At 11:08 AM -0800 5/3/97, Robert Hettinga wrote:
At 3:10 am -0400 on 5/3/97, Bill Frantz wrote:
Carlsen Subaru in Palo Alto has signs in their sales offices notifying people that their agreement with their bank prevents them from taking credit cards in payment for cars.
Hmmm. The operative concept in my paragraph was "peer-to-peer". I should have put "personally" in the last sentence, in between "you" and "sold", and it would have been much clearer.
By the way, back when I was pond scum in Morgan Stanley's cage in Chicago, American Express Gold Cards had just come out. About the first month they were out, a commodities trader showed up at a local Rolls dealership and offered to pay for a brand new Corniche with one.
The sales manager smiled, said "Yes sir", went to the phone, called Amex, and took the card.
Probably apocryphal, but, hey, it's a great story.
I'm sure things like this happen every day. As I mentioned just several days ago, I bought a Ford Explorer a few years ago and put it on my VISA card. A Corniche costs a few times more, but the principle is the same. How large a purchase a user can put on his card depends on two things: his credit line (and/or issuer policy) and of course the policies of the other party. For some, their limit is $500, maybe even less. For others, like "Gold" or "Platinum" or "Plutonium" card holders, the numbers are much higher. In my case, I can spend up to my maximum margin account borrowing level, currently at about 50% of the value of my margin account (my stocks, investments, etc.). So, I could use my VISA card to buy a geodesic dome in this geodesic economy. Not that I'd want to. --Tim May There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."