The proliferation of credit cards happened before the proliferation of the internet. How did credit cards work before the internet?

Question

The proliferation of credit cards happened before the proliferation of the internet. How did credit cards work before the internet?

In: 155

Answer 1

Back in the very early days, they were used manually – a cashier would write out the information by hand. Eventually they came up with an [imprint machine,](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTSrs-FFjm1cm_r40EmogcNPYJBwuyCtxzB-xAao1OOCwlNbOoNBj4fvypzXXL1CtcOuA8&usqp=CAU) so that they could fill out the amount on the form, imprint the credit card for verification, and then mail the form to the bank to get paid. And later on, credit companies would have dedicated phone lines, where they could call up and a representative would say “Yes, we will approve that transaction.” When I was a kid, they’d still do that on big transactions,

Eventually, they invented the magnetic stripe so that the information could be read digitally, and even before the internet was big, credit card machines would transmit this information to the credit company through the phone lines and have it verified. The internet makes it all faster, but there has always been a process!