Revolution Money Exchange - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
Last month I signed up for Revolution Money Exchange, a service similar to paypal for person to person financial transactions but without the fees paypal charges. Since then, I have used the service several times, and honestly, I have had mixed results with it. At this point, I think it shows promise, but it is not quite ready for primetime.
In the beginning, I transferred money out of my account on two occasions that I had earned via referral bonuses. The process to set up my bank account was easy, and I had it confirmed within a few days. These transactions went off without a hitch and things looked fine. The money was transferred to my bank account without any problems within 3 days. But that’s where the trouble started.
I then did some person to person transfers (those were fine) and then transferred more money out of my account. I initiated the transfer April 16th, and it was not completed until May 9th. I called several times to figure out what was going on, and no one really had any answers for me as to why the transaction wasn’t completed. The people on the phone were pleasant, and once it was finally cleared to go through, I got two calls from Revolution Money Exchange to let me know. That was nice, but I still don’t understand what the problem was. I do have the money in my bank account now, though. And it is nice that you can call them (you can email as well) and talk to a real live person on the phone. I appreciated that.
The last problem I had was transferring money into my account. I initiated a transfer into my account from my bank account so I could pay something instead of using paypal. But the transaction took much longer than it should have (over 2 weeks all told) so I ended up just using paypal to pay instead. That’s a weakness of RME - you can’t use a debit or credit transaction so you have to have the money already in your account. Even if the transaction took what it was supposed to, 2-4 days, you still have to plan ahead much more than you do with paypal. That’s a good and bad thing, I think. Planning to spend money can be good, but its never going to catch on for something like eBay or splitting the check for dinner like it advertises if you have to plan so far ahead.
So as I said - it has potential. But there are still problems and I’m not sure what exactly causes them, so I can’t get fully behind it and say I’m going to start using it exclusively. I did get a $25 bonus for signing up and I still have some $25 bonuses to give away, so if you want a $25 bonus, feel free to sign up for it. Currently the bonus offer expires tomorrow, it may be extended but I don’t know if it will be or not. Everything has been resolved to my satisfaction, I’m just not sure why there were things to resolve in the first place.
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May 14th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
I just tried to sign up this afternoon. There was some problem, however, and apparently my application is under review. I am still trying to figure out how they make any money. It seems like every transaction they offer (transfer money from a bank to them, transfer money to a friend, accept money from a friend, transfer money back to bank, etc.) is free. Maybe the only person they collect money from is a merchant who accepts payment through them, but that doesn’t seem like it would produce enough revenue for them. Does anyone know how this company makes money?
May 14th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
I had some concerns initially after signing up, because I couldn’t gain access to my account. After 10 days or so, I was able to login. (It wasn’t a password problem, I just kept getting an error. But having given out all my bank information, I was really nervous to see those problems so quickly!)
That said, I’m not yet had the opportunity to initiate any money transfers. I really appreciate the heads-up about the timing on that!
May 15th, 2008 at 1:39 am
I tried to sign up but as I live in France and don’t have an American bank account I’m not eligible. That’s the biggest potential pitfall that I can see- that it’s only available to US (and maybe Canada) residents.
May 15th, 2008 at 2:59 am
Interesting you bring it up, because I’m having problems with RME. I called them last night, and while it’s nice to get a live person, they didn’t really have a solution for me. Long story short - my name is on the account but it has my husband’s SSN (a mistake on our end).
They told me some possible solutions, but said they couldn’t promise it would work. Meanwhile, I have money coming in from referrals off my site.
Grrrr.