I suppose this could be in Consumerwatch, but it's more by way of a general enquiry.

As a further aspect to the recent thread on bank cards, last week I put an anniversary notice in two local papers and one national (Golden Wedding – is it really half a century since we suddenly looked at each other and wondered what the hell we had got ourselves into?).

I was amazed to find that while you could place the announcement on-line, or by letter, none of them had any facility for payment other than credit/debit card over the telephone.

No secure website, no cash, no cheques, no bank transfer, just a card number over the phone was all that was acceptable

As I have difficulty with the phone this really was a problem.

In the end I reluctantly resorted to sending my card details in an ordinary, unsecured, e-mail, though I suppose it was only marginally less secure than an open phone signal.

Can anyone explain why that should be in this day and age?

After all I could probably transfer funds to half the members of this forum via PayPal or even straight BACS, so why not a commercial organisation business to make money.

I could understand one local rag living a bit in the past, but two (different publishers) and a national daily?

I suppose there must be a reason, but I can’t for the lief of me think what it might be.