Paying Electronically

[Richard A Thackeray]

An odd fact/question
What was the first 'company', in the UK to use e-trading?

In this case, I'll use the term for the act of entering debit/credit card details online, without the need for an actual card 'swipe'/keypad, just as we all do now for a lot of reasons

I will state that it was in mid-1997
It surprised me, I will give you a clue, it is mentioned in one of my recent books, highlighted on here
I'd read it before, but forgotten the fact

 

[mjr]

In this case, I'll use the term for the act of entering debit/credit card details online

so excluding the previous generation of online shopping accounts that you charged up occasionally with cheques or bank transfer and giving a false answer.

 

[Brains]

1997 ?????
I think you are short by a decade at least.

I remember buying tickets to see Carmel in January 1987 via a card where you gave the card number over the phone and then picked up the tickets at the box office using the card as proof of purchase

The reason why I know the date is the date for the night was my future wife, and I had to borrow the card off my boss as his card permitted on line purchases and mine did not

 

[classic33]

1979

 

[Richard A Thackeray]

1997 ?????
I think you are short by a decade at least.

I remember buying tickets to see Carmel in January 1987 via a card where you gave the card number over the phone and then picked up the tickets at the box office using the card as proof of purchase
The reason why I know the date is the date for the night was my future wife, and I had to borrow the card off my boss as his card permitted on line purchases and mine did not

No voice. no speaking to anyone, no leaving a message on an answer-phone

I mean, typing the numbers, as we all do on Amazon, E-Bay, Ribble, Chain Reaction, etc......

 

[Milkfloat]

Was it Halfords per chance?

 

[classic33]

1985, Tesco.

 

[Brains]

My grandmother (in Hampshire) was buying items 'on line' in mid 1960's by making phone calls to Harrods, where she would order items and pay using a credit card, the items would then be delivered to my grandfather's work place in London for him to bring home the same night.

OK so there was no internet involved, but the principal was the same, remote ordering with remote electronic payment.

You could argue that the principal of remote order and payment goes back to the shipbrokers of the Roman era aranging Egyptian gain cargos ordered the previous year to arrive in Rome the following autumn, where the Captains would take the grain orders for the following year.