PayPal’s mobile app may well be useful in many different situations, not only for making purchases, but for sending other PayPal users money without using a check, money order, or credit card. Version 3.2 of PayPal Mobile includes some very useful features for making monetary transactions. I will show you how I set up my iPhone to use the app.  Please note however that a lot of these features may be US only.

Setting Up Your Mobile Device

In this article, I‘m of course assuming that you already have a PayPal account and are familiar with using it. Before I describe the PayPal Mobile features, I want to suggest that you add the following PayPal information to your address book on your mobile device.

• Add the PayPal customer service number: 1-800-427-9725.
• Add a second number/code for text messaging PayPal—729-725.
• Add the rolbe.com/paypal.html – a PayPal calculator site I will talk about later.
• Add “spook@paypal.com” – the email address you use to forward any fraudulent email messages you receive pretending to be PayPal.

PayPal Mobile Features

Text Messaging PayPal

What you may use PayPal Mobile the most for is keeping tabs on the balance of your account. You can do this two ways on your mobile phone. You can of course access your account from any Internet connected web browser. You can also actually send PayPal a text message and they will send you back the balance of your account.

To do this, you simply send a text message to 729725, and type BAL or BALANCE. You can use the same text message number for sending and requesting money.

You can use this same text message feature for sending or requesting money to or from someone (who has a PayPal account.) To send money, simply type, “Send [dollar amount] to [recipient’s phone number or email address]“. To request money, type “Get [dollar amount] from [recipient’s phone number or email address]“.

Sending the text message, “help” will get you these and additional instructions.

To use text messaging with PayPal, go into your account, click on the Profile tab > Add or Edit Phone Number. You will need to link your mobile phone number to your account to receive the text messages.

Using The PayPay App

With the latest version of PayPal Mobile, you can now use a 4-digit PIN number (instead of your account password).

Other Features

Similar to using SMS for sending or requesting money, the PayPal Mobile app includes dedicated buttons on the app’s home page for making the same type of transaction.

I haven’t tested it out yet, but there’s also a Bump feature that enables you to physically bump your supported smartphone with another smartphone (with the mobile app installed on both phones) to make a money transaction.

Lastly, if you’re out with a group of people, say at a restaurant, and you want a way to split the bill, you can use your PayPal app to not only configure how much each person should pay, but you can send or request payment from them using your PayPal account.

So how much does all this money exchanging cost, you’re probably asking. Well, I‘ll quote PayPal directly:

It’s free within the U.S. to send money to family and friends when you use only your PayPal balance or bank account, or a combination of their PayPal balance and bank account.

There is a fee to send money as a personal payment using a debit card or credit card. The fee in the U.S. is 2.9% plus $0.30 USD of the amount you send. For example, if you send $100.00 USD by credit card, the fee would be $3.20 USD ($2.90 + $0.30). For personal payments, the sender can pay the fee or pass it on to the recipient. If the recipient doesn’t want to pay the fee, they can choose not to accept the payment.

Now if you’re wondering how much will be deducted from a credit card payment using PayPal, you can use the PayPal Fee Calculator that I referenced above.

PayPal Mobile also includes numerous other services such as the ability to snap a photo of a check and cash it via your PayPal account – it takes about five days for the transaction to complete. As with the online version of PayPal, you can also use the mobile app for sending donations, collecting money from a group of individuals, and setting reminders for yourself.

Based on my experience, I‘ve found PayPal to be a safe and secure way to send and receive money. Occasionally I will get fraudulent email pretending to be PayPal, but I simply forward those messages to PayPal.

So let us know what you think of PayPal’s services. Do you use the mobile app, and if so how is it working for you?

For more information about PayPal, see How To Use PayPal Mass Payment Feature, and How to Keep Your PayPal Account Safe From Hackers.

Image Credit: Shutterstock.com

With American Express behind the new service, you should probably expect to see lots of online services making Serve payments the newest option, with Ticketmaster, Concur and Flipswap amongst their first partners. Serve could potentially be the first company to pose serious competition for Paypal, a popular service that hasn’t been without its share of negative publicity. While Paypal does have a leg up on Serve when it comes to some of the service charges on transactions, there is something to be said for having another solid option for online transactions.

After signing up for the free service, you can then link your Serve account to your bank using your bank account number, your credit card number or even the last four digits of your social security number. Once your bank account has been verified, you will automatically receive a Serve card in the mail.

As with Paypal you can add funds to your Serve account from your bank account or credit card, and can also withdraw funds into your bank account. One of the major differences between Paypal and Serve is that, while you can add funds to both services using bank transfers or a debit card, with Serve, you can also add funds using your credit card. That extra service does come with a fee of 2.9% + 30 cents. That said, Serve will not begin charging a fee for credit card funds for another six months. ATM withdrawals with your Serve card will be charged at $2 per transaction, with one free transaction per month, as opposed to Paypal’s $1 per transaction.

Signing up for Serve gives you several payment options all in one account, including person-to-person (P2P) money transfers, mobile payments, in-store card payments and online transactions. You can also access your Serve account on the go with their free iPhone and Android apps, allowing you to send, request and receive money no matter where you are.

While Serve is currently only available for US bank accounts, if and when they begin to expand geographically, Paypal may lose some business.

Are you going to sign up for a free Serve account? Would you be willing to abandon Paypal in favour of the new American Express service? Let us know in the comments.

Addressing the some of the downsides of Paypal, other businesses have ‘stepped up’ to provide their own payment services. They range from smaller startups to well established players throwing their hat in the online payment arena. Mostly the service that would work best for you depends most upon what you actually use online money transfers for. With Paypal, many people only use a certain aspect of it while never touching others. Let’s go over a few of these online payment services and check out the differences and why you might use one over another.

1. Venmo

Venmo is a Philadelphia-based startup in the mobile payment arena. Starting as a cell-phone based payment system, you can also send payment or a bill to a friend whom you have already connected with or to any cell phone, email address or twitter handle.

Much like Paypal, you carry a balance and your payments or charges credit and debit that balance. You add more funds by linking a credit card or bank account and Venmo uses bank-grade security throughout the transaction process.

Venmo started as a “Friend” payment service but you can also sign up as a business as long as you have a cell phone to coordinate payments. For Friend-to-Friend transfers there is no fee. Staff writer Steve is already a great fan of Venmo and I have seen its use expanding to more and more people.

Venmo is still invite-only but they were kind enough to set up a special invite code for MakeUseOf readers. Use ‘makeuseof‘ while signing up to gain access instantly.

2. Amazon WebPay

Amazon released their payments service back in 2008. Originally meant for merchants, they have also added a “personal” aspect to it named WebPay where you can send or receive money online or via cell phone. The Amazon Payments/Personal website has more details on the requirements for signing up.

3. Google Checkout

Google Checkout is definitely aimed at merchants more than anyone else. It takes the payment portion out of the transaction so that you simply send a buyer of your products to a checkout page which is powered by Google Checkout. When on that page, a buyer will enter their payment information – and then be sent back to your site with a confirmation of purchase.

4. Skrill / Moneybookers

Moneybookers is widely known as a replacement to PayPal which is also more international-friendly than some of the other providers. Moneybooks is beginning a transformation to Skrill – a rebranding and refocusing of their payment platforms. Their rates are usually cheaper than PayPal, but then again less people use it so that is the tradeoff you have. I’ve heard of a lot of folks turning to Moneybookers when PayPal has crossed them and they are mostly happy with their move.

5. 2Checkout

2Checkout is a payment processor which acts as a “middleman” between you (as a seller of items or services) and the payer. 2Checkout can accept credit cards, checks, and even PayPal itself as a form of payment but ads a management layer as well handling the whole checkout process. I’ve seen many merchants using 2Checkout as a payment provider on eBay stores as an alternative to PayPal. There is a $49 signup fee; so this is mainly meant for those with some higher volume sales and not casual transactions.

6. Traditional Merchant Accounts

Finally on the ‘merchant’ end again, you can do what other businesses have been doing for decades and apply for a real merchant account. Having a merchant account gives you, with the use of a payment processor such as Authorize.Net, the ability to accept credit cards directly. There are some downsides to this. There is often a monthly fee that the other providers above to not charge, and you must be PCI compliant which is a whole other issue. However if you perform a lot of transactions and need to integrate a payment solution into your own shopping cart or system, then this is the only way to go.

Ask your local bank about merchant accounts, alternatively there are a ton of options available online (check Google) but frankly there are so many options it is hard to tell from the web which will work for you. Ask your friends for recommendations and do your homework to make sure you are going with a reputably provider (I’ve used BluePay, and they have been good but fee-expensive).

Which One Is For Me?

The answer to this question depends a lot on how you use the online payment service. If you simply transfer money between friends – as a sort of IOU – then Venmo would definitely be my recommendation. If you are selling items to ‘strangers’ they might be put-off by Venmo simply because they are not well known, and in this case going with a bigger name such as Google or Amazon may work best. Finally if you are a high volume merchant or just do a lot of business, it would be wise to evaluate the other options to see what works best with you.

Do you have any other recommendations for PayPal alternatives or experiences with the ones above? Let us know in the comments below!

Image credit: Shutterstock

We had no idea we would save quite so much by using this method. And because we know other people will benefit from using the bulk payment option, we felt we had to spread the word. We know here’s a lot of people out there making online Paypal wage payments and possibly paying unnecessary fees.

So this is what Mass Payment is all about.

Typical PayPal fees within the same country are 1.9-2.9% + USD$0.30. When you cross borders, international PayPal fees can creep up to 3.9% + USD$0.30. So, a payment for US$100 could wind up with a fee of US$4.20, which normally gets paid by the receiver. A much smaller fee is applied to Mass Payments. Any online freelancers getting paid a full-time wage this way will surely have noticed the significant impact of these fees on their final wage. But, they’re completely unnecessary – we just need to get the people making payments to update their ways.

By the way, don’t get too cranky with PayPal for these fees. Ever seen the fees banks charge to make international transfers? PayPal are really just passing on bank fees and other processing fees to do with single payments. You’re no doubt saving PayPal money too by suggesting your boss make Mass Payments.

So, let’s talk it through step-by-step so you can simply hand your boss this article and they’ll know exactly what they need to do. While you’re there, mention that by using Mass Payment their accounting records will be much easier to navigate.

Firstly, the sender will need to have a verified PayPal Premier or Business account. It’s easy to upgrade an existing account to Premier or Business, but it does require verifying the email address and bank account used with the sender’s PayPal account.

Secondly, the sender will need to ensure they have sufficient funds in their PayPal account. Credit cards can’t be used for Mass Payments.

Mass Payments can be made to any email address – if a recipient doesn’t have a PayPal account using that exact email address, the address can be easily added to an existing PayPal account. So, all the sender needs is to know the email address and how much they want to send. Senders should also note that all payments in a Mass Payment need to be made in the same currency as each other.

The sender needs to create a tab delimited file containing the email addresses, currency and amounts to be paid. From Excel, this is something you can create easily by saving as “Text (Tab Delimited)”. Put email addresses in the first column, payment amounts in the second column and the currency code in the third column (see PayPal for the codes). An optional fourth column lets you put in some sort of identifier for each person for your own accounting records. Another optional fifth column allows you to send a personal message to that recipient.

To access Mass Payment, click the “Mass Payment” link at the bottom of the page when you’re logged in to PayPal.

This takes you to an overview of Mass Payment, including guides, fees, codes and examples. Click on “Make a Mass Payment” to get started.

The Mass Payment file upload is straightforward and easy to use. It’s simple to add a generic subject and body to the email sent with all payments. Note that it’s also possible to use the PayPal API to send Mass Payments, so if you’re a larger company (or you just prefer automation) there’s that option available to you as well.

Mass Payments are processed instantly and available for recipients to use or withdraw immediately.

A word of caution: Ensure your recipient is trustworthy and has fulfilled their service or delivered their goods because PayPal Mass Payments can’t be cancelled.

If the recipient has a personal PayPal account in the same country as the sender (and the sender is not using a credit or debit card to make the payment), sending payments to them is free the regular way. If the recipient has a Premier or Business account, or they are in a different country to the sender, the fees are lower with a Mass Payment. With regular payments, the sender can choose whether to pay the fees or let the recipient pay them, however with Mass Payment the sender must pay the PayPal fees. So, discuss with the recipients which method is best before you send a Mass Payment.

If you use PayPal regularly, check out these other MakeUseOf articles on Paypal:

• 9 Tools PayPal Users Should Know About
• How To Keep Your PayPal Account Safe From Hackers
• PayPal Fee Calculator

If you’re making regular international PayPal payments to people who you know you owe money to, this is definitely the way to go. Get set up now and save your team money!

Well we felt that we were missing out on showing our Blackberry users a little love. So here, without further ado, is a list of 6 free Blackberry software applications to download and install that will essentially trick out your mobile phone and make it do what you want it to do.

I tried very hard not to include any of the free Blackberry software we already covered here in this post from Grant.

The first application we will cover is the free Blackberry Kindle software. The free Kindle application can be downloaded first to your computer or over the air on your Blackberry via this link. You will be able to link to your Amazon account and any eBooks you have already purchased as well as being able to buy paid and free books via Amazon as well.

This is a nifty feature to add to your Blackberry, essentially making it a eBook reader. Nice!

Next up is an application called StockView and as you can guess it displays NYSE (New York Stock Exchange) and NASDAQ quotes. There are loads of stock applications for the Blackberry but most of them are either charging $29.99 for the application or a monthly fee. This application is totally free (at least for now). The site lists it as a trial but it will work indefinitely.

Now let’s make your Blackberry into a powerful money sending/accepting machine.  Paypal has provided an application via the Blackberry Appworld Store that allows you to log into your Paypal account and view your balance, check your history and send money. This is very cool stuff! Check if that payment came in right on the spot before you continue working”¦

You can download it via this link.

And of course if you have full access to your PayPal account why not your eBay account as well?

Well from the eBay App for the Blackberry you can pretty much do anything you can do directly on eBay’s website without having to be in front of a computer! No more waiting around for that auction to end and you can search auctions on the go!

Now how about having the power of Directory Assistance without having to make a phone call? The application is called Beyond411 and can be downloaded from here.

I first saw this on the iPhone and it looked great. Beyond411 is  a service for information that goes one step beyond basic 411 information. It allows you to drill down and find what you are looking for.  You set your location so it returns local stuff and it goes on to provide, in addition to the directory searching on Yellow Pages, support for maps, driving directions and white pages.

The last application, and certainly not least worthy, is a program called WorldMate Live. WorldMate Live has a free and a paid version. The free version allows you to view and modify your travel itinerary, see world clocks, weather forecasts and there is even a currency converter in there.

Consider this a traveler’s best friend or assistant. It will hold your information down so you don’t lose or misplace it. You can go Gold (paid) to have flight alerts and status automatically updated on the go. All in all, after using this application, I don’t know how to travel without it.

Did I leave out your favorite free Blackberry application? Well than hit us up in the comments!