On Sat, 04 Jun 2011 19:17:42 -0400, aemeijers
wrote:

On 6/4/2011 11:56 AM, Josh wrote:


In the end, if the company pulling the money is legit, they're only
going to take what they should. If they're not...well, anyone with
your account and routing number (including someone you "bill pay" to)
can initiate a fraudulent payment anyway, so you don't really have any
more protection.


I trust you have told your bank to NOT link that account to your other
accounts, so if a fubar'd or fraudulent transaction comes through, it
can't snatch ALL your money? Don't laugh- it has happened- bank tries to
be helpful, and ends up aiding a crook.

Our checking account is linked to a savings account that has some
money; I agree that we probably shouldn't have them that way, but it's
not all of our savings.


I am glad it works for you, but the only way I would trust letting
outsiders tap my account on their own, is via a sacrificial account in a
separate bank, and never keep more in the account than I can afford to

All "outsiders" need to tap your account is the information on one of
your checks -- the routing number and account number. If you write
someone a check, you're giving them all the info they need.

lose. Rationally I know you are correct, and it works 99.999% of the
time with no problem. But I seem to be a lightning rod for that 0.001%.
Besides, writing those checks reminds me it is real money, and I need to
be frugal so I don't outlive it. Automatic payment is worse than using
plastic- it doesn't FEEL like spending money at all.

And unless you have your account set up for pull payments, how can
anyone remotely tap it? Isn't that a flag on the account? And don't the
pull payment orders have to be from specific banks/accounts/IDs?, with
the vendor presenting YOUR bank with an image of one of your checks and
some sort of an authorization audit trail, at least the first time? That
is what all the vendors I deal with imply, in their incessant pleas to
get me to start using auto-pay.

Nope, you don't set anything up on your account beforehand -- all the
vendor needs is your bank's routing number (the first set of numbers
on your check), the account number (the second set), and the amount
they want to debit.

You do submit a signed authorization to the vendor, but all they do is
keep that on file (most used to require a voided check just to make
sure the numbers are correct, but many don't require that anymore). If
you had a dispute, the bank would ask the vendor for their documents,
but that's after the fact. I'm sure the banks have some fraud
detection, and would start blocking "Josh's SuperDuper Service"
charges after a few complaints, but that's a different issue.

Josh