>you literally have banking entities parked in the chain of transaction charging everyone an ACH fee per transactions Yeah...but I can't recall ever seeing an

>you literally have banking entities parked in the chain of transaction charging everyone an ACH fee per transactions Yeah...but I can't recall ever seeing an ACH fee. It looks like my credit union's fee schedule includes $3 for outgoing ACH transactions, but it only applies if it's initiated on their end. I don't think I've ever seen that. I mean, paying a credit card or something seems to be exempt because the debit is initiated by a third party. >You're taking a substantial bill, putting a techie wrapper around it, putting it in front of people who have no idea how the financial system works With my credit union, the standard bill pay feature seems to be free. On the other hand, it seems a teller check or a postal money order costs a couple dollars, so charging the same amount for online bill pay doesn't seem like it's making things worse? Seems to me people "who have no idea how the financial system works" probably aren't tech savvy either and aren't going to mess with bill pay scams. When I pay a bill to local government, every option has exorbitant fees except mailing a personal check. It's pretty much just like 1985, and so, if you're a crotchety old geezer there's no incentive to try newer methods. >Have you ever wondered why 50 dollar bills are basically non-existent anymore? The opposite, really, I've wondered why ATMs near me are dispensing $50 bills, but I haven't had anyone refuse to break one yet. It used to be people looked askance at them. >Have you ever seen any of the stories in the news where someone goes on travel with their life savings Yes, I've seen that sort of story, and if I read the whole thing, I predictably get a strong sense there's some piece of context being left out strategically. I can't recall one with a satisfying explanation. Whenever I run into a person or business that insists on dealing in cash, my kneejerk initial assumption is always that they don't pay their taxes. Travelling with large amounts of cash might sometimes allow you to legitimately purchase something that you couldn't otherwise. But personally, I just accept that it's risky and don't do it. If someone else does it, I assume they have a good reason, but mostly the proffered innocent reasons don't tend to sound very good to me. On the internet people like to talk about civil forfeiture. But even if it happens a lot, the probability can't be very high - surely what's much more likely is that you go to meet a stranger with a lot of cash and they (or buddies) rob you. This seems logical to me because the scenario that comes to mind for using cash in the first place is that you are trying to do a deal where there isn't enough trust for other means of payment. So I feel like it's an inherently very narrow set of circumstances that would be hard to ensure in advance.