Paypal Wishlist – Is It A Scam???

Is the facebook application Paypal Wishlist a SCAM?

Get invited to Paypal Wishlist and Earn up to $100

I was trying to figure out if this is a scam or not. Probably you are doing the same thing and investigating if this is really true or not.

Well, for one, the owners of Facebook will not approve this Paypal Wishlist application if it is a scam. The owners of Facebook would be in very deep trouble if any of their applications are associated with a scam. They will lose big time and share prices would drop dramatically should that happen.

Secondly, why would paypal pay $1 for each person singning up for paypal wishlist? Because statistically, a certain percentage of your facebook friends does not have paypal yet.  And if they can get people to sign in and start using paypal, they earn.   I’ve been using paypal for quite some time now and every time I receive a payment, they get a certain percentage for fees.   And the fees are not cheap.  Definitely more than $1.

Plus they probably earn whenever I withraw money to my bank account.  I think they also earn from  forex conversion.  My paypal account is in dollars but once I withdraw money, they convert it to peso and send it to my peso bank account.  For sure, the money they spent here is nothing compared to the new “business” they will get through new paypal users.  And since they used word-of-mouth adversiting via facebook,  they do not need to invest heavily in traditional tri-media outlets (TV, Print Ad, Radio).

Part of the eligibility requirement is

3. be at least of 18 years of age, and have a PayPal account with a valid registration address in relation thereto located in India, Thailand, Malaysia, Korea, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia or Singapore (“Eligible Countries”);

I remember paypal having an affiliate program in other countries. I guess now, paypal is targeting the asia pacific region to be the dominate payment system.

The promo begins at 00:00:01 Singapore Standard Time (“SST”) on November 16th, 2009 and ends at 23:59:59 SST on December 31st, 2009 (“Promotion Period”).

I like their promo because they are in a sense, using the “viralness” of social networks to promote paypal. You get rewarded too for sharing it with your friends.

In addition, share the PayPal WishList with your friends via Facebook, and for each friend who downloads and creates his or her own PayPal WishList from your invitation, we will pay you an additional $1 USD (up to the maximum total sum of $100 USD per PayPal account).

Quick! Get me into the Paypal wishlist program and Earn up to $100

Note:
If you reside outside of the Eligible Countries, you may be permitted to download the PayPal WishList; however, you will not be eligible to participate in this Promotion. Additionally, you will not be entitled to receive an additional US$1 or cash back for those PayPal WishLists created by a person(s) outside of the eligible countries, even if the sum stating ‘you’ve earned’ on your Facebook page may indicate otherwise. This means that at the end of the Promotional Period, you may be entitled to less earnings than stated on the ‘you’ve earned’ counter on your Facebook page.

So again, the eligible countries are India, Thailand, Malaysia, Korea, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia or Singapore.

Lastly, I know this is a genuine promo and not a scam because in the main paypal login screen, I see this.

I’ve highlighted in red the paypal wishlist. This is a screen capture of paypal.com as seen from my computer. Note the country flag at the upper right.   If you are visiting paypal.com and you are not in one of the eligible countries, you will probably not see the paypal wishlist promo.

So what are you waiting for! Quick! Get me into the Paypal wishlist program and Earn up to $100