Noosa businessman Rob Neely launches payment service Securely to stop online scamming

A savvy Noosa businessman believes he has created a solution to Facebook Marketplace and Gumtree scams that could rival PayPal.

Securely cofounder Rob Neely. Photo: supplied.

A savvy Noosa businessman says he’s rivalling the likes of PayPal with a new “world first” payment platform where people can make private online transactions without being scammed.

Noosa resident Rob Neely, 62, is the co-founder of online escrow service Securely where users can make quick, easy, and safe online transactions of private goods or services, such as through Facebook Marketplace or Gumtree, without being scammed.

The new platform, which launched in Queensland on Wednesday, worked by safely holding a payment between a buyer and seller before releasing the money into the seller’s pocket once the buyer received the item in its advertised condition.

Mr Neely said his service – regulated and audited by Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre – was a simpler, faster version of PayPal and was designed to put an end to countless people being scammed online.

“They’re ‘bank robbers’ behind computers,” he said.

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Before he got this idea, Mr Neely – former owner of a global animal health company, and large nightclubs in Melbourne – said he started working on an escrow service for the construction industry in 2020.

But rather than tradies and customers using it, the businessman said he discovered the wives of tradies used it to make safe private purchases.

He said he then looked into the shocking prevalence of online scamming, learning that nine of 10 online scam victims were scammed through Facebook or Instagram in 2021.

“There’s a huge problem out there,” he said.

Mr Neely said he began the “long” process of developing his new “world-first” private escrow service in November, 2021, saying he sunk a lot of time making it quick, independent for users, and as simple as “Airbnb”.

“No one has really thought about how buyers and sellers are protected,” he said.

He said he was rolling it out in Queensland this month and in Melbourne and Sydney next month. He said he was in talks about having it released in Singapore too.

While he had only just started, the savvy entrepreneur said he expected to facilitate 150,000 transactions worth about $375m this year, and 500,000 transactions worth $3bn by 2025.

Originally published as Noosa businessman Rob Neely launches payment service Securely to stop online scamming