[mlindner]

Because those were the days that you didn't trust a website enough to enter a credit card number. If you needed to give a credit card number you called a land line phone number listed on the page that took you to their sales department (or the one guy answering the phones who also worked as sales, tech support, and customer service).

[laumars]

That was true in the 90s but by the early 00s there were already a few online payment processors around. I remember using WorldPay a lot in around 2000 to 2004. PayPal came onto my radar shortly after, though even then I was aware it had been around for a while beforehand.

I vaguely recall there was another service like WorldPay, and possibly named similarly too, around that time.

I’ve been running websites since 1994 as well as a keen record collector in the early 00s so used to do a lot of transactions online. I can’t really remember how I payed for stuff online in the 90s, which leaves me wondering if it was all via phone. But I definitely remember using WorldPay sometime around 2000 as I recall being frustrated by the lengthy process (lots of questions, which in hindsight I should have been pleased they did thorough checks).