Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> I had always assumed that credit cards exist *because* of electronic 
> banking. :-P

Bank cards exist because of electronic banking.

Before electronic authorization, it was mostly things like cards for 
particular gas stations or particular stores. You didn't have "mastercard" 
or "visa" or (the original) "diner's club." You had "Exxon" cards or 
"Texaco" cards.

It was hard to go over your credit limit when gas was $0.30/gallon and 
that's all you could buy on the card. :-)

I never caught a bad card, and I think it only happened once or twice the 
whole time my Dad owned the gas station. Or, to put it another way, we got 
robbed more often than we saw bad credit cards.  I think you just either 
took the card away or refused to accept it, I don't know which. Most of the 
customers using cards were regulars anyway.

There were a bunch of other security features too. Like you couldn't swipe 
the same card twice, because the blanks were numbered and the gas company 
would turn it down, figuring you put two blanks into the machine and had the 
guy sign it. So when someone showed up with a fleet of trucks to get filled 
up, we had to change the date on the machine up and down so we didn't get 
turned down.

The best was when I handed the paper to the guy to sign, and he writes VOID 
across it. I'm like "Excuse me?"  He says "Look at the card."  Issued to 
Henry Void.  "Oh, very good Mr Void. Have a nice day."  I imagine he has a 
worse time than "Mr New" does with that sort of stuff.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   My fortune cookie said, "You will soon be
   unable to read this, even at arm's length."

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