[blintson]

While we're talking about currency, why hasn't anybody in the US(to my knowledge) made a payment processor that works by generating transaction numbers, and then sending those numbers instead of sending people payment authentication credentials?

Let's say George wants to give Sally $5.

1. George logs into his PayCo. account. He clicks generate transaction, amount $5. The server returns a very long randomly generated key. 2. He copy-pastes that key into Sally's pay-info server. 3. Sally sends that key to PayCo.'s server, money changes hands, and the key is no longer valid.

[mseebach]

I've thought about a similar idea, except in mine, you send a "locked" payment via email to the recipient, and give him a pin-code to unlock the payment. This allows for exchange of money in person (say, you're buying a used car from someone, and want to see and drive it before handing over the money, and don't want to carry the cash - neither party trusts each other to wire the money ahead of time or after).

The recipient can easily verify and claim the transfer using phone, SMS or online.

[tomjen3]

That is actually very close to how paypal worked in its original form.

Google for Money Beamer.

[forensic]

sounds like alertpay

but better