(MONEY Magazine) – For a long time, online auction sites made customers settle transactions with old-fashioned checks. But several companies recently began helping individuals send money over the Web, a service that should appeal not just to eBay junkies but also to parents whose college-age kids need cash to friends with a dinner tab to settle.

Our favorite is Bank One's eMoneyMail. Here is how it works: The person sending the funds registers at the site, www.emoneymail.com, and pays either with a Visa card (which is immediate) or through a checking account (which takes up to four days). In either case, the sender pays a $1 fee. When the money clears, an e-mail directs the recipient to the website, where he can have the money deposited in a Visa account (which would happen within four days) or a checking account (again, a four-day wait). Or--for a $1 fee--he can get a check in the mail. Neither payer nor payee has to spend more than a few minutes online. The limits: You can make only one payment a day, and the amount can't exceed $500. Another site we like, PayMe.com (www.payme.com), is free but offers fewer payment options.

We think two similar services fall short. Billpoint (www.billpoint.com), a joint venture of eBay and Wells Fargo, is limited to eBay transactions. Even worse, its standard fee structure--39[cents] for each purchase under $10 and 39[cents] plus 3.9% of the price for purchases over $10--means any transaction over $15.64 will cost more than with eMoneyMail. Meanwhile, PayPal (www.paypal.com), which bills itself as eBay's most popular payment service, has another shortcoming. Although the service is free, it requires recipients (eBay sellers) to set up a debit-style account.

--ART JANIK