Tech Report: Dwolla Provides A New Way To Send Money Online
SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS)— There's another way to make money transactions online with a new company called Dwolla. The payment service company allows you to send money to others via Twitter.
In order to analyze how it works I had to sign up for an account and feed it a lot of my personal information, including a copy of my driver's license or passport, in order to verify that I was who I claimed to be. Then I fed them my bank information so that I can send people my money either directly through Dwolla's network, or with the new service via Twitter or Facebook.
It should be as easy as sending a tweet to request or to give money, but the sender and the receiver of the money both need to have a Dwolla account. That way everyone has gone through a verification process. So if you're concerned about being hacked, (a legitimate concern) at least you know that there will be a paper trail since everyone involved has an account with the company.
KCBS Tech Report:
Additionally Dwolla could presumably re-fund you for your loss and track down the culprit if you can prove that the transaction was in fact fraudulent.
Dwolla's fees are really reasonable and lower than PayPal, especially for smaller transactions. Plus they have simplicity and a number of ways to make transactions.
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