If anyone else is like me, they manage to build up a fairly large stack of useless ATM receipts in their wallets by the end of the month. Why do I keep requesting them? Who knows. Maybe I might need them one day?

But wouldn't it be nice if they just gradually disintegrated by themselves without leaving a trace.
-- grackle, May 11 2001

Or just drive your bookkeeper crazy like I do and throw everything...and I mean everything!....into a cardboard box under your desk. Then apologize profusely as she sorts through and promise to change your evil ways (it's a great way to get someone to organize your life and keep your bank accounts straight).
-- Susen, May 12 2001


Hmm. RodsTiger, I'm a pretty post-paper person, but I still keep recipts, *because* they're less ephemeral than an electronic record. The whole point of a receipt is to serve as evidence if/when something goes wrong in the bank's book-keeping. Physical objects are much harder to forge than electronic objects.

There are ways to get similar assurances using cryptography but banks can't be bothered.
-- wiml, May 13 2001


wiml, there really isn't anything difficult about forging receipts, it's just that the means to do it remain relatively inaccessible; security through obscurity, donchaknow. Anybody *could* fake a receipt for just about anything, right down to the missing carbon on the back of the signed master copy. It's just generally not worth the time or money.
-- absterge, May 14 2001


This would be completly useless - what if you needed to keep the receipts - they would disintegrate as well.

My thought is to make it harder to get a receipt - make "No Receipt" the default and make the user SPECIALLY ask for a receipt if they want one. What do you need a receipt for anyway? 95% of them get thrown away within 10 seconds. Mostly on the floor. What a waste. They should just scrap receipts from ATMs. (Note: IN UK we also have an option for "Mini-Statements", where ATM's will print a cut down version of a statement showing last 10 transactions - this is actually usefull, as you can see your statement days before it arrives in the post.)
-- CasaLoco, May 14 2001


Wouldn't you end up with a wallet full of dirt? They can't just disintegrate into nothing. Unless they turn into gas or energy, then your wallet wouldn't get dirty. Just gassy or hot.
-- PotatoStew, May 14 2001



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