iKobo Company Background
From Ikobo Website :
Quote:
"Our goal is to make people's lives easier." - Founding vision of iKobo
Two immigrants who understood the difficulties involved in sending and receiving money internationally founded iKobo in January 2001. Two successful years later, iKobo Money Transfer is now the fastest growing money transfer company in the world - experiencing an exponential growth rate.
From the beginning the founding principles of the company have been:
Cost - Providing a valuable service at a fair price to the consumer.
Convenience - Allowing the customer to quickly and easily send money, while instantly receiving cash the moment it is sent.
Customer Service - Commitment to educating the consumer, providing live telephone support, and dedicating all available resources to ensure piece of mind when sending and receiving money. Our customer service philosophy is catering to one customer at a time.
The iKobo Money Transfer platform is designed to be the most secure platform in the world in order to prevent fraud and ensure that every customer transaction is protected. You can feel confident that your money is safe with iKobo.
The iKobo Team
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Not much information is revealed, other than a feel-good description that can be best characterized as "glittering generality". The lack of information is a recurring theme across the iKobo website; in many cases, two seemingly different aspects of the site, such as "What is iKobo and How Does it Work?" and "FAQs", are identical.
The concept of iKobo’s service appears to be very similar to that of PayPal, its closest targeted competitor. iKobo’s system differs from PayPal in that the receiver is sent an i-Kard. The i-Kard is a VISA Electron/Interac card, which the recipient of funds may then take to a bank machine and make an ATM withdrawal. Because this is a VISA Electron card, it may also be used to purchase goods and service online; the recipient may alternatively elect to send money via his/her own i-Kard to other iKobo users.
The fees for iKobo services are very similar to PayPal’s; 4% ($2.00 minimum) is deducted for each person-to-person transaction, and 2.9% + $0.29/transaction is charged to merchants. Unlike PayPal, there is an additional $1.50 deducted for each ATM withdrawal and no mention of a sliding scale based on volume for merchants.
Delivery options for the i-Kard vary in price; for many countries in Europe, the i-Kard may be shipped free of charge via express delivery. However, countries such as the United States and Canada, an express delivery charge of $9.95 applies.
IKobo accepts VISA and MasterCard, but not debit card or banking information.
iKobo caps customer sending and receiving at $200 USD per month; however, these limits may be raised at the request of the iKobo user if said user sends copies of various documents to iKobo (such as a driver’s licence, utility bill, or note from a chartered bank indicating the customer’s account is in good standing.) No explanation is given as to the usage of this additional information and why it is required.
