Credit-card holders post a specific hashtag on Twitter to trigger payments from their accounts.

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Smith of Fort Worth, Texas, wrote on a Post-it Note in 2000, without enclosing a card.

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But under the new system the only way for someone to collect cash from the Post Office on behalf of someone else is for that person to apply for a permanent extra card and pin on the account.

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You can actually add writing to images on the screen with your finger, and then email the result, creating a sort of TV-created post card.

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