Dirt Nap City - History's Most Interesting Dead People
Dirt Nap City is the podcast about history's most interesting dead people. In each episode, Alex and Kelly dive into the life of a famous person that you have heard of, but probably don't know much about. Our stories are about actors, entrepreneurs, politicians, musicians, inventors, explorers and more! We also cover things that used to be popular but have fallen out of favor. Things like pet rocks, drive in theaters, Jolt Cola, and many other trends of yesterday make up our "dead ends". But whether we are talking about interesting historical figures or past trends, the show is funny, light-hearted, entertaining, informative and educational. You will definitely learn something new and probably have some laughs along the way. Everyone will eventually move to Dirt Nap City, so why not go ahead and meet the neighbors?
If you love hearing stories from Dirt Nap City, please consider supporting us on Patreon. Here's the link: https://www.patreon.com/DirtNapCityPodcast
If you have comments about the show or suggestions on who we should cover, please email us at not@dirtnapcity.com - we really appreciate you listening!
Dirt Nap City - History's Most Interesting Dead People
CODs - Venmo Before Venmo Was Venmo
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Remember a time before one-click checkouts and digital wallets? A mythical era when buying something online involved a real-life, human interaction and a wad of crumpled bills? In this episode, we’re taking a deep dive into the history of Cash on Delivery (COD), the payment method that was the unsung hero of early e-commerce and mail-order catalogs.
Join us as we explore what Cash on Delivery actually was—that slightly awkward, suspenseful doorstep dance where you handed physical money to a delivery driver in exchange for your much-anticipated package. We unpack why this system was once the king of remote shopping. In a world before widespread credit card use and when online security was a digital Wild West, COD was the ultimate trust-builder. You didn't pay until you could literally touch the box. It eliminated the fear of sending your money into the internet void, never to be seen again. We reminisce about the logistical genius and the sheer consumer confidence that the COD payment method provided for decades.
So, where did it all go? We chart the inevitable decline of Cash on Delivery. Discover how the rise of secure online payments, the ubiquity of credit and debit cards, and the arrival of digital giants like PayPal and Apple Pay made the COD model seem charmingly ancient. We discuss the logistical nightmare it became for retailers—managing floats for drivers, the high rate of refused packages, and the security risks of carrying cash.
From its peak as the most trusted way to shop from home to its current status as a retail fossil in many parts of the world, we cover it all. If you’ve ever wondered about the history of online shopping or want a nostalgic laugh about the way things used to be, this episode is for you. Tune in to learn why the simple, effective system of Cash on Delivery was both a brilliant solution and a logistical headache destined for the history books. Listen now on your favorite podcast platform!
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Dirt Nap City is the podcast about the most interesting dead people in history.
Subscribe and listen to learn about people you've heard of, but don't know much about.
Someday we'll all live in Dirt Nap City, so you should probably go ahead and meet the neighbors!
Hey Alex, how you doing, man? Hey Kelly, how are you? I'm doing well. We're right in the middle of summer. It's crazy. It's hot outside.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00But I hot isn't just a summer thing around here.
SPEAKER_01It's uh pretty much hot, uh, six months out of the year.
SPEAKER_00At least, at least. And you know who I feel bad for this time of year? Who's that? The Amazon drivers. Oh. The UPS guys. They're out there working their tails off. But you know what I like to offer them when they pull up and deliver something? Is uh nice, refreshing cold can of Liquid Death.
SPEAKER_01Have you ever had this before? Yeah, I know, but if um we should tell our listeners that we've sold out. That we're Kelly's a uh downright sellout at this point. Yep. And um we're um Liquid Death is paying us a lot of money now to um to promote their uh product. So tons and tons of money. Yeah. So what is that? What just water?
SPEAKER_00Uh this one is. This is the uh mountain water. It's um still drinking water, and by still it doesn't mean it was uh it it was before and it is now, even though that's the case. It's non-carbonated. But liquid death has a lot of different types. But I like to offer the UPS drivers that when they bring their package up a nice cold bottle of water because it is hot outside. But you know what they used to do back in the day sometimes? Um, not necessarily to UPS drivers because UPS didn't exist, but to the mailman or other delivery people. What's that? They would hand them cash. Who would? Well, some people back in the day, before you could order things online, would actually do a thing called cash on delivery.
SPEAKER_01Oh C O D. I remember that. And so that's instead of paying for shipping.
SPEAKER_00No, no, this was this was before um before Apple cards, before Amazon. Instead of paying for the item. This was the Venmo of of yesteryear. Okay. So so you would order the item, you would not pay anything, you wouldn't pay anything when it was ordered, and then when it was delivered, you would actually hand the delivery driver cash for the item.
SPEAKER_01So if you bought something that was fifty bucks, you'd give the delivery driver fifty bucks.
SPEAKER_00I think so. I think so. Yeah, it was it was basically a um situation where the delivery driver was also the cashier for the store or the the the company you were ordering from. You're ordering from Sears and Robuck, you're ordering from Montgomery Ward's catalog, whoever you're ordering from, you have to pay cash to the delivery driver.
SPEAKER_01So, in addition to the driving, when the delivery driver gets back at the end of the shift, he's gotta settle up and send all that money to where it's supposed to go. Although most of it was probably Sears Robuck.
SPEAKER_00Well, Montgomery Wards, Sears Robuck. Um, I think uh uh joskies back in the day, if you were ordering clothes. This was a thing that the Postal Service actually offered. So it was part of the the male person's job. Male people back in the day, and back then they were called mailmen, right? There weren't really many male women, but mailmen back in the day, they had leather sacks, they took cash, they walked everywhere. I mean, these guys were pretty hardcore, but this whole thing with COD, what I don't really get is you place the order, the ship, the shipment gets or the package gets shipped, and there's no payment, you deliver the delivery person brings you the item, and then you actually hand the person the money. It's kind of like if Uber Eats um came to you and when the food arrived you paid them for the check, right? I mean, it's just kind of a weird deal.
SPEAKER_01I wonder yeah, I wonder why they stopped that. I mean, they stopped it way before the internet, right?
SPEAKER_00Well, the big thing was credit cards. So COD was big because a lot of people back then didn't have credit cards. And so I think COD could also be a check. You could probably write a check and hand it to them. You know, cash was sort of analogous to a cash or check. C also stands for check, right? Um but now with credit cards, what's happening is the credit card company is fronting the money for you to pay the vendor that's shipping you the item, and then when you receive the item at the end of the month, you get a statement from your credit card company and you hopefully pay that balance or you carry that balance and pay interest. So that's kind of how how um COD came to disappear because credit cards made it easier for people to buy things but not have to pay for them immediately.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, before credit cards, that's the only way you could do it would be to because I don't think it was ever legal to send cash in the mail. Was that a is that a rumor or was that a thing? I was always told that you weren't allowed to put cash like in an envelope and send it in the mail.
SPEAKER_00Really? I don't know if that's legal. I don't know if that was illegal. I was always told it's a bad idea. Bad idea, right? I mean it's I also feel like handing handing 50 bucks to the delivery driver, especially back in the day when 50 bucks was worth something, handing that to a delivery driver is also a bad idea.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. No, I uh I heard that, and then I always used to think I was getting away with something when I get the two dollar bill from my grandparents for my birthday, you know. Yeah, yeah, I remember that.
SPEAKER_00Like they were uh, you know, skirting the code. Oh, because they mailed it to you. They sent it to you in a card. In a card, yeah. Dear Alec. Yeah, exactly. So so the other thing that would often happen with the COD is the delivery driver would actually write you a receipt. So you would get a receipt to prove that you paid the paid the money. Otherwise, you know, who's to say the delivery driver doesn't lose the money or pocket the money and the vendor never gets paid and then they come after you?
SPEAKER_01Sure, that would happen from time to time. Yeah. You know, you'd you'd take the job for a day, maybe, and pocket some money and quit your job.
SPEAKER_00Hey, can I do the can I do the COD run for everybody? Uh anybody who's got a package going out COD, I'll I'll take care of that. Maybe just take the truck and the money and never be seen again, right? Yeah, man. That's that's how uh that's how a lot of entrepreneurs got their start back in the day. It really was also kind of one of those things where it was a bit of a risk because someone could show up and bring you something and then demand the money for it. But you would say, I didn't order that thing. So then what happens? They have to take it back, and so it's a risk to the people that are selling it, or do they just force you to take it and force you to pay the money? I mean, there's all kinds of things that can go wrong with COD.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we probably have a better suit uh service now, but I feel like I was seeing like um ad, you know, TV ads for things that advertise COD right up until, you know, maybe 20 years ago. Like it I don't think it's a thing of that far off uh I think they were still offering COD like into the this century.
SPEAKER_00So you actually can still do COD in parts of the world. Parts of Asia still have it, parts of Africa still have it. There's there's developing nations that still use COD because credit cards and things like Venmo and um PayPal and things like that aren't as common. Now, I think a lot of people now are tying their bank accounts to their phones so they're able to just pay through their phone, but there is still COD in some parts of the world. It's just not very popular in the US, and again, that's because um you've got things like credit cards, and a lot of people are able to just pay using the app directly. Yeah, yeah, that's probably a good point. Did you ever do a COD?
SPEAKER_01No, I no.
SPEAKER_00I kind of wish I did now. I think a lot of people in this generation feel like COD is either a video game or a type of fish. Sure.
SPEAKER_01Wait, what's the video game? Uh oh, Call of Duty, right? Call of Duty or or a cod. Yeah, I knew the cod liver oil.
SPEAKER_00Right, right. Did you ever take cod liver oil?
SPEAKER_01Yes. Yes. And then you'd burp it up for a while.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. It's kind of i I actually I sometimes take those little um fish oil pills and they kind of do that to me. Well, it's not something I think many people miss. It certainly is a relic from the past, but if you hear anybody mention uh send it to me, COD, they're probably trying to scam you, so stay away from that. If you lived a hundred years ago or even fifty years ago, it would make sense. But in today's modern world, COD is a big fat dead end.
SPEAKER_01Let me ask you this Do you ever my um my virtual assistant um who's um you know part of Amazon, because if I say her name, she'll probably you know go off right now. But is her name similar to yours? Yes. Um, she will tell me, hey, just let me know if you want to thank the delivery driver. Um I've never done that, but I can't imagine that if I did it, that it would like immediately get to the driver and they'd say, Hey, I just want to let you know that that person that you just delivered that thing to wants to thank you. I wonder what what the back end of that is.
SPEAKER_00Okay, well, let me reverse that for you. Because if you're if you're talking about Amazon deliveries, you immediately get a photo of of what was delivered on your porch, right? Right, right. So so it's probably just the reverse of that. Like whatever whatever technology allows that photo to show up in your inbox that quickly from that person's mobile device.
SPEAKER_01Well, they're driving their van and then what happens? I say, hey, tell the tell them thank you. What happens? They're driving the van and then what happens.
SPEAKER_00I think that probably uh through FM radio waves, it blares through their car stereo, and you hear a big thank you from Alex.
SPEAKER_01You know what? If they would advertise that, I would do it every time. Yeah. They they they need to do a better job saying what happens if I do that.
SPEAKER_00I actually wonder if it's a tip. I wonder if if it's actually like Amazon you like charges you two bucks or something and tips the driver. They should let people know what happens if you do it. You should just do it once and find out. I would never how would I never know? I don't get a receipt for that, thank you. Um you mean how would you know if they got it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Do you have the same driver pretty regularly? How would I know? I never see them. They don't ring the doorbell. How about this? Go outside occasionally, Alex. Touch grass. Touch grass and get back to nature, man. Just watch for that delivery driver to come through your door or come to your door. I guess my my office in my current house and my office in my old house were both like right at the front of the house. So I would see the UPS driver or the Amazon driver coming up everywhere.
SPEAKER_01So then should I wave to them or should I just go over to my device and say, hey, Alexa, please tell my delivery driver thank you. I think a friendly wave was better.
SPEAKER_00No, no, no. Do that and then go wave and then have them stand there until they receive that message. Like, don't let them go. Offer them, offer them a liquid death and just sit on the porch, like you know, like the olden days, and just hang out.
SPEAKER_01Jeff Bezos, if you're listening, and I'm sure you are, um market that. Tell like put a commercial down talking about what happens when people say thank you to the lovely driver, and I bet um thank yous will go up, unless, like Kelly says, unless you are paying people, in which case then you'd probably don't want that to go up because you're a cheap bastard.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and by the way, um by the way, I think the delivery drivers should be um paid extra in the summertime, or at least given a nice cold, refreshing liquid death. Summertime is their is their probably their downtime compared to like holiday time. No, I've ordered so much stuff this summer. I guess because I just moved, maybe. Well, it's not just because of you. It's I bet the summer is the downtime for these guys. Well, if you work for Amazon or UPS or Liquid Death, email us, not at dirtnapcity.com. And if you want to send us something, send it to Alex, and he will pay the delivery driver in cash via COD just to go old school.
SPEAKER_02Yo, yo, bins, bins, what do you want to dump? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Knock knock who's there. It's a box of doubt. Handed over pay, but what's this about? I never ordered a guard enough. Yeah, here it is from all the time.
