response 75 of 191:

Jan 21 20:36 UTC 1999

I would be willing to mail anyone an envelope with another envelope inside
it, stamped and addressed to grex, into which they could put $60 for the year.
And I could even return address it, just email me your address.  I think the
credit cards are more relevant for people really unable to pay cash or check,
and the question is are there enough of them to make it worthwhile.
(Which reminds me, I have to put my phone bill in the mailbox now).

response 77 of 191:

Jan 21 20:55 UTC 1999

So give the cash to some grex member that you see once in a while and have
them add it to their own check.
If there are five US grexers who want to pay by credit card, I propose that
they divide up among them the cost of the credit card service, and if the
credit card brings in overseas members who could not otherwise pay, they be
reimbursed out of that extra income.  That is, if the treasurer wants to go
to all this extra work.  It would, I think, require five extra members to
break even, is that right?

response 79 of 191:

Jan 22 02:37 UTC 1999

   I have become convinced that Grex needs to accept plastic, if we 
can manage it financially.  Asking for cash in the mails is a dangerous
idea.  Asking locals to give cash to others might work in some cases
but isn't a general purpose solution.

   For non-local people however, plastic becomes the tool of conveinence.
I will not be at all surprised if by saying we accept plastic, we get
some number of memberships simply because we're liked.  Users of Grex
who like us but are far away have only more problems getting monies
here.  Again, plastic becomes the tool of choice.

   This is not lost on me.

response 81 of 191:

Jan 22 02:42 UTC 1999

STeve slipped in - #80 was a response to #78.

I am not convinced we will get more money by accepting credit cards, but I am
willing to give it a try, and to try to assess, after a year or so, whether it
was worth it.

Someone needs to suggest a place to go looking for a merchant account, and
then someone has to shop around for the best one, and then someone has to fill
out the paperwork to get it going.

response 83 of 191:

Jan 22 03:25 UTC 1999

re: resp:73  No, you miss the point.  I live about 3 hours away from 
Ann Arbor.  I use my debit card for most transactions because of the 
convenience factor.  Mailing cash is just as inconvenient as mailing a 
check, and quite a bit riskier.  Your suggestion of giving money to 
another grexer to give to Mark has merit, but not in my situation.

There is a charitable organization in California to whom I occasionally 
make contributions.  I know the bookkeeper pretty well, and what I 
usually do with them is just leave a voice-mail for her saying to 
charge the number she has on file for <x> amount.  The same could be 
done with Grex: if Mark was willing to keep my card # on file 
somewhere, I could just respond to his email reminder when my 
membership nears it end by telling him how much to charge.  

I appreciate all that Mark, or whoever else takes over the treasurer's 
duties in the future, have to deal with, and I don't want to add an 
undue burden on them.  However, from the responses I have seen and my 
impressions of the way people deal with money today, I think accepting 
credit cards is almost a necessity today.

response 85 of 191:

Jan 22 12:02 UTC 1999

Does this imply that people will phone aruba with their credit card numbers
if grex accepts credit cards?

response 87 of 191:

Jan 22 15:54 UTC 1999

Currently we have 100 members.  They can be categorized as:

70 members within a local call of Ann Arbor
10 members elsewhere in Michigan
18 members elsewhere in the U.S.
 2 members outside the U.S.

I think it would be reasonable for the treasurer to accept credit card numbers
via e-mail, and I would be willing to get a PGP key and accept them encoded.

response 89 of 191:

Jan 22 19:29 UTC 1999

I agree that the phone calls would be a hassle and probably not a good idea.  I
won't send an unencrypted CC# through email, but would be happy to get PGP and
send it that way.  But to make the most advantage of accepting plastic we
probably would have to set up a secure server & a web interface...  How much of
a hassle would that be?  And for that matter, how much does Verisign charge? 
Just curious... 

response 91 of 191:

Jan 23 14:59 UTC 1999

I know someone with access to a SSL enabled server.  It probably 
wouldn't be that hard to write a simple form.  I don't know about 
encryption.

response 93 of 191:

Feb 3 06:43 UTC 1999

Can't we run SSL all by our selves?

response 95 of 191:

Feb 3 15:35 UTC 1999

        It may behoove you to consider that secure box at the same time
        you consider the mail-server box.

        Even unaware of the costs of dealing with a commercial-host, I'm
        sure they'll rape you twelve ways from sunday.

        Additionally, it might give impetus (sic?) to the "mail-server"
        gig once mentioned before.

response 97 of 191:

Feb 3 18:01 UTC 1999

([sic] is used to mark errors in quoted text that were present in the 
original (so that the reader won't think that the quoter is the person 
who made the error).)

response 99 of 191:

Feb 3 19:57 UTC 1999

sic is latin "so" or "thus". It does not necessarily mark an error, but
only emphasizes a literal quotation. Other than an error, it might
only emphasize an unexpected or unusual word use.