From thug@phantom.com Sat Feb 27 20:56:03 1993 Try telling this to the person behind the counter when you're trying to rent a car, rent a hotel room for the night, or rent a mailbox for 6 months. These are examples of transactions that are *ongoing* and thus are *not* satisfied by an initial cash payment. When you rent a car or hotel room, the transaction does not finish until you have left and the room has been inspected. At my mailbox service, I can incur charges for all kinds of things (receiving COD packages, receiving faxen, etc.) during the term of my rent. The thing is, they never ask for ID if you're paying by credit card since they assume the credit card is enough proof of who you are. No, the credit card says they can recover damages if you trash the room. /jordan