PayPay or PayPal or something…

[chrystalline]

A few days ago, there was an exchange on one of my YahooGroups (that was actually meant to be offlist, but whatever) and one member was expressing frustration because her attempts to pay for a seminar or class of some sort weren’t working. I mostly skimmed the post, assuming that it was a typo when she said she signed up for PayPay. Further messages in the thread indicated that, while she hadn’t typoed, perhaps the original poster had, because there really is a PayPay.com.

The whole thing made me very curious, so I checked it out. PayPay has been around since 2003, making it definitely younger than PayPal, and likely to be fully aware of the similarity. I suspect the only reason they haven’t been sued for it is the fact that they haven’t really caught on the way PayPal has. It’s not exactly typo-squatting, but it’s awfully close. They do comment on (and defend) the similarity, but I don’t think a court would buy it for a minute. Doesn’t matter, though, if they never become widespread.

So, I wanted to see what people had to say about PayPay. Unfortunately, Google thought I meant PayPal, and frankly, given how many of the links were people’s typos, it’s an understandable mistake. I did find one link where a poster commented on the typo, and I’m not entirely certain what s/he meant:

pgreen:
When I asked for paypay I just looked at your headline where you wrote paypay not realizing that this was just a spelling error.

While paypal is an approved payment method with all its pros and cons I would not recommend paypay (which is a payment service too). They seem to be dissolved letterbox company only and not so trustworthy at all.

Just thought I would mention it just in case anybody else is checking out paypay as I did … don’t want to talk down your shop which is a nice one …

When I Googled the term “letterbox company” I found a lot of links to mailbox manufacturers and retailers. I suspect that’s not what was meant, but I’m not sure what s/he did mean, and there’s not a lot of chatter on the subject of PayPay. If they meant that PayPay isn’t as big and corporate as PayPal, well, PayPal didn’t start out huge, either. I was looking for something in the line of PayPalSucks or AboutPayPal with regard to PayPay, because that would be a sign that it was not so good. This was only one person, who hadn’t used it, saying it looked bad.

The only other link I found that was actually about PayPay rather than PayPal was a blog post that essentially introduced PayPay, comparing it to other online payment systems in concept, but not so much the personal experience I wanted to find. Still, it was an interesting blog to find. I’ve been looking for alternatives to PayPal since the name-change debacle, and here’s a blog that covers the whole topic. Convenient, that. I shall have to add it to my RSS feeds.

At any rate, I haven’t decided what to think about this PayPay place yet. Maybe I’ll see what else is out there first.

Originally published at Chrystalline. You can comment here or there.