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PayPal + Slack = send money to colleagues with a 5-word command

This new Slack bot could make coffee runs easier among your office mates.

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Sean Hollister Senior Editor / Reviews
When his parents denied him a Super NES, he got mad. When they traded a prize Sega Genesis for a 2400 baud modem, he got even. Years of Internet shareware, eBay'd possessions and video game testing jobs after that, he joined Engadget. He helped found The Verge, and later served as Gizmodo's reviews editor. When he's not madly testing laptops, apps, virtual reality experiences, and whatever new gadget will supposedly change the world, he likes to kick back with some games, a good Nerf blaster, and a bottle of Tejava.
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Sean Hollister
2 min read

Workplace transactions can be complicated. (Will you remember to pay your co-workers back?) Here's a potential five-word solution to your money-shifting problem: the new PayPal bot for Slack.

If your org (or social group) uses the popular Slack workplace communications platform and you happen to have a PayPal account, it could be as easy as typing this into your Slack chat:

"/paypal send $5 to @John"

Sounds pretty easy, yes?

Of course, you'll also need to get the bot approved by your Slack administrator, as I just discovered when I tried and failed to install it at CNET. And both parties will need need to log into their PayPal accounts and allow Slack to use them for transactions.

Update, 3:41p.m. PT: Plus, it'll charge you a fee if you use a credit card: I had to pay a $0.45 surcharge just to send $5.00 to a colleague.

As of Tuesday, the PayPal bot for Slack only supports users in the US, UK, Australia and Canada, but you could also try the similar LydiaBot if you live in France.

Here are some other smart, digital ways to get people to pay you back.

And here's today's story about how Amazon Payments is slowly becoming a PayPal competitor.

And, because I'm on a roll, here's a story about Slack's new threaded messaging feature, which I'm using practically every day now.

By the way, did you know PayPal owns Venmo?

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