Add this to the list of things I wish I had when I was growing up: a new shopping service called BillMyParents, where teens and tweens are urged to “Get Stuff Now! NO credit card required.”
The service is an online youth payment system in which the child shops at a site where BillMyParents is accepted. Once a purchase is selected, the parent is notified via e-mail by BillMyParents to either approve or deny their shopping requests. So instead of handing over your card, all you have to do is check the appropriate box in the e-mail. The parent’s credit card information is then processed through BillMyParents.
BillMyParents was created by Socialwise and is powered by Amazon.com.
The service is billing itself as a parental control measure, which ultimately it is, but only after your teen has loaded up the shopping cart online. It’s also one more alternative in a growing market aimed at tapping into teen spending power, which has seen a rise in efforts to market credit and debit cards to teens, as was reported in a recent article by DMNews reporter Lauren Bell.
