At 3:10 am -0400 on 5/3/97, Bill Frantz wrote:
At 10:07 AM -0700 5/2/97, Robert Hettinga wrote:
Yup. But the neat thing about them is they take pennies to clear, instead of quarters for paper checks. The other thing is, they're peer-to-peer. Credit cards aren't, remember? When was the last time you sold a car or house and took MasterCard in payment. :-).
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. The point is, you and I can't take Amex when we sell our used Honda off our driveway. We do, however take a certified check or cash. When we can sell our work over the net for checks and cash, the world better look out. :-). Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com), Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA Lesley Stahl: "You mean *anyone* can set up a web site and compete with the New York Times?" Andrew Kantor: "Yes." Stahl: "Isn't that dangerous?" The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/