Following a trial earlier this year, Shell’s Fill up and Go service powered by PayPal is now available to all drivers at a Shell petrol station near you.
To use Fill up and Go, you’ll need to download Shell’s mobile app, which is available for Android and Apple, and link it to your PayPal account. Then next time you visit a Shell petrol station simply select how much you want to spend and scan the QR code at your pump from inside your car. Then just fill up and go.
This instantly sounded a bit dodgy to me, we’ve all seen the warnings, liberally sprinkled at every petrol station in the country, telling us how using our mobile phone would blow the whole site up. Shell have some specific instructions however – they tell you to stay in your car and scan the QR code displayed at the pump, then leaving your phone safely in the car, start filling up. Once you’ve finished, simply return to your car and the app will confirm the purchase and you can continue your journey. Fuel receipts will then be emailed to you.
Although this project was put in motion before PayPal split from eBay, it reveals something of the road PayPal would like to go down. What once was a handy way for eBay buyers and sellers to pay and be paid is now free to morph into an all encompassing payment platform which PayPal would like us to use in every aspect of our life. If there’s a payment to be made, they want to users to be able to pay with PayPal.
