My first half-bake so be gentle. Inspired (just like everything else that is good in the world today) by bash.org: http://www.bash.org/?98419
The Concept: Form a web & brick-mortar company (I recommend we call it "Strip-Pay") that allows people to securely setup automatic bill-payments online at say, www.strip-pay.com, just like any decent bank or credit card company. Well almost.
The Twist: Users don't have to give their bank account to Strip-Pay for the bills to be paid. They have to give cash. In person. Sounds horrible, right?
The Hook: Not if you're stuffing 550 dollar bills every weekend down a pretty stripper's thong. The idea is simple. Strip-Pay will pay all your bills on your behalf. You just stuff 110% of your total monthly bill amount down hot stripper thongs at one or more Strip-Pay affiliates, in one or more sessions.
Win-win for all:
1) You: Sure your mortgage + loans + utilities are almost $3000 a month. I know it sucks. But instead of paying $3000 each month and feeling miserable about it, pay $800 or so each week and feel GREAT about it!
2) Strippers: Well obviously they can't keep the cash that is intended for your Strip-Pay bills. But, think of all the extra new customers, most of whom are not sleazy drunk salesmen but rather normal folks like you. And lap-dances to all these additional customers obviously go to the strippers and not Strip-Pay.
3) Strip-Pay affiliates: Counting money that goes to Strip-Pay is a little more work but once again, think of the boom of new honest-hard-working- money-spending customers. If each of them has one drink and one side of fries, that's a lot of extra money each month.
4) Strip-Pay: Running Strip-Pay is no cake-walk. Strip-Pay will incur costs of running the bill-pay website, collecting money from its affiliates, and usual business costs. As long as Strip-Pay employs some good cash-counting technology (not baked yet) that prevents affiliates from stealing all the money, Strip-Pay will be able to profit well from its 10% margin.
Strip-Pay doesn't need to spend a lot of money advertising as their affiliates can share that job and so can the mortgage/utilities/loan companies. I would absolutely pick Bank A at 5.5% instead of Bank B at 5.4% if Bank A accepts payments in Strip-Pay. Bank A can advertise that fact proudly!
The profits will obviously fall once competition starts reducing the margin by lowering 10% to 5% to 3%. In which case it becomes just like any other financial venture. PayPal doesn't nearly make as much margin as Strip-Pay would in the early days. Later on, Strip-Pay will just be another method of payment for anything, like PayPal, Credit Cards, Airline Miles etc.
All I know is that I'd rather stuff my hard-earned cash down a single-mom-trying-to- pay-her-way-through-law-school's g-string than directly buy a new set of golf clubs for yet-another-white-collar- rich-fat-bald-guy.
I say support your good 'ol run-of-the-mill strip-club. Gooooooooooooo Strip-Pay!-- chime, Dec 06 2005 bash.org inspiration http://www.bash.org/?98419 [chime, Dec 06 2005] I would have a hard time explaining to my wife how I spent the electric bill and water bill money on the "mortgage payment" last night.-- Jscotty, Dec 06 2005 It's interesting, if entirely impractical. I think you'll fit in well around here.-- hidden truths, Dec 06 2005 If I can pay my bill at the grocery store, I should be able to pay it at a girlie bar.-- shapu, Dec 06 2005 "My bank has lots of local ATMs and they dont charge fees!"
"Oh yeah? But my bank has strip-pay!"
Yep, it's a winner+-- theircompetitor, Dec 06 2005 You'll have problems with the rules about money laundering. And by comparison with other schemes, I'd suggest an initial margin of 50% - why leave money on the table?-- DrCurry, Dec 06 2005 Make sure that's not your mortgage agent before you stuff money in there.-- reensure, Dec 06 2005 //Make sure that's not your mortgage agent before you stuff money in there.// Especially helpful if your mother is your agent.-- shapu, Dec 06 2005 man at a bar"So, what do you do as a profession?" busty stripper:"Oh, I'm a bank-teller..."-- RayfordSteele, Dec 07 2005 No doubt this concept will make conventional cashiers a thing of the past. Going to the movies, buying groceries, even paying tolls will all be converted into stripper-type exchanges. If one must break a large bill, the customer would of course bare his or her own G-string and have the 5s and 1s tucked in by the strip-cashier. This idea culminates in a culture where everyone is a stripper, clad only in a G-string bristling with paper money. And its about time!-- bungston, Dec 07 2005 Ok, so I had my eye roll all ready and prepared for this idea... but this made me laugh. OK, bun.
Though, logistics, you need to be sure customer A's dollars get allocated to customer A's bills. And that the customer actually did pay etc. Maybe like casino, exchange for paper "chips". But then why not just take just your percentage down to the bar now, meh, what's the dif?
Also, "single-mom-trying-to- pay-her-way -through-law-school" strippers are so to be paid more than your average non-dancing clothed tellers so you'd definitely have to increase that overall percentage...
Competition or no, even at a quick average of 30 seconds per dollar transaction, I really can't see strip-pay tellers dancing around for 50 minutes for $10, $5, $3 dollars (strip-pay take *without* including corporate costs) so you can pay your $100 phone bill.-- Zuzu, Dec 08 2005 Yuk. [Bone].
And before you ask, no, I wouldn't want to pay my bills at the male-strippers-equivalent, either.-- Katisha, Dec 08 2005 I think he was looking for bone. That's how this started.-- theircompetitor, Dec 08 2005 It's magically depraved! And brilliant! Have a croissant!
Hmm. If you got audited by the IRS, would you have to round up all of the strippers you visited in the past year? That could get complicated... but it might help your case.-- FrostedFlake, Dec 08 2005 the strippers might earn less per dance, but this would surely increase their overall custom per night. Also, they may gain extra customers today, who will hopefully develop strip club habits, and grow into dirty old men tomorrow.
It's all about investing in their future, and in the future of their stripper kids....-- daaisy, Dec 09 2005 This could work. (+)-- energy guy, Dec 10 2005 It occurs to me that the paper coins idea is a natural corollary to this idea, because of the difficulty with change and ... ok, enough said.-- bungston, Dec 11 2005 Can there be any Trust?
My thought is that you would have to check in your bills at the "front desk" (& don't try and ask them if you're on the "list" - they don't get it)
Your bills would be converted into Disco Bucks? (probably in units of 100's). Law School ain't cheap, you know.-- Zimmy, Dec 11 2005 random, halfbakery