On Tue 03 Jul, Sally Manton wrote:

Judith wrote: <but we're now agenting them via the Hermit web site, so you can order them by credit card.>

<grin> thanks, Judith, but did I really want to spend over $100 before breakfast, I ask myself (actually, yes, I answer).

It was Australians whom I thought would find it most useful. As Joyce said, Americans usually have the option of paying in dollars cash for things, but this option simply isn't available for Australians as Aus$ don't have the same degree of tradability. (I can send a US$ virtually anywhere in the world and know it will have the same value as an International Reply Coupon and cost less to obtain)

Mind you, I'm less keen on mailing cash than I used to be. I used to be able to say that we'd never had any money lost in the post, but we did have some cash go astray from Europe a few months ago. The Hermit web site uses a secure server to handle credit cards and that's safer than cash (and also safer than e-mailing me the card number).

The death of the Eurocheque has been a real pain as a lot of Europeans used to pay that way. Now, credit cards are cheaper than buying International Money Orders and safer than mailing cash.

I'd seriously been considering getting a dollar bank account so that I can accept US dollar cheques, but the banks here charge a small fortune for running accounts in other currencies.

Judith