You bid on online auction items without leaving the warm glow of your computer. Now you can also pay for the items with the mere click of a mouse.
BidPay.com is a service for buyers who want to purchase money orders online to pay for their auction items. Normally when you are notified by a seller that you are the high bidder, you must write a personal check or else go to the post office or bank for a postal order (80 cents) or money order ($3 or higher). You must inform the seller that you have sent payment, and then you must send the check to the seller (33 cents postage and the cost of an envelope).
BidPay.com offers a service in which you can purchase a money order on its Web site with your credit card. BidPay.com notifies the seller that payment from you is on its way and sends the seller the money order, deducting a fee from your credit card. So all you have to do is sit back and wait for your item to be delivered to you.
The first question I had when I heard about this service was why would I pay $5 when I can get a postal order from the post office for 80 cents? BidPay.com's answer: speed and convenience.
BidPay.com charges $5 for transactions up to $100 and claims to save the customer at least half an hour of their time. It also claims that many sellers ship the items to the buyer upon notification from BidPay.com that a money order has been purchased and sent, thereby speeding delivery of the purchased item by as much as a week.
If the item you are buying costs more than $100, BidPay.com charges buyers 2.25% of the item amount plus $5. At this time, it only offers services for items costing up to $500. Sellers do not pay any fee to BidPay.com. It supports major auction sites including eBay, Yahoo and Amazon.com.
Most BidPay.com customers are private individuals - about 80%. It also has a large number of clients with disabilities as well as U.S. customers who live abroad and people in the armed forces stationed in other countries.
Do not confuse BidPay.com with an escrow service - it is not one. You are paying BidPay.com only for delivery of a money order to the seller. You have the same risks as you do when you send payment yourself. Marek Bradbury of BidPay.com told us that, although they are not responsible for the items being purchased, "On a very few occasions we have banned a seller from using our services when we feel they mislead one of our buyers."
BidPay.com would not give me the names of any users because of their privacy policies. It states that the largest purchaser has used its service 170 times, and its largest seller has had over 400 orders completed. BidPay.com is privately owned, so I can not verify any information given to me. I would always advise people to use caution in giving out credit card numbers over the Web. Use your own judgement about using this service.
If you have used BidPay.com, why not post a message in our Chat Forum to share with other readers.
NOTE:
At press time, BidPay.com notified us that they would be launching a new Web site with weekly contests, image hosting and other tools for sellers. We'll keep you posted.
About the author:
Ina Steiner is Editor of AuctionBytes.com and author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). She has a background in marketing and research in the high-tech and publishing fields. If you have story ideas, comments or questions, send them to ina@auctionbytes.com.
