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Comment by lettergram | Hacker News Reader

I use checks all the time actually. Every other form of payment online is “pull”, I only want to “push” my funds to external people.

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That's not actually correct. By giving an external person a check, you give them the ABILITY to PULL funds from you. It looks like a push, but it's actually not.

https://www.bankrate.com/financing/banking/writing-checks-in...

More importantly you're giving them the authorization.

Everyone already has the basic ability to pull funds from arbitrary checking accounts. heh.

Knuth had to quit giving out real checks (which nobody actually ever cashed, anyway) for exactly this reason.

They probably meant a fire-and-forget method to pay untrusted parties without giving them the ability to charge more than agreed.

Chargebacks are a thing, but they require constant vigilance and the occasional bureaucratic task.

Checks have substantially less security there. Not more - and even if/when it gets fixed the money comes out immediately.

That’s what wire transfers are for in EU. Same day/instant, either free or with a flat fee of $0.25-0.5.

In Poland if you’re going out with friends and someone paid for you bc you forgot a card, you just wire them money from your phone.

For my whole adult life (36 yo) I only used and saw an actual check once. Wire transfers since I can remember.

Since a few years ago, you were also able to use the BLIK system to transfer money instantly for free between most banks, by only knowing the recipient's phone number. To be fair I can't imagine anything more convenient.

In NL we have "Tikkie", where you just have to give them a link, whether it's by whatsapp, email, IRC, whatever. Sounds slightly more convenient as it's not based around a phone number (but can be if that's what you have :)

> Every other form of payment online is “pull”, […]

Wat? When I transfer money to another account via my bank's ebanking app that is very much "push". The transfer is executed either immediately or at the end of the business day. Nobody is pulling anything.

I assume you live in the EU (or somewhere else outside the US), where it is the most natural thing to just send money from your account to another one.

This simply isn't a thing in the US, as I discovered when moving to there for a time. They use third-party apps, cheques, and wire transfers (which are expensive and seem to work via ACH, a pull type system). It's simply not possible to go into your ebanking app and transfer money to someone elses account. (With very restrictive exceptions, e.g. same bank, or maybe the bank has integrated a third party service...)

As inconceivable as the American system is in the beginning for somebody coming from the EU, I guess for many people from the US it's similarly non-obvious that a push system can (and does) exist somewhere else.

But why? It just doesn't make sense to not have a push system. I, honestly, don't get it.

Lived in the USA all my life, have always wanted to have direct transfer as you describe.

> Every other form of payment online is “pull"

Sorry, but if I transfer funds to a friend from my banking app, how is that "pull"? If I send you money with PayPal, that's not "pull". If we settle our debt using e.g. TransferWise, that's not "pull"..? I don't get your point. There are plenty of "push" methods.

If PayPal decided to charge you a $10 per month for “maintenance costs”, how would you stop them from doing so?

Well, if they're not authorised, dispute it with the bank?

https://www.directdebit.co.uk/DirectDebitExplained/Pages/Dir...

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.

Although, you need your bank to actually fulfil the guarantee, depending on how terrible your bank's customer service is, this may be a lot of trouble.

I've actually done this (use the DD Guarantee to unwind bill payments I didn't want paid) with my good bank and it was a pleasure, no trouble at all. But I can imagine that a bank with bad customer service is going to make it a nightmare that will suck up hours of your life.

I doubt it, they might lose their banking license over it.

SEPA direct debits allows for R-transactions to unwind a collection up to 13 months after execution, no questions asked, it’s wild.

Yes, having them control the amount and timing of the transfer is exactly what I am trying to avoid. I can easily set up direct debit, but it has led to too many erroneous and poorly timed withdrawals.

In the UK, larger companies usually allowed a choice of the date the payment went out. (After all, they'd rather not deal with failed payments.)

I keep enough money in my accounts (partly because of this) that I don't really care about it, but I'd be surprised if they don't use the preferred date.

In Sweden we have an e-billing system where your bills show up as PDFs in your internet bank and then you hit accept or deny (and they go in a queue to pay on either the due date or a date you pick). You can also set it to auto-accept new bills from the same company if you want to emulate how direct debit works (with the added benefit of having a period of time between the bill coming in and the due date to verify the amount is right)

If you want to stick to paper bills, they all have the receiving account number and customer reference number so they can be paid manually via a transfer.

In the Netherlands, we had that for some time but sadly it didn't catch on with the utility companies, housing associations, insurers etc., and has been discontinued. I would love such a central place to manage my bills and pay them on my own time instead of using direct debit which most of them nudge us to use now by introducing costs for other payment methods.

So the electric company gives you their account number to use?

Yes, as an example here's a major British energy company:

> Our bank details are: > Bank account number - 99183129 > Sort code - 57-40-99

https://sse.co.uk/help/bills-and-paying/how-to-pay-your-ener...

This company is easily large enough that their bank details are already listed in online banking systems. You can choose "Pay a bill", then select "Southern Energy" rather than type in those account details.

Actually, several of my bills work that way, but the bank hides the details.

Yes, you can. However, since the last few years, the electricity company has started to charge something (about € 1,50 per month I think) for that. (Netherlands)

Nope, "online push" is ubiquitous in civilized countries.

Don't get me started on filing taxes!

The numbers at the bottom of the check are all that someone needs to initiate an ACH transfer out of your account!

I think the point here is that the various bills I have to pay don't give me their bank account number, but they ask for me to give them our account information so they can automatically subtract whatever amount. If they would give me their account numbers, I would gladly send them funds. Instead, I use my bank's online bill pay to generate a check for them.

>I use my bank's online bill pay to generate a check

which has your account information on it

(I do the same thing, though.)

I am not so much worried about the fraud aspect, as I am explicitly giving them permission to take amounts of their determination from my account without my explicit agreement to the amount of each transaction and on their schedule.

i've never used a check in my entire life. when i need to pay someone i just do an online transfer.

Sorry if I'm out-of-date, but how do checks work online?

Like, to pay for something remotely? I’ve emailed a picture of the check to sellers who refuse to use PayPal and then they use their bank’s online deposit system to drop it into their account (a couple of times for second-hand board games).

Thanks for the reply. But, that sounded very unsecure. What happens if a third party cashes it first, you say you didn't share the picture, the merchant says they didn't share the picture?

You’re stuffed, you’re supposed to only exchange the physical instrument so you’d be liable for fraud.

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