Nov 27 2006
Be careful of pago
ASB have released a new service in NZ called pago (lower case intended) which allows you to make payments for goods using your sms with your mobile phone or by email. The site is clearly targeting a younger audience, even encouraging you to use your TradeMe or MySpace username as your pago login name. There’s even a ‘cool’ beta logo in the top corner. What’s worrying to me is that this service doesn’t seem too secure as if someone steals your mobile phone or gets access to your emails they will be able to steal your money and you won’t be able to do anything about it.
If this doesn’t sound like a good thing to you, be sure to read the terms and conditions to highlight how dangerous this service is. Note how many times it’s stated that if you lose money, you will not be refunded!
For example, you want to pay your friend $20 towards dinner, but you mistakenly enter their username wrong – you lose your money. No refund. No help from ASB. I really don’t think they are making the risks clear enough here, and I guess they are hoping that the younger crowd are more naive and that they won’t read the terms and conditions.
ASB needs to sort this out quickly.