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What Happens When You ACH a Dead Person?

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Re: What Happens When You ACH a Dead Person?

#111

Post by smarri »

Freak_NL wrote: post #61
itcrowd wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the RTP information! Had not heard of it yet. The fees look very reasonable ($0.01-$0.045 depending on type of transaction) and they provide a level playing field (flat-fee, no discounts for volume) I also heard someone say at some point that Americans are very wary of having people transfer money to their bank account. Not sure what the rationale is (maybe taxes or afraid of criminal money?) but I was…

You can't transfer money between banks in US Dollars within the US for free? We really are blessed with SEPA¹. Still, a few cents sounds at least reasonable. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area

SEPA can be free for customer but participating banks and payment institutions pay per transaction.

Re: What Happens When You ACH a Dead Person?

#112

Post by kody »

munk-a wrote: post #47
teraflop wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also currently on the front page: * An article about a null-pointer bug in GCC that doesn't explain what pointers are * An article about Stripe that doesn't explain what Stripe is or does * An article about the programming language Julia that doesn't explain what Julia is. I think it's your expectations that are out of whack. Not every article needs to explain everything as if the reader is completely unfamiliar with…

The article on the null-pointer bug goes into technical details about what the exposed error case is - the fact that it's a bug is made super clear - the fact that it's a logic bug is pretty readily apparent. The Stripe article starts with "I worked at Stripe for 3+ years" so Stripe is clearly a company, the article itself is focused on the operations & team cohesion side of stripe not on their line of business. The…

Agreed. Even after Googling "ACH" I had to reconcile the article's usage of "ACH" as a verb, when it appears to be a electronic payment system.

Re: What Happens When You ACH a Dead Person?

#113

Post by paulie_a »

moftz wrote: post #83
bernardom wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I wanted to use RTP for my business- do any third-party processors offer it already?

Paypal (and subsequently Venmo) offers it. I've "instant transfered" money from eBay sales right to my account. They do charge a 1% fee (up to $25) versus zero fees for classic ACH transfer. If I need the money right away, I'll pay the 1% but I usually can wait the couple days.

The only problem with trusting PayPal is you can't trust PayPal.

Re: What Happens When You ACH a Dead Person?

#114

Post by mynameisvlad »

crispinb wrote: post #41
jedberg wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The short answer is "because they can". The longer answer is because banking in the US is not as sophisticated as Europe since we have many fewer banks. The few banks we have have decided it isn't worth trying to compete on convince, so they haven't bothered to update the technology to be synchronous instead of asynchronous. In Europe, there are many banks in many countries, so they had to standardize quicker. FWIW i…

> since we have many fewer banks Australia has fewer still, with the big 5 almost entirely dominant, yet we have instant bank transfers through Osko, have had almost universal contactless in store payments for years, etc. I suspect it's more about government corruption. Governments are captured, each for its own historical reasons, by different industries. Australia by mining industries, the US by medical & finance,…

Adding onto this, Canada has pretty much the same amount of banks (about 5 big ones that completely dominate the industry) but unlike the US, have worked together for decades to create their own interbank network, Interac (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interac). The network handles most ATMs, direct debits, e-transfers and online transactions, and the last two I think have been available for over 10 years now. Every single debit card in Canada is Interac-branded and the network is pretty much ubiquitous for transferring money.

It blew my mind going from that to what the US has.

Re: What Happens When You ACH a Dead Person?

#115

Post by colejohnson66 »

coldpie wrote: post #92
reaperducer wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Checks are for what now? For me this week: Paid for a city license, paid the cat sitter, paid for a small magazine subscription, made a charitable donation, and paid the rent. The cat sitter and the charity were check only. No other option. The magazine has a PayPal option, but I don't trust PayPal. The city license could have been done with a card online, but I'm not interested in setting up yet another account with…

I started renting a studio a couple months back. They gave the option to pay with a paper check or with a credit/debit card online. Online transaction came with a $20/statement "convenience fee". Meanwhile a mailed paper check is $0.50 including postage. Paper check it is.

I never understood this logic. We’ll hand process your check for free, but if you want to use this website we set up, it’ll be a $20 “convenience fee.” I get passing the debit/credit fee onto the consumer, but it’s there even when I were to choose ACH.

Re: What Happens When You ACH a Dead Person?

#116

Post by baddox »

munk-a wrote: post #47
teraflop wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also currently on the front page: * An article about a null-pointer bug in GCC that doesn't explain what pointers are * An article about Stripe that doesn't explain what Stripe is or does * An article about the programming language Julia that doesn't explain what Julia is. I think it's your expectations that are out of whack. Not every article needs to explain everything as if the reader is completely unfamiliar with…

The article on the null-pointer bug goes into technical details about what the exposed error case is - the fact that it's a bug is made super clear - the fact that it's a logic bug is pretty readily apparent. The Stripe article starts with "I worked at Stripe for 3+ years" so Stripe is clearly a company, the article itself is focused on the operations & team cohesion side of stripe not on their line of business. The…

> ACH is not a common jargon term

It’s not jargon at all, is it? It’s just literally the proper name for the specific payment network. I thought jargon is industry-specific slang terms for concepts that could otherwise be described with less industry-specific terms. There is no simpler or clearer way I’m aware of to refer specifically to ACH.

As for it being common, if you work as a developer on any web products that accept or send significant payments in the US, you’ve almost certainly heard of ACH. If you haven’t, then this article probably won’t be of any interest or use to you even if it had an extensive introduction about what ACH is.

Re: What Happens When You ACH a Dead Person?

#117

Post by tempsy »

nickjj wrote: post #85
tempsy wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Double edged sword IMO. If you use Zelle and off a digit in a phone number or email you are out of luck. No way to recover funds once sent.

If you send it to an email address that doesn't exist, does the transfer go through? If so who ends up with the money? It's been a while since I sent funds to a new address but I am pretty sure my bank's UI provided protection against that, and now when I send future funds to the same account, I just pick them from a drop down box instead of entering it manually.

No - it’s more dangerous with a phone number, which is how I usually send/receive.

Much, much safer way to use Zelle is to ask the receiver to request a payment from you and then accept the request.

Re: What Happens When You ACH a Dead Person?

#118

Post by Symbiote »

itcrowd wrote: post #71
mattmcknight wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you pay your electric bill with those?

Yes, I pay all my bills by bank transfer (house, electric, internet, settlements with friends etc). It's the most common payment method here (I'm in Europe). PayPal et al are barely used here because the bank transfer system is free and frictionless.

I'm guessing, but I think most people probably give the electric company permission to pull the money from their account (direct debit) rather than reviewing the bill and "pushing" the money every time.

There are very strong guarantees in the individual's favour if the company makes a mistake.

Re: What Happens When You ACH a Dead Person?

#119

Post by mynameisvlad »

C14L wrote: post #14
s9w wrote: post #2

Neither the title of this post nor the article explains what ACH is. And it somehow got 15 points in 6 minutes or so. Am I missing something? edit: yes, downvote me to -3. I love you all

Probably the US version of European SEPA.

That's not quite right. An automated clearing house for transactions isn't a US-specific concept, it's used all over the world (sometimes called an ACH, sometimes under a different name).

SEPA uses STEP2 as the pan-European clearing house. Each European country also has their own equivalent to the ACH.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_clearing_house, Germany's seems to be a service offered by the Bundesbank.

Re: What Happens When You ACH a Dead Person?

#120

Post by Symbiote »

mindslight wrote: post #54
ergothus wrote: post #16

Perhaps those well-versed in such arts can inform me, who knows little about ACH and the rest: Why is it so slow? I get that this is a system that can work built on top of any number of manual processes, but check-cashing scams are rampant and function in world where a major bank gets a check (apparently) from a different major bank and the customer is told it is all good....and possibly weeks later the check is note…

> ...why can't the big players (at least) confirm things quickly? Why can't there be an easy status to say if a check has truly "cleared" or not? Consider a forged check with valid identifying information. Think about what the other side of that transaction looks like. That other customer needs time to review incoming transactions to their account, notice the errant one, and dispute it. And so waiting this time is th…

Does that mean Americans check their account every day or two?

I probably read my statements (online only) about every two months...

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