Hi, this one's FAR off-topic, but I'm going to post it anyway. It's about making payments rather than about technology. However, I came across it while ordering a net5501, so it does have _something_ to do with Soekris.
The problem is that I don't like having my credit card nos. all over the place, so I asked Wim Vandeputte from soekris.kd85.com if I could pay through an escrow like Paypal, but Soekris Engineering doesn't do Paypal (which is probably a horribly expensive service anyway). I don't really like Paypal because they pay the seller immediately, and if I don't like the product, I'll have to contact and try to come to terms with seller directly. A company named Escrow.com (www.escrow.com) have a better formula, as their "How it works" explains: " How does it work? 1. Buyer and Seller Agree to Terms 2. Buyer Pays Escrow.com 3. Seller Ships Merchandise 4. Buyer Accepts the Merchandise 5. Escrow.com Pays the Seller What are the benefits? Escrow.com, an accredited escrow company, acts as a secure third party to protect the Buyer and Seller. How Buyers are protected: - Escrow.com tracks the shipped merchandise and verifies it was delivered. - The Seller isn't paid until the Buyer accepts the merchandise, or the inspection period expires. How Sellers are protected: - Escrow.com confirms when the Buyer receives merchandise. - The Seller is authorized to ship only after Escrow.com verifies good funds. " I don't intend to advertise for this or any particular company here. It just occurred to me that this way of making payments should be fairly easy to implement in a collective, Open Source environment. The key issue is trust, the financial side should be much less of a problem (basically all that is required is a computer and a bank account). Anyway, I hope I'll be forgiven for raising this issue on the soekris-tech list. It's intended as a hint for the Open source community, ans since The Open Source Community doesn't have an email adress, why not start here:) And I still feel that any host any of my my CC-nos. sits on is one too many (they're not even on any of my computers). Bill _______________________________________________ Soekris-tech mailing list [email protected] http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
