal's monopoly and give people a real opportunity to use a DECENT service.

Down with paypal!