(not to mention we’re all broke anyway. like other than that salient point. ;P I don’t even know who I’d ask to borrow money from, just the mechanics of long-distance money transfer when you haven’t got a bank account are really very frustrating)
Could you do a workaround with gift cards?
This is easier with places like Amazon, who explicitly support emailing store credit to people, but even some corporeal stores have setups that allow for transfers over the Internet.
Consider the following scenario:
Step 1: Alice, who lives in Ontario, goes to her local Tim Hortons restaurant and buys the lowest-denomination gift card available (probably $5).
Step 2: Alice goes to the Tim Hortons website and creates an account.
Step 3: Alice types in the long string of numbers on the back of her gift card, and the shorter string of numbers hidden behind scratchcard-like material on the back of the gift card. This registers the card to her account, granting it theft protection and–more importantly, in this case–the ability to transfer credit between one card registered to her and another.
(If Alice already has a registered Tim Hortons gift card lying around, she can skip Steps 1 – 3.)
Step 4: Bob, who lives 2000km away in Alberta, goes to his local Tim Hortons restaurant and buys a $20 gift card.
Step 5: Bob emails/IMs/communicates to Alice the two strings of numbers on his card.
Step 6: Alice registers Bob’s card to her account.
Step 7: Alice transfers the credit on “her” second card to her first card. Bob has now given Alice $20.
I don’t know if you have any gas station chains (or other stores selling stuff you need, but I gather you’re in particular need of gasoline atm) nearby with that kind of gift-card system, but it might be something to consider.
Tags:
#reply via reblog #I know this post is a couple days ago but this just occurred to me this afternoon #(the following category tag was added retroactively:) #adventures in human capitalism
Brinens and Things 