Dwolla... Any opinions?
 

Dwolla appears to be a PayPal type site that is far cheaper than PayPal.

Anyone use this and have an opinion? A friend of mine asked about it and I am not in a position to comment, but I told him there were people here who might be able to and they would give opinions he could trust.

Pros and Cons anyone?

I haven't used it but it's interesting.
pro: very low fees. A quarter.
con: who accepts their payments? Hardly anyone.

I signed on with PayPal when they were about this size. Nobody'd heard of it, they were giving new signups 10 bucks just to join. I've never had an issue with PP but sure don't like their fee structure.
Looks like Dwolla is growing. For now it appears that it might be worth testing if you have someone else with whom you frequently exchange money. Shopping online? Not so much.

I just signed up based on your posting. I like what I see in their profile data and seems to be something that will catch fire very quickly.

I have also been with paypal for ages, almost from their very beginning. I see an acquisition in the works and a big payoff for Dwolla.

Its always good to have alternatives.

How much personal information did they require? Like opening a bank account?

name, email, U.S. phone, physical address and SS number to verify your existence as a real person. They claim they do not pull credit. You have to connect to a funding source before actually sending any $$, but not to set up your account. I'm going to set my son up as well. If I refer him we both get ten bucks worth of transfer credits. At .25 apiece, that's 40 transfers for free. Then we'll do some tests sending a few bucks <$10 back and forth to test the timing.

Doing some reading, one of their principal investors is Veridian Credit Union of Iowa, the largest CU in the country.

Unless I need to borrow money from a bank or setup a new account at a bank, nobody gets this number.

Way to risky to be providing such a number to an unknown entity via the Internet, IMHO.