The new cashback app endorsed by Paypal that promises you money in return for shopping.
There’s a new app making the rounds, and public opinion on it seems to be split. If you’re on social media, odds are you’ve heard of it; people from all walks of life are posting and reposting links to the site, urging their friends to join them in making easy money.
The claim is that Dosh allows people to make money by spending it- join, sign up your credit or debit card, and get up to 10% of your cash back anytime you spend money at any one of the selected stores. Available on both Google Play and the App Store, this app has risen exponentially in popularity over the last few weeks. But the age-old question just won’t quit; is it too good to be true?
The app essentially works by making its users work for it. Anyone who signs up for Dosh and gets a friend to sign up makes money off of that friend, and so on. In theory, people using this app could make unlimited money if only they get enough people to join them.
In addition to this, the number of establishments that have partnered with Dosh are, for the most part, well-known and trusted agencies like Payless, Hilton, Walmart, Nike, and even Target. All you have to do is sign up a card, go shopping, and wait for the money to roll in– which it does, according to the rave reviews. So what’s the rub?
On the one hand, maybe there isn’t one. Paypal and Squarecash started out with similar systems, as proponents of the app are quick to point out. In fact, Paypal themselves recently invested $44 million in the startup.
Consumers are allowed to withdraw their information and cards anytime they want, and the company’s site, located at [https://www.dosh.cash/], is neatly laid out with reassuring explanations of why they ask for the information that they do, as well as assurances of anonymity and protection of their consumers’ details. There’s an excellent chance that this opportunity is as trustworthy as advocated.
On the other hand, maybe concerns are justified. At this time, there are no actual complaints of user information being misused. However, the app has certain other oddities about it that might raise concern.
For one thing, cash is actually not that easy to make. The number of institutions connected with it, at least for now, are very select, meaning that users are giving their personal information to a company that’s giving them few outlets in which reap the benefits.
Also, some users claim that the app declines cards connected to any other cashback services. In addition to this, Dosh recently changed its add-a-friend policy; while it used to be that users could make money through merely adding a friend to their payline, now it appears that that friend also has to spend money for the original user to make any off that friend.
This adds up to a lot of people spending potentially a lot of money for them to get just a little bit of cash back. And across the board, users are inevitably concerned at the prospect of giving an app their most personal information, especially an app that has yet to be evaluated by most accrediting companies.
Dosh is still a relatively new app. Many internet users- most of them “influencers” with a large group of people signed up under them- rave about the app, promising cashback with no strings attached and echoing user’s concerns about privacy before reassuring them that they need not worry.
The app’s selling point is most definitely Paypal’s investment, which promises assurance through the threat of public pillory should Dosh turn out to be a scam. Still, though, many consumers, particularly older people, are unlikely to use the app; a mother’s worried voice is telling you as a child to “never put your information on the internet” rings out through the years, indefinitely stalling people from clicking that button.
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
