April 21, 2009 - 8:32am
In December 2008 Socialwise, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of ideaEDGE, Inc., and developer of integrated e-Commerce payment solutions and social network group gifting platforms, launched BillMyParents payment system to allow kids to shop online, while enabling parents to track and maintain control of expenditures. Then in March 2009 it was announced that Socialwise has finalized the production version of BillMyParents. Though the system was tested before the launch it is still not available for the full usage. According to the official press release BillMyParents was scheduled to be integrated into several leading social network application publishers/developers and online web-based casual gaming companies that cater to the teen demographic within 60 days from March 24, 2009 when the press release was published. Meantime Ecommerce-Journal decided to check what BillMyParents offers now and obtain at least a general idea of how it works.
Interface
The system interface is simple without excessive and irrelevant embellishments. The site is powered by Amazon.com. On the central part of the site you can see a flash presentation of parents discussing shopping habits and desires of their children. On the upper menu bar there are five buttons including Home, Try it now, What is BillMyParents, Security and FAQs.
On the left in the middle part there is a Login menu for youngsters and on the right there is a Login menu for parents. No registration button can be found on the site.
System functionality
For now young customers who do not want to wait to try BillMyParents can purchase a gift card from several retail merchants. A user just selects a gift card and an amount, clicks the button to request payment by parent and then checks an approval email. Cards are available on amounts of $10, $25 and $50.
Registration
In order to create an account a young user needs to choose BillMyParents when making a purchase on a social networking site. Account is registered during the first transaction through BillMyParents. BillMyParents is currently available at social networking sites, such as Facebook.
Transactions
Transactions through BillMyParents are performed this way:
• A young customer shops online using BillMyParents payment system
• A parent is notified of the potential item to be purchased
• A parent approves or declines the purchase. Upon approval he/she enters his/her credit card information. His/her child never access the financial data.
In case a parent declines his/her child’s request a young user will be notified of the refusal. Apart from parents users can send requests to other people. But BillMyParents recommends to do it only by consent of his/her parents or legal guardian.
Purchases made through BillMyParents are not complete unless parents approve them and process the transaction. Payments for the bills presented by BillMyParents are not obligatory. It is parents who make the final decision.
Apart from being able to trace what exactly their children purchase parents can also see who else gives money to their offspring. When a parent logs into his/her account at BillMyParents he/she can see the names of all the people a child sent requests to.
Security
BillMyParents promises that credit card information entered by parents to pay the bill will not be anyhow exposed to doubtful merchants as they will not have access to it. BillMyParents claims to keep all the data private and besides it eliminates any risk of giving the credit card information to the children.
When you come to the website of BillMyParents you can notice at the corner of the address bar a yellow sign of SSL encryption which means that all the information provided through this website is protected. The certificate was granted by VeriSign which is also confirmed by the security label at the bottom of the webpage.
In addition BillMyParents is also PCI compliant. Though of course the latter cannot serve as an indestructible guarantee of security as we have already had chance to see PCI uselessness in practice.
Fees
BillMyParents charges $0.5 fee per transaction. There are no commissions for maintenance and sign up.
Conclusion
Well, the idea of creating a service that will allow parents to trace purchases of their children is actually original and interesting. Its main advantage is that in this case children cannot pay for the items they want without parents’ consent and thus they avoid debts on credit cards. But on the other hand young people come under more scrutiny of their family which may appear not very attractive to the teen groups. Still, any definite conclusions are premature as long as the service is relatively young and it so far is not run in its full operational capacity.
Interface
The system interface is simple without excessive and irrelevant embellishments. The site is powered by Amazon.com. On the central part of the site you can see a flash presentation of parents discussing shopping habits and desires of their children. On the upper menu bar there are five buttons including Home, Try it now, What is BillMyParents, Security and FAQs.
On the left in the middle part there is a Login menu for youngsters and on the right there is a Login menu for parents. No registration button can be found on the site.
System functionality
For now young customers who do not want to wait to try BillMyParents can purchase a gift card from several retail merchants. A user just selects a gift card and an amount, clicks the button to request payment by parent and then checks an approval email. Cards are available on amounts of $10, $25 and $50.
Registration
In order to create an account a young user needs to choose BillMyParents when making a purchase on a social networking site. Account is registered during the first transaction through BillMyParents. BillMyParents is currently available at social networking sites, such as Facebook.
Transactions
Transactions through BillMyParents are performed this way:
• A young customer shops online using BillMyParents payment system
• A parent is notified of the potential item to be purchased
• A parent approves or declines the purchase. Upon approval he/she enters his/her credit card information. His/her child never access the financial data.
In case a parent declines his/her child’s request a young user will be notified of the refusal. Apart from parents users can send requests to other people. But BillMyParents recommends to do it only by consent of his/her parents or legal guardian.
Purchases made through BillMyParents are not complete unless parents approve them and process the transaction. Payments for the bills presented by BillMyParents are not obligatory. It is parents who make the final decision.
Apart from being able to trace what exactly their children purchase parents can also see who else gives money to their offspring. When a parent logs into his/her account at BillMyParents he/she can see the names of all the people a child sent requests to.
Security
BillMyParents promises that credit card information entered by parents to pay the bill will not be anyhow exposed to doubtful merchants as they will not have access to it. BillMyParents claims to keep all the data private and besides it eliminates any risk of giving the credit card information to the children.
When you come to the website of BillMyParents you can notice at the corner of the address bar a yellow sign of SSL encryption which means that all the information provided through this website is protected. The certificate was granted by VeriSign which is also confirmed by the security label at the bottom of the webpage.
In addition BillMyParents is also PCI compliant. Though of course the latter cannot serve as an indestructible guarantee of security as we have already had chance to see PCI uselessness in practice.
Fees
BillMyParents charges $0.5 fee per transaction. There are no commissions for maintenance and sign up.
Conclusion
Well, the idea of creating a service that will allow parents to trace purchases of their children is actually original and interesting. Its main advantage is that in this case children cannot pay for the items they want without parents’ consent and thus they avoid debts on credit cards. But on the other hand young people come under more scrutiny of their family which may appear not very attractive to the teen groups. Still, any definite conclusions are premature as long as the service is relatively young and it so far is not run in its full operational capacity.
Comments
This is an interesting concept however it would help merchnants like us (fotoconnection) because we are only allowed to take orders from people over the age of 18
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