5 ms·
In legacy finance, when you pay someone with a check or wire, they get your account number and from then on can debit more from your account anytime they want,
by abecedarius 5y ago
In legacy finance, when you pay someone with a check or wire, they get your account number and from then on can debit more from your account anytime they want, restrained only because you can dispute it after the fact. The obvious, reasonable way to fix this is to create a new ID number for each payment. We have computers now. The friction you like here is doing the opposite of protecting the customer from abuse.
(I think I've read about some banks offering this as a special feature.)
- Aeolun 5y agoYou can’t do this in any country that I know of. I need to explicitly allow people to debit money from my account.
- jefftk 5y agoYou can do this in the US. ACH only requires the numbers (account + routing) that are visible on every check we write.
- nightski 5y agoYes but if you are caught doing unauthorized ACH transfers it's not going to be good for you.
- ghaff 5y agoIn the case of monthly bills and related things, you authorize them once. Don't know what that looks like at the backend and what controls there are but utility companies and the like can absolutely debit money on an ongoing basis.
- abecedarius 5y agohttps://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/news08.html https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/news08.html
- xyzzyz 5y ago> and from then on can debit more from your account anytime they want, restrained only because you can dispute it after the fact. They can, in the same sense that people can take stuff from your front yard if they feel like it.