Re: AT&T charges extra to pay cash [Telecom]
Wes Leatherock
cash to a teller or cashier or whatever they are now
called, perhaps evem wanting change?
Didn't the report also quote the AT&T spokesman as
saying the charge was for paying to a human being,
rather than dropping the payment in the drop box
provided?
While I don't like the idea, this is being
increasingly common in other contexts and by other
businesses, including some utilities.
Credit card companies and utilities (including
cable companies) now often--perhaps usually--make a
charge (usually a lot more than two dollars) for
making a telephone payment using a live person rather
than using the automated system they provide?
Cingular (now AT&T Mobility) has had such a system
for years, and I have been using the automated system
for years at no charge. The instructions are pretty
clear and credit is given promptly. (A similar service
for landline payments is much less well organized,
requires you to use voice commands, which it often
does not recognize, but it is possible to use. Not
nearly as convenient or easy to use as the one for the
cellular part of the company.)
It was not clear from the story why the person
wanted to pay cash to a human being, nor what
company's or division's bill they were paying--the
story just said "phone bill."
Incidentally, why did they come up with the name
"AT&T Mobility"? The term "mobility" is usually used
by dealers in aids and devices for the handicapped and
disabled.
Wes Leatherock
wlea...@yahoo.com
wes...@aol.com
Geoffrey Welsh
> It was not clear from the story why the person
> wanted to pay cash to a human being,
... to get a receipt? Cash dropped off may be stolen. Any kind of payment
could be lost. Proof of payment is a good thing.
--
Geoffrey Welsh <Geoffrey [dot] Welsh [at] bigfoot [dot] com>
***** Moderator's Note *****
I'd like to know if the company has a place where customers can pay
cash without being charged a fee: IANALB it would be interesting to
see if the "Legal tender for all debts" language on our currency is
still true.
I don't think that charging a fee to use a service agency is right or
wrong; it just is. However, if publicly-regulated companies are
discouraging the use of cash in order to hide or blunt the impact of
price increases, then I feel the federal government should get
involved. Say what you want about credit and/or debit cards, there's
nothing like having to put cash on the barrelhead to make customers
think about value.
Bill Horne
Temporary Moderator
(Please put [Telecom] at the end of the subject line of your post, or
I may never see it. Thanks!)
Steven Lichter
> Wes Leatherock wrote:
>> It was not clear from the story why the person
>> wanted to pay cash to a human being,
>
> ... to get a receipt? Cash dropped off may be stolen. Any kind of payment
> could be lost. Proof of payment is a good thing.
>
payments, not sure if it is both cash or check. Up to about 2 years ago
you could make payments at these places and there was no charge since
AT&T then (SBC) must have paid them to handle the service. According to
a rep I talked to the other day they no longer pay them and the fee that
is collected does not go to at&t. I pay online with an echeck or by
phone using my debt card, no charge. I guess if someone had no checking
account they could have a problem, but then just get a Money Order and
pay that way. Didn't Bell South have phone centers that you could pay
your bills at or did at&t close them all after the merger?
I know you pay your Verizon phone bills at the Verizon Plus stores; the
old GTE Phone Marts and no charge. I pay my Sprint PCS bill online or
use the machines in their stores no charge. To me having to go into any
of these places and wait in line is a pain. Southern California Gas
shill has offices to pay your Gas bill at, but as with many companies
they are doing away with brink stores to mail or online payments, even
Sears has done away with separate credit centers in the stores, now you
just pay it at any sales register.
--
The Only Good Spammer is a Dead one!! Have you hunted one down today?
(c) 2008 I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot In Hell Co.
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com
wrote:
> I know you pay your Verizon phone bills at the Verizon Plus stores; the
> old GTE Phone Marts and no charge. I pay my Sprint PCS bill online or
> use the machines in their stores no charge. To me having to go into any
> of these places and wait in line is a pain. Southern California Gas
> shill has offices to pay your Gas bill at, but as with many companies
> they are doing away with brink stores to mail or online payments, even
> Sears has done away with separate credit centers in the stores, now you
> just pay it at any sales register.
What is a "Verizon Plus" store? What kinds of products and services
do they offer? We don't have anything like that here.
When I worked downtown in the city I always paid my family's utility
bills in person. All utilities had public offices downtown in those
days. It was a short walk at lunch to all of them.
Department stores also had windows to pay bills. I'm not sure they
still do today.
The old Bell telephone company had business offices at several places
throughout the city where payments were accepted. One could also
speak in person to a service rep.
It used to be that bank credit cards were issued and mostly processed
by local banks; now they seem to be very heavilly centralized. In the
old days we could go in person and talk to a bank rep. Today they
strongly discourage it and want people to use the 800 number. I
suppose they have their 800 call centers in low-rent low-wage
districts are away, enabling them to reduce high-wage real-people
staff and close down branches.
I think many national businesses are pushing toward this
centralization. I was disappointed with my wireless provider in that
their store people were strictly sales only and provided no
assitance. They weren't even consistent. The best deals were given
over their 800 number, second best deal via the Internet, and the
worst by in person sales kiosks.
[sigh]
T
diesp...@ikillspammers.com says...
Interesting about Sears. Of course modern POS systems can do cash in an
apply it to an account no problem at all.
Other chains that do this are:
Old Navy
Gap
Banana Republic
To my knowledge anyhow.
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com
>
> I'd like to know if the company has a place where customers can pay
> cash without being charged a fee: IANALB it would be interesting to
> see if the "Legal tender for all debts" language on our currency is
> still true.
I suppose if you sent cash in with your bill they would have to accept
it, but you would bear all risk of loss. But it wouldn't surprise me
if they refused the cash and sent it back. I don't know the "legal
tender" law on that.
I think we already mentioned the elementary school kids organized a
protest over a shortened lunch period and paid for their lunches in
pennies. Seems perfectly legal to me, but the school still punished
those who did so. At least the community was outraged by the school's
actions and applauded the kids.
Steven Lichter
for many years were run by GTel before GTE brought them back into the
fold. You could pay your bills, buy phones, get phone repaired and also
pay you GTE Mobile net bills there. Now these stores run under the new
name and are ran by Verizon, they carry a full service of both the wire
line as well as wireless phones, but are run with the local company.
Wes Leatherock
<nospa...@cox.nospam.net> wrote:
> Interesting about Sears. Of course modern POS
> systems can do cash in an
> apply it to an account no problem at all.
>
> Other chains that do this are:
>
> Old Navy
> Gap
> Banana Republic
>
> To my knowledge anyhow.
Also JCPenney, Dillard's, and Home Depot.
Montgomery Ward started doing this several years
before it went out of business.
K-Mart stores have had signs that you can't pay
your Sears and Sears MasterCard bills at K-mart yet
but you will be able to soon. (K-Mart and Sears have
been the same company for several years and if you're
using one of the Sears cards at a K-mart store it will
show up on your bill under the heading for Sears
purchases.)
Wes Leatherock
wlea...@yahoo.com
wes...@aol.com
Tom Horne
It is enshrined in the US Code that no quantity of pennies greater then
forty nine cents need be excepted by anyone as payment for anything.
There may be similar limits on other denominations of coinage but I
don't know. I do know that cash can be sent by registered mail quite
safely and that no one can refuse US paper currency in any denomination
as payment for a debt. There have been a few court cases were the judge
has thrown out collection attempts based on credible evidence that the
debtor made a good faith attempt to pay using US paper currency and the
creditors agent refused the cash payment. I'm not aware of any of those
cases having been appealed high enough to establish reliable precedent
however.
--
Tom Horne
"This alternating current stuff is just a fad. It is much too dangerous
for general use." Thomas Alva Edison
Matt Simpson
Tom Horne <hor...@veriqrmzon.net> wrote:
> It is enshrined in the US Code that no quantity of pennies greater then
> forty nine cents need be excepted by anyone as payment for anything.
That is apparently not true.
Dave Garland
wrote:
It is not true, but at the same time, that's not to say that there is
anything that obligates a business to accept payment in pennies, either.
>From that snopes page...
"[All] United States money... is a valid and legal offer for payment of
debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal law
mandating that a person or organization must accept currency or coins as
for payment for goods and/or services...
So, it's legal to attempt to pay in pennies, but it's also legal for
them to require payment that's not in pennies.
Dave
MC
> of debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal
> law mandating that a person or organization must accept currency or
> coins as for payment for goods and/or services...
Those words, which are quoted from a Treasury Department web page,
seem contradictory. The original source is:
http://www.treas.gov/education/faq/currency/legal-tender.shtml
... and is not any clearer. If it is "a valid and legal offer" why
isn't the creditor required to accept it?
I gather the legal tender laws have only actually been enforced when
there was rivalry between different kinds of U.S. currency, e.g., gold
certificates vs. United States Notes. Can anyone elucidate?
John Levine
>> of debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal
>> law mandating that a person or organization must accept currency or
>> coins as for payment for goods and/or services...
>
>Those words, which are quoted from a Treasury Department web page,
>seem contradictory.
As I understand them, when you are negotiating a transaction, the
creditor can set any terms of payment it wants, e.g., Yap island stone
coins in advance. But if a transaction has already happened and you
owe someone money, then they have to accept cash to settle it.
The last time I was in my local AT&T store, last year sometime, I
recall seeing something resembling a reverse ATM for people who wanted
to pay cash. Didn't look closely enough to see if they charged you to
use it.
R's,
John
***** Moderator's Note *****
I agree with John, but there's a "slippery slope" issue here: IANALB
if the various carrier companies file a tariff that says everyone has
to pay by direct withdrawal from their bank account, then the statute
would seem to allow that.
I'm fond of saying that "Technology changes everything": supermarkets
are delighted to give you "cash back" when you buy groceries, because
that means that they have less of it to take to the bank: but low
income buyers, who deal in cash exclusively, are at risk of being shut
out of an economy that's increasingly dependent on electronic
transfers instead of paper money.
_
The doctrine of legal tender is essentially as follows:
Anything declared to be legal tender is, if offered as a settlement of a
debt, a complete defense to any action for non-payment of that debt.
This means that if a debt does not yet exist, one party may set as a
condition of the contract that payment is to be made in any way they choose
- cash, cattle, anything. The other party, if they agree to the contract,
are bound by those conditions. If the seller does not want cash, he is
free to set that as a condition - *before* the contract is made.
If a debt does exist and no prior contract conditions exist in respect of
that debt requiring payment in any particular fashion, should the debtor
tender cash the creditor does not have to accept, but cannot thereafter
succeed in any action for damages due to the debt not being paid (nor can
he charge interest). This is the source for the frequent statement by the
confused that "nobody is required to accept cash" - which is technically
correct; but if they won't accept cash, they may well not be able to
require anything else.
If for some reason a creditor does refuse cash in such a situation, the
debtor should make a record of his attempt to pay (with witnesses if
possible), bank the money, and collect the interest - which is his to keep.
***** Moderator's Note *****
Thanks for the explanation: I assume you're an attorney, and since I'm
not, I'll try not to contradict what you've said.
Let me put it this way: I have been at the bottom of the economic
ladder a couple of times in my life, and I have seen first hand how
businesses bring subtle pleasures to bear which make it clear that
those less well off aren't welcome. Electronic transfer payments scare
me because they are used by the middle and upper classes, and vendors
who require electronic forms of payment may be doing so because they
don't want to deal with lower-class customers.
It's no good to say that AT&T (or ILEC "X" or CLEC "Y") has a cash
payment center located "somewhere else": if a well-healed customer who
sits in front of a computer in a downtown office building can go out
on his lunch hour and pay a phone bill with a debit card at a
convenient location, I think the janitor who cleans the toilets or the
undocumented alien who empties the trash should be able to offer "coin
of the realm" at the same place.
Telephone companies are, after all, *PUBLIC* utilities: they enjoy
public rights-of-way and protection from liability for content because
they're expected to serve all comers. For a public utility to refuse
cash payments is, IMNSHO, a form of class discrimination.
Robert Bonomi
MC <for.addr...@www.ai.uga.edu.slash.mc> wrote:
>> "[All] United States money... is a valid and legal offer for payment
>> of debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal
>> law mandating that a person or organization must accept currency or
>> coins as for payment for goods and/or services...
>
>
>Those words, which are quoted from a Treasury Department web page,
>seem contradictory.
Yup. they *SEEM* that way. But they are -not-, in fact. <grin>
> The original source is:
>
>http://www.treas.gov/education/faq/currency/legal-tender.shtml
>
>... and is not any clearer. If it is "a valid and legal offer" why
>isn't the creditor required to accept it?
A creditor _is_ (pretty much) required to do so. *UNLESS* the parties
agreed _at_the_time_of_sale_ that only certain form(s) of payment would
be acceptable.
For a "non-credit" transaction -- where you make payment in full at the time
of purchase -- the seller is _NOT_ required to accept currency or coinage.
He _can_ limit the 'terms and conditions of sale' to include "no cash
purchases".
>
>I gather the legal tender laws have only actually been enforced when
>there was rivalry between different kinds of U.S. currency, e.g., gold
>certificates vs. United States Notes. Can anyone elucidate?
Try "bank notes" -- the _privately_ issued currency of various banks -- vs
the gov't-issued "money".
And is only "mostly" the case. Once in a _great_ while, a fuss gets into
the courts where somebody has _repeatedly_ refused to accept cash payment,
assessed late fees, penalties, interest, etc., and the creditor finds
out -- to their great surprise! -- that all those add-ons are un-collectable.
`
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com
wrote:
> ***** Moderator's Note *****
> Let me put it this way: I have been at the bottom of the economic
> ladder a couple of times in my life, and I have seen first hand how
> businesses bring subtle pleasures to bear which make it clear that
> those less well off aren't welcome. Electronic transfer payments scare
> me because they are used by the middle and upper classes, and vendors
> who require electronic forms of payment may be doing so because they
> don't want to deal with lower-class customers.
>
> It's no good to say that AT&T (or ILEC "X" or CLEC "Y") has a cash
> payment center located "somewhere else": . . .
When it comes to financial transactions, the poor have been screwed
for a great many years, ever since checks became widespread. When
poor people get paid at work, they have to cash their paycheck at a
check-cashing place and they have very high service charges. A great
many years ago people got paid in cash, but that's almost non-existent
to day for real jobs. However, many of the poor work under the table
and get paid in cash.
Years ago there were payment centers one could pay in cash, but not
necessarily convenient. I remember neighborhood candy stores would
have payment services where you could pay your utility bill for a
small fee, eg. 10c, equal to about a $1.00 today. It wasn't hard for
the store who could just batch up all the payments for the electric
company, phone company, and water company together with one check.
Such stores also sold money orders. I believe those services are
still offered today in poor neighborhoods. Today the post office
sells money orders, I think they cost about $1.00 now.
When I was a kid my parents had a "special" checking account;
'regular' checking accounts required a high ongoing balance. In the
special account they had a monthly service charge plus a per check
charge. Looking back adjusting for inflation those fees weren't
cheap, today's dollars about 75c/check and $5/month; but this was
still cheaper than buying individual money orders. (However, later my
parents changed banks and got a better deal.)
Also, when I was a kid poor people simply couldn't afford to have a
telephone. I think in those days "universal service" met 90%-95%
penetration. 5% is still a lot of people in a city.
In poor neighborhoods today the people seem to have an awful lot of
cell phones. But I think they can be purchased and 'recharged' by
cards which are purchased with cash.
MC
> public rights-of-way and protection from liability for content because
> they're expected to serve all comers. For a public utility to refuse
> cash payments is, IMNSHO, a form of class discrimination.
That is a very good point -- we chose to have regulated utilities
rather than government departments to handle telephones, electric
power, etc., so these regulated utilities have some of the same
responsibilities that government agencies do.
Wes Leatherock
on Thu, 15 May 2008 22:13:41 -0400
>
> > "[All] United States money... is a valid and legal
> offer for payment
> > of debts when tendered to a creditor. There is,
> however, no Federal
> > law mandating that a person or organization must
> accept currency or
> > coins as for payment for goods and/or services...
>
>
> Those words, which are quoted from a Treasury
> Department web page,
>
>
http://www.treas.gov/education/faq/currency/legal-tender.shtml
>
> ... and is not any clearer. If it is "a valid and
> legal offer" why
> isn't the creditor required to accept it?
>
> been enforced when
> there was rivalry between different kinds of U.S.
> currency, e.g., gold
> certificates vs. United States Notes. Can anyone
> elucidate?
The way it was explained to me many years ago is
that there is a difference between cash transactions,
where the consideration changes hands on the spot, and
transactions on credit, that is when the money or
other consideration is not exchanged immediately.
There is no "debt" involved in a cash transaction.
On the other hand, if the money is not paid at
the time of the transaction, a debt has arisen. In
that case the person to whom the money is owed is
obligated to take legal tender in satisfaction of the
debt.
At the same time it was explained to me that this
is the reason many sellers will not take a post dated
check. If you tender a check with today's date, it is
a cash transaction and if the check bounces it's a not
check.
But if the seller takes a post dated check, a
debt has been created and if the check bounces the law
treats it entirely differently.
Wes Leatherock
wlea...@yahoo.com
wes...@aol.com
danny burstein
[ snip ]
>When I was a kid my parents had a "special" checking account;
>'regular' checking accounts required a high ongoing balance. In the
>special account they had a monthly service charge plus a per check
>charge. Looking back adjusting for inflation those fees weren't
>cheap, today's dollars about 75c/check and $5/month; but this was
>still cheaper than buying individual money orders.
In quite a few states banks have to provide what's
typically called "lifeline" accounts at modest fees.
NYS's regulation is typical and requires:
"Basic Banking - All New York State banks are
required by law to offer low-cost or 'lifeline'
accounts called Basic Banking Accounts. Basic
Banking accounts can be opened with $25 or less,
can be maintained with a balance of one cent and
must permit a minimum of eight free withdrawals
per billing cycle and a maximum charge per cycle
of $3 per month."
http://www.banking.state.ny.us/broba.htm
--
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dan...@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]
Wes Leatherock
in a note to a post by
jtayNO...@hfDONTSENDMESPAMx.andara.com>:
[ ... ]
> Let me put it this way: I have been at the bottom of the economic
> ladder a couple of times in my life, and I have seen first hand how
> businesses bring subtle pleasures to bear which make it clear that
> those less well off aren't welcome. Electronic transfer payments
> scare me because they are used by the middle and upper classes, and
> vendors who require electronic forms of payment may be doing so
> because they don't want to deal with lower-class customers.
In Oklahoma, and I assume on most states, food stamps and other
public assistance are offered by electronic transfer only, the
recicipent receiving a plastic device that looks about the same as a
credit card, and I note most grocery stores, even those in upscale
areas, have a terminal for these. (One of the points of contention in
going to this method of payment was the selection of a single vendor
to do the transactions and provide the cards, requiring merchants to
have that vendor's dedicated terminals (card reader) to take such
payments.)
Wes Leatherock
wlea...@yahoo.com
wes...@aol.com
MC
...
> On the other hand, if the money is not paid at the time of the
> transaction, a debt has arisen. In that case the person to whom the
> money is owed is obligated to take legal tender in satisfaction of
> the debt.
> At the same time it was explained to me that this is the reason
> many sellers will not take a post dated check. If you tender a
> check with today's date, it is a cash transaction and if the check
> bounces it's a not check.
> But if the seller takes a post dated check, a debt has been
> created and if the check bounces the law treats it entirely
> differently.
Interesting. The paperwork that came with a new checking account that
I just opened says that the bank is at liberty to ignore the date on
the check and other annotations such as "Not valid after 6 months."
Steven Lichter
Gordon S. Hlavenka
> Interesting. The paperwork that came with a new checking account that
> I just opened says that the bank is at liberty to ignore the date on
> the check and other annotations such as "Not valid after 6 months."
This is nothing new. In 1980 as I was preparing to leave on a military
deployment, I left a stack of post-dated checks with the storage
facility where I had a locker. I attached a note to the checks
instructing them to take the appropriately dated check and cash it each
month, as I was not going to be able to rely on timely mail. I also
explained this personally to the guy at the counter, who said they do
this all the time for military folks.
They, of course, cashed the entire stack that evening.
I didn't discover this until I bounced a check at the Navy Exchange.
Overseas, the Navy Exchange is pretty much your only source of funds,
and if they cut you off you're royally screwed. I was royally screwed.
When I finally got back stateside, I attempted to raise holy hell with
the storage facility. They didn't care; they were under new ownership.
The previous owner obviously just cashed out as best he could before
closing the sale.
The bank was equally useless. They said that a check was an obligation
regardless of the date. The date I chose to write on a check was
nothing but a bookkeeping convenience for me and had no legal weight. I
was lucky, they said, not to be prosecuted for fraud, as I'd
intentionally written checks which I knew had no funds to back them up.
All this happened over 25 years ago.
More recently, I deposited a rebate check that had been kicking around
in my briefcase for a while. The check had a notation "Not valid after
xx/xx/xx" (which was past) but I asked the teller and they said it would
be fine. The teller deposited the check but it was subsequently
disallowed as expired, and not only did I not get the $9.99 rebate but
the bank socked me with a $25 fee.
So dates and other notations are either valid or not, depending on
whether the bank makes money on the deal. I'm in the wrong racket :-/
--
Gordon S. Hlavenka http://www.crashelectronics.com
Vote Ron Paul in 2008! Call 866-737-5066
Rich Greenberg
MC <for.addr...@www.ai.uga.edu.slash.mc> wrote:
[...]
>Interesting. The paperwork that came with a new checking account that
>I just opened says that the bank is at liberty to ignore the date on
>the check and other annotations such as "Not valid after 6 months."
Thats because except for the first stage of check processing where a
human encodes the dollar amount onto the check, no human eyes will see
it again except in rare cases.
--
Rich Greenberg N Ft Myers, FL, USA richgr atsign panix.com + 1 239 543 1353
Eastern time. N6LRT I speak for myself & my dogs only. VM'er since CP-67
Canines:Val, Red, Shasta & Casey (RIP), Red & Zero, Siberians Owner:Chinook-L
Retired at the beach Asst Owner:Sibernet-L
har...@hallikainen.com
> me because they are used by the middle and upper classes, and vendors
> who require electronic forms of payment may be doing so because they
> don't want to deal with lower-class customers.
I am hesitant to give everyone access to my bank account. I do use the
electronic bill payer feature of my credit union, but that supposedly
is totally under my control. I decide how much money to release to
whom and when. I've never had a problem with it. But, last month, I
sent a paper check to a credit card company. They cleared the check
twice. Luckily I noticed it before other checks started bouncing. It
took them a week to put the funds back in my account.
That's the only problem I've had in maybe 40 years of banking. My
wife, however, had another problem where $12,000 was taken out of her
checking account (there were not $12,000 there, so it went into
overdraft protection and started bouncing checks). She found out when
she started getting overdraft notices. The bank fixed it, but it was a
hassle.
Harold
***** Moderator's Note *****
Now we know why Bonnie and Clyde were so popular ...
Dave Garland
>In poor neighborhoods today the people seem to have an awful lot of
>cell phones. But I think they can be purchased and 'recharged' by
>cards which are purchased with cash.
They can indeed, and the phones themselves are loss leaders. After 9/11
a group of foreigner-looking people were arrested because they would go
into stores and buy large numbers of prepay cell phones.. eventually,
after an inane claim by the authorities that they were going to use the
exploding batteries to blow up bridges, it turned out that they were
parting the phones out (battery, phone, airtime card) for a tidy profit.
I use a prepaid cell phone myself, since regular monthly cell service is
rather expensive (at least 3x what a landline costs, with more strings
attached). Prepaid has a high per-minute rate (US$0.25) but I mostly
use my landline (which is much harder to misplace) anyhow.
Dave
Dan Lanciani
|
|if the various carrier companies file a tariff that says everyone has
|to pay by direct withdrawal from their bank account, then the statute
|would seem to allow that.
Here in Massachusetts we have something that might prevent this:
http://www.mass.gov/legis/laws/mgl/167b-7.htm
Unfortunately it isn't very effective in practice.
Dan Lanciani
ddl@danlan.*com
Wes Leatherock
<for.addr...@www.ai.uga.edu.slash.mc> wrote:
> Interesting. The paperwork that came with a new
> checking account that
> I just opened says that the bank is at liberty to
> ignore the date on
> the check and other annotations such as "Not valid
> after 6 months."
This has to do with your relationship with the
bank, not your relationship with the creditor.
Wes Leatherock
wlea...@yahoo.com
wes...@aol.com
Wes Leatherock
Hlavenka" <nos...@crashelex.com> wrote:
[ ... ]
> More recently, I deposited a rebate check that had been kicking
> around in my briefcase for a while. The check had a notation "Not
> valid after xx/xx/xx" (which was past) but I asked the teller and
> they said it would be fine. The teller deposited the check but it
> was subsequently disallowed as expired, and not only did I not get
> the $9.99 rebate but the bank socked me with a $25 fee.
> So dates and other notations are either valid or not, depending on
> whether the bank makes money on the deal. I'm in the wrong racket
> :-/
>
> --
> Gordon S. Hlavenka
Almost certainly the payee rejected the check (or it likely it was
a draft drawn on a zero-balance account). The banks which specialize
in processing rebate checks often have that as their only business,
and their agreements with the payees are almost certainly far
different from those regular retail banks make with personal
depositors. As a matter of fact, many banks have specialized business
accounts (perhaps tailored to a single large customer) governed by a
different contract, often negotiated by the two parties, that have
different terms and conditions.
I remember being in the SWBT Treasury Manager's (cashier's) office
when the messenger from the bank brought in a stack of drafts (most
people would consider them checks) drawn by SWBT with an adding
machine [tape] wrapped around them showing the total the bank had run
up for them. The Treasury Manager (I believe the title was later
changed to Area Assistant Treasured) would then write a single draft
for the total drawn on the SWBT treasurer in St. Louis (company
headquarters) for the total shown on the adding machine tape.
The bank in St. Louis would then present that draft in a similar
manner to some designated person in the Treasurer's office who would
write a check (not a draft) to actually pay the bank the amount.
If the bank name on a document ssays "payable through" before the
bank name, it is almost certainly a draft, not a check, and can be
refused by the drawee.
Wes Leatherock
wlea...@yahoo.com
wes...@aol.com
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com
wrote:
> But, last month, I
> sent a paper check to a credit card company. They cleared the check
> twice. Luckily I noticed it before other checks started bouncing. It
> took them a week to put the funds back in my account.
I don't like this business of electronic check clearance; where the
recipient doesn't send the paper check back but instead electronically
charges you. It's too easy to do a duplicate charge as you describe.
Steven Lichter
my credit union has told me is that once a check has been sent through
by electronic means from a POS terminal the check number has been sent
with it and should it come through again unless it is returned for some
reason; it will not work. As with check being electronically send from
bank to bank, that just can't happen, besides in most cases you get a
copy of the front and the back with as far as the courts consider the
same as the real check. I write maybe 2 checks a month, I have been
using online banking for many years, though I'm not with them anymore I
started with Bank of America when it had a text web based system, I
remember having having software that ran on my Apple II that allowed me
to access the site and D/L files from it, plus they had the old Western
Union e-mail system we could use to communicate with others.
MC
> wrote:
>
>> But, last month, I
>
It should also be easy for them to detect such situations automatically. Computer, audit thyself! :)
Dan Lanciani
|I don't like this business of electronic check clearance; where the
|recipient doesn't send the paper check back but instead electronically
|charges you. It's too easy to do a duplicate charge as you describe.
Have you asked all the companies that you pay by check to stop making
the conversion to ACH debit? According to the last version of the NACHA
rules that leaked out, members are required to allow you to opt out of
this process. (Based on the discussion in the paper that showed up on
the web for a while NACHA was very reluctant to make this rule, but
apparently there was some threat that it might become a legal requirement
if they didn't do it voluntarily.) Now of course companies can make it
very difficult for you to talk to the right person to opt out, and it can
be tricky to discuss the NACHA rules since those rules are not available
to non-members (even though they operate more-or-less as legal regulations
governing our transactions).
Verizon in MA has a nice toll-free number to opt out of ACH conversion,
but they simply ignore the request and continue direct debiting. Similarly
their reps claim that they have taken care of it and it must be a problem
with "your bank." It took me about six months and a letter to the president's
office to get them to stop converting my mother's checks.
Of course, the real problem is that banks uniformly refuse to block ACH
debits on consumer checking accounts (and often on all types of consumer
accounts). They typically lie and cite Check21 as a reason that they cannot
decline any electronic debits to an account. (Check21 has nothing to do
with ACH debits but involves passing images of checks. You cannot
opt out of Check21, though a bank has no obligation to accept checks in
electronic form--they could demand physical substitute checks if they
wanted to.) Naturally, businesses are allowed to block ACH debits on their
accounts since having random electronic withdrawals would screw up their
accounting. Consumers are not so lucky...
Dan Lanciani
ddl@danlan.*com
John Levine
>recipient doesn't send the paper check back but instead electronically
>charges you. It's too easy to do a duplicate charge as you describe.
Due to a law known as Check 21, that particular horse has left the
barn, and the barn has been torn down and replaced by a suburban
subdivision.
Even if the recipient presents the physical check to the bank, the
bank will almost always scan it and present the check electronically.
http://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/truncation/
By the way, in case it's not obvious, bank security is designed around
auditing, not prevention. The response to most mistakes is to undo
them, not to keep them from happening in the first place.
R's,
John
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com
>
> cash without being charged a fee
I forgot to mention I see the opposite situation occuring: I
patronize a small deli that takes only cash. From time to time a new
customer attempts to pay for a $4 sandwich with a credit card and is
angry when declined. They think the store has an _obligation_ to take
credit cards, which of course they do not. (And I think it's odd to
pay for a $4 transaction by credit card, years ago, most stores had a
$10 minimum to use a credit card, and that was when things cost much
less.)
***** Moderator's Note *****
I'm curious how much master_visa_xpres charges to clear each
transaction: is it a fixed fee, a percentage, or both?
Julian Thomas
05/20/08
at 01:53 PM, hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com typed:
>***** Moderator's Note *****
>I'm curious how much master_visa_xpres charges to clear each transaction:
>is it a fixed fee, a percentage, or both?
Generally it's both - fixed or around $0.35 and then somewhere around 1 -
2 - 3 % depending on volume.
--
Julian Thomas: j...@jt-mj.net http://jt-mj.net
In the beautiful Finger Lakes Wine Country of New York State!
-- --
If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.
Steven Lichter
The store could charge a service charge, like AM&PM does on each debit
card charge, as do a lot of other businesses do. You are right about
the $10.00 minimum or get charged a service charge. I worked for a
business for a while that did not take credit cards an he lost a few
sales, but that was the way he worked.
Bob Goudreau
Lisa Hancock wrote:
> > But, last month, I sent a paper check to a credit card
> > company. They cleared the check twice. Luckily I noticed it before
> > other checks started bouncing. It took them a week to put the
> > funds back in my account.
>
> I don't like this business of electronic check clearance; where the
> recipient doesn't send the paper check back but instead
> electronically charges you. It's too easy to do a duplicate charge
> as you describe.
These are two entirely orthogonal issues -- the fact that you receive
a scanned check image instead of the original paper check doesn't have
any bearing on whether the bank screws up and processes the same
transaction twice. The latter problem happened to me once -- but it
was over 25 years ago, long before the era of check image scanning.
My bank statement simply showed the same check number twice, with a
separate $25 (IIRC) deduction for each line item. Fortunately, this
was a small enough amount that no checks bounced, and a quick visit to
the branch quickly corrected the problem. But the fact that I had the
canceled check didn't matter -- all I had to do was show them the
duplicated line items on the statement.
Bob Goudreau
Cary, NC
Garrett Wollman
Bill Horne wrote:
>I'm curious how much master_visa_xpres charges to clear each
>transaction: is it a fixed fee, a percentage, or both?
Everything about electronic payment transactions is completely
negotiable between the banks and the merchants. Generally speaking,
the higher the transaction volume, the lower the costs, but there's
typically a fixed fee (which is higher for debit transactions, which
are processed in real time over different networks, than for credit
transactions) plus a fraction (which could be as little as 1/2 percent
or as much as 5 percent).
Costs vary greatly among transaction processors, and also depend on
the merchant's level of technological sophistication. An isolated
merchant without telephone or Internet service (think Woodstock)
depositing a few manual card impressions without pre-authorization
will pay much more per transaction than a large supermarket chain
doing a thousand all-electronic transactions a minute.
(Many people do not realize, when they sign the "merchant's copy" of a
credit card slip, that that piece of paper was historically deposited,
like a check, along with the store's excess cash. Today, it's more
likely to be scanned in and then destroyed, again just like a check,
but in either case, if the merchant loses the slip, they may not be
able to collect their payment.)
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | The real tragedy of human existence is not that we are
wol...@csail.mit.edu| nasty by nature, but that a cruel structural asymmetry
Opinions not those | grants to rare events of meanness such power to shape
of MIT or CSAIL. | our history. - S.J. Gould, Ten Thousand Acts of Kindness
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com
>
> I'm curious how much master_visa_xpres charges to clear each
> transaction: is it a fixed fee, a percentage, or both?
Good question. But don't merchants need the transaction verification
machine? Does that required a dedicated phone line? That's an
additional expense.
As an aside, one the last products of the old Bell System was an
integrated transaction/telephone set for this purpose.
Frank Stearns
>> ***** Moderator's Note *****
>>
>> I'd like to know if the company has a place where customers can pay
>> cash without being charged a fee
>I forgot to mention I see the opposite situation occuring: I
>patronize a small deli that takes only cash. From time to time a new
>customer attempts to pay for a $4 sandwich with a credit card and is
>angry when declined. They think the store has an _obligation_ to take
>credit cards, which of course they do not. (And I think it's odd to
>pay for a $4 transaction by credit card, years ago, most stores had a
>$10 minimum to use a credit card, and that was when things cost much
>less.)
>***** Moderator's Note *****
>I'm curious how much master_visa_xpres charges to clear each
>transaction: is it a fixed fee, a percentage, or both?
In nearly all cases, it's too much!!
But to answer the question, the discount paid depends on several factors: is the
card physically present for a swipe through a reader? If not and if this is a mail
order purchase, does all the address information given by the purchaser match up
exactly with what is on file for that card? (Tighter restrictions might not even
allow mismatched transactions depending on what doesn't match.)
Is it a corporate purchasing card or a personal card? Is it an Amex? Those folks are
greedy and get a 1%+ premium; that's one of main reasons why we don't take Amex.
Percentage or transaction fee: generally it's some combination. Some merchants can
skew the balance a little. We do larger tickets here and thus push for the smaller
discount but with a higher per transaction fee. Merchants with many small tickets
generally want the opposite.
With a card present, it's possible to get discounts in the 1% range. Mailorder folks
where there is no card to swipe pay 2-3%, perhaps even more. Specialty 3rd party
processors (say for a musician selling CDs off the stage) might pay something
horrific, in the neighborhood of 20-25%.
It's a racket, generally with four noses at the money trough that the merchant
fills: the international credit card franchise, the network, the local processor,
and the merchant's bank. They all take their cut; they're always trying to push it
higher.
At each recent rate hike I said I'd simply stop taking credit cards. Each time, the
local processor backed off.
Frank Stearns
Specialty Software and Audio Services Merchant
--
.
Robert Bonomi
Steven Lichter <diesp...@ikillspammers.com> wrote:
>hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
>>> ***** Moderator's Note *****
>>>
>>> I'd like to know if the company has a place where customers can pay
>>> cash without being charged a fee
>>
>> I forgot to mention I see the opposite situation occuring: I
>> patronize a small deli that takes only cash. From time to time a new
>> customer attempts to pay for a $4 sandwich with a credit card and is
>> angry when declined. They think the store has an _obligation_ to take
>> credit cards, which of course they do not. (And I think it's odd to
>> pay for a $4 transaction by credit card, years ago, most stores had a
>> $10 minimum to use a credit card, and that was when things cost much
>> less.)
>>
>>
>>
>> ***** Moderator's Note *****
>>
>> I'm curious how much master_visa_xpres charges to clear each
>> transaction: is it a fixed fee, a percentage, or both?
Authoritative answer: "It depends." There are a number of different
sets of terms/conditions that a 'merchant account' is established under.
Depending, among other things, on the nature of the business, and the
type of transactions (retail storefront, mail-order, telephone order,
internet-based, etc.)
Typically, there is a fixed amount 'per transaction', _and_ a percentage
of the transaction amount. The actual quantitative figures are all over
the place, depending on the perceived 'risk' of a bad transaction.
Things range from a low of somewhere around $0.10/transaction + 0.8% of
the charge amount, up to around $1/transaction + around 7% of the charge
amount.
>The store could charge a service charge, like AM&PM does on each debit
>card charge, as do a lot of other businesses do.
Actually, no, they *cannot*. It is contrary to the merchant agreement
contract to charge extra for a _credit-card_ transaction. I _think_ this
prohibition may actually be enshrined in federal statute, but, either way,
The merchant account terms expressly prohibit it, as well.
Note: It _is_ o.k. to give a 'discount' for cash payment, but you *are*
prohibited from charging above the posted item prices for credit-card
purchases. "The law is the law, don't ever make the mistake of
thinking it has to be consistent." <wry grin>
"Debit card" transactions are treated somewhat differently, both in contract,
and in statutory law.
> You are right about
>the $10.00 minimum or get charged a service charge. I worked for a
>business for a while that did not take credit cards an he lost a few
>sales, but that was the way he worked.
For a fair number of shops, it's not worth the hassle to take 'cards'.
Almost universally, there is a minimum monthly charge of at least $30
for maintaining the merchant account, _plus_ the 'rental fee' on the
'terminal' used in a retail storefront.
Rob Levandowski
Steven Lichter <diesp...@ikillspammers.com> wrote:
>
> card charge, as do a lot of other businesses do. You are right about
> the $10.00 minimum or get charged a service charge. I worked for a
> business for a while that did not take credit cards an he lost a few
> sales, but that was the way he worked.
That would violate their merchant agreement. Visa and MasterCard both
prohibit charging a "service fee" to customers who use credit cards.
Although some small merchants ignore this rule, they risk losing their
merchant account by doing so.
You can, however, offer a cash discount.
I rarely carry cash anymore. It's far more convenient to use my debit
card, and virtually every place I shop takes it. I stopped carrying
cash on a regular basis when the fast-food restaurants started accepting
credit cards.
ObTelecom: I've noticed that McDonald's seems to have on-line processing
of credit cards; they must equip their restaurants with data lines of
some sort, because it takes about a second to complete credit
authorization. Burger King, on the other hand, still uses a standalone
dialup terminal. It takes a lot longer to check out, and seems to waste
a lot of paper -- they have to print a register receipt for you, a
register receipt for the till, and a credit receipt.
Does anyone know how and why McDonald's can afford to use dedicated data
lines for their card transactions, but Burger King is stuck in the
dialup era?
--
Rob Levandowski ro...@macwhiz.com
T
diesp...@ikillspammers.com says...
[Moderator Snip]
>
> The store could charge a service charge, like AM&PM does on each debit
> card charge, as do a lot of other businesses do. You are right about
> the $10.00 minimum or get charged a service charge. I worked for a
> business for a while that did not take credit cards an he lost a few
> sales, but that was the way he worked.
>
>
The problem with the service charges and minimums is that many of them
violate the merchant agreement that was signed and delivered to the card
processor.
Rob Levandowski
Dan Lanciani <d...@danlan.com> wrote:
> Have you asked all the companies that you pay by check to stop making
> the conversion to ACH debit? According to the last version of the NACHA
> rules that leaked out, members are required to allow you to opt out of
> this process. (Based on the discussion in the paper that showed up on
> the web for a while NACHA was very reluctant to make this rule, but
> apparently there was some threat that it might become a legal requirement
> if they didn't do it voluntarily.) Now of course companies can make it
> very difficult for you to talk to the right person to opt out, and it can
> be tricky to discuss the NACHA rules since those rules are not available
> to non-members (even though they operate more-or-less as legal regulations
> governing our transactions).
I work for a major international bank, albeit not in the checking part
of the house.
Opting out of ACH conversion is, frankly, silly. Trust me, the moment
that paper check hits the depositor's bank or the clearing-house, it's
going to be scanned and shredded.
I'm not debating the merits of Check 21; I'm personally not thrilled
about it myself. The banks, however, are all for it. Consider a large
bank like Bank of America. Can you imagine how much money used to be
spent just hauling cancelled checks back and forth? The trucks, the
gas, the security, the extra postage for the check drafter's
statement... all for little slips of paper that most people throw out
when they arrive in the mail.
By scanning the checks as soon as possible when they hit the banking
system and converting them to data, all that expense of moving physical
paper around vanishes. In this day and age, money *is* data. Even
before Check 21, the movement of the paper check through the ACH system
didn't control where your funds were at any given time -- it was the
movement of bits through ACH systems that moved the money from one
account to another.
Several banks have even been working with ATM vendors on creating ATMs
that will accept checks through a slot-feed mechanism, without an
envelope. The ATM would scan the check as it was inserted and convert
it to an ACH draft, and shred the check within the ATM after the
customer verifies the scanned information.
--
Rob Levandowski ro...@macwhiz.com
ra...@vt.edu
> In <270bbbc6-e283-427e...@w5g2000prd.googlegroups.com>, on
> 05/20/08
> at 01:53 PM, hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com typed:
> >***** Moderator's Note *****
> >I'm curious how much master_visa_xpres charges to clear each transaction:
> >is it a fixed fee, a percentage, or both?
> Generally it's both - fixed or around $0.35 and then somewhere around 1 -
> 2 - 3 % depending on volume.
It's fairly complex, and varies with which processing agent a
store uses. In general, there is a fixed transaction fee plus
a percentage charged by VISA and Mastercard. The processing
agency (most banks offer this service) then adds on its own
service charges on top of VISA/MC. The card companies also
vary the percentage rate depending on card type. "Rewards"
cards carry a higher percentage, though some processing agents
just charge one percentage that covers all of them, but some
vary the percentage in step with VISA/MC rates. It's a very
competitive climate, at least there are a lot of agencies vying
to get your credit card processing business, much like long
distance services a few years ago, and the deals vary depending
on the size of your business, average transaction amount,
and probably moon phase. For some reason, gas stations get
a worse rate from a lot of places.
Suffice it to say that minmum transaction cost is about $0.30.
Technically, the merchant agreements forbid setting a minimum
charge amount, though that clause is widely ignored. Anything
under about $5 is not a good deal for the merchant, and under
$1 they might as well give away whatever the item is.
I just spent a bunch of time going over all this for my wife's
chocolate shop. I think I got as good a deal as possible, but
the sales folks can be high pressure and the terminology seems
to be deliberately confusing. Again, similar to long distance
services of a few years ago.
Bill Ranck
Blacksburg, Va.
David Clayton
an ISDN service (2B+D) which uses the D channel as transport to a X25 network
(then to our bank) for on-line card transactions.
This is a specific service (called Argent) set up by the local telco
(Telstra) for EFTPOS.
One of these systems can support about 50 EFTPOS terminals given the
small data packets sent (all 3DES) for each transaction.
Our EFTPOS terminals have one backup dial-up (in each site) in case the
ISDN (or WAN links to it) goes down.
--
Regards, David.
David Clayton
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Knowledge is a measure of how many answers you have, intelligence is a
measure of how many questions you have.
Cryderman, Charles
"I'm curious how much master_visa_xpres charges to clear each
transaction: is it a fixed fee, a percentage, or both?"
A friend of mine that runs a small store told me that for credit
transactions it is a 3% fee of the transaction total; including tax. Now
for debits it is 1.5% including tax. If I like the store and staff I try
to use debit but if I don't then credit.
Chip Cryderman
Robert Bonomi
<hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
>> ***** Moderator's Note *****
>>
>> I'm curious how much master_visa_xpres charges to clear each
>> transaction: is it a fixed fee, a percentage, or both?
>
>Good question. But don't merchants need the transaction verification
>machine?
No.
Transaction verification is -not- required. Un-verified transactions are
more expensive, per transaction, than verified ones, however.
> Does that required a dedicated phone line?
No.
With some clearinghouses, you can do it all over the Internet, or a lease-line
data circuit.
Small-volume merchants usually have a 'dial-on-demand' device, which can be
hooked up to -any- phone line -- e.g. the last line in the incoming hunt group,
or programmed to talk through a PBX over "any" line in the outgoing line pool.
> That's an
>additional expense.
There _are_ expenses associated with maintaining a 'merchant account'
to take credit cards.
The ones you ask about are not necessarily among them.
Dave Garland
>Good question. But don't merchants need the transaction verification
>machine? Does that required a dedicated phone line? That's an
>additional expense.
Not necessarily. In a small shop with few transactions (e.g. a single
shopkeeper), a single phone line might be adequate for everything. It's
just that you can only use the line for one thing at a time.
OTOH, if you had several clerks doing verifications, you'd probably
want to reserve a line for that, so your phone wasn't always busy..
Dave
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com
> ObTelecom: I've noticed that McDonald's seems to have on-line processing
> of credit cards; they must equip their restaurants with data lines of
> some sort, because it takes about a second to complete credit
> authorization.
Chase Bank has a "blink" card where the card is merely waved across
the reader and registered quickly. It is faster than swiping and even
faster than paying cash. McDonald's in our area supports that, as
does a local convenience store chain, "Wawa". The Wawa chain offers a
credit card (through Chase) and free food is the bonus.
What bothers me about credit card use for small transactions (eg fast
food, pizza, convenience stores) is that all of us are paying higher
prices to cover the cost of the credit card discounts and handling.
While I think it's stupid to use a credit card for small transactions,
I do use the Wawa card. I get to defer payment until the bill comes
so my personal cash flow is improved. As mentioned, I get free food.
Since the prices are higher whether I pay cash or credit, I might as
well get the benefits.
At my local pizza place, it amazes me how many people charge their
dinners.
Merchants get one benefit from credit cards--since people are not
pulling real cash out of their wallet, they tend to spend more
freely. I find myself doing that at times in the convenience, buying
a magazine that I'd otherwise skip.
T
wol...@bimajority.org says...
> In article <270bbbc6-e283-427e...@w5g2000prd.googlegroups.com>,
> Bill Horne wrote:
>
> >I'm curious how much master_visa_xpres charges to clear each
> >transaction: is it a fixed fee, a percentage, or both?
>
> Everything about electronic payment transactions is completely
> negotiable between the banks and the merchants. Generally speaking,
> the higher the transaction volume, the lower the costs, but there's
> typically a fixed fee (which is higher for debit transactions, which
> are processed in real time over different networks, than for credit
> transactions) plus a fraction (which could be as little as 1/2 percent
> or as much as 5 percent).
>
> Costs vary greatly among transaction processors, and also depend on
> the merchant's level of technological sophistication. An isolated
> merchant without telephone or Internet service (think Woodstock)
> depositing a few manual card impressions without pre-authorization
> will pay much more per transaction than a large supermarket chain
> doing a thousand all-electronic transactions a minute.
>
> (Many people do not realize, when they sign the "merchant's copy" of a
> credit card slip, that that piece of paper was historically deposited,
> like a check, along with the store's excess cash. Today, it's more
> likely to be scanned in and then destroyed, again just like a check,
> but in either case, if the merchant loses the slip, they may not be
> able to collect their payment.)
>
> -GAWollman
>
I remember the days of batching credit card slips and submitting them as
a deposit to the bank. Around the mid 90's that all changed, you started
getting eletronic batch settlement but you still had to send the printed
slip to the bank.
Now it's all automatic.
Dan Lanciani
|In article <2008051821...@ss10.danlan.com>,
| Dan Lanciani <d...@danlan.com> wrote:
|
|> Have you asked all the companies that you pay by check to stop making
|> the conversion to ACH debit? According to the last version of the NACHA
|> rules that leaked out, members are required to allow you to opt out of
|> this process. (Based on the discussion in the paper that showed up on
|> the web for a while NACHA was very reluctant to make this rule, but
|> apparently there was some threat that it might become a legal requirement
|> if they didn't do it voluntarily.) Now of course companies can make it
|> very difficult for you to talk to the right person to opt out, and it can
|> be tricky to discuss the NACHA rules since those rules are not available
|> to non-members (even though they operate more-or-less as legal regulations
|> governing our transactions).
|
|I work for a major international bank, albeit not in the checking part
|of the house.
Would you know how I might obtain an account that does not allow ACH
debits without my authorization (or that simply does not allow them)?
If this is impossible in the US, why is that the case?
|Opting out of ACH conversion is, frankly, silly.
Please explain specifically why it is "silly." If I opt out of ACH check
conversion and the payee wants to do anything electronic they have to use
a Check21-style truncation. This means that I get a legal substitute check
(cancelled) and have all the rights and guarantees specified by the Check21
legislation--legislation that is publically available. (Even if you do not
normally receive checks back you may request such a substitute check; there
may be a fee.) As a side benefit, when a random ACH debit shows up on my
account I can state truthfully that I have not authorized any such activity
at all.
If I allow the payee to direct debit my account I get a simple line on
my statement for the ACH/ARC debit with an ambiguous payee string, no
pointer to the account where the money went and (at least in the case
of my three banks, though I gather this differs) no reference number.
Inquiries to my banks about such debits generally result in a statement
that they cannot tell me anything about it but that it must be correct
because it is electronic. Although Regulation E (which in theory governs
such transactions) is publically available, that regulation delegates the
definition of authorization to the industry, and the NACHA rules that
implement that policy are not available to non-members. This makes it
very hard to argue about the validity of a transaction.
There is also the minor additional disadvantage that in many cases your
"authorization" to convert a check to an ACH debit also authorizes the
payee to debit an additional $25 fee if something goes wrong the first
time. A payee can't normally just bump up the amount of a negotiable
instrument without going back to the maker. Allowing a payee to do
this unilaterally is just "silly."
|Trust me, the moment
|that paper check hits the depositor's bank or the clearing-house, it's
|going to be scanned and shredded.
This is simply not true. Pretty much the only Check21 truncations I've
seen come from bank (i.e., credit card) payees where I have opted out
of ACH conversion. In all other cases I still get my original checks
back. Many consumers (misled by the banks) think that ACH debits *are*
Check21 truncations so they don't realize that they can opt out. They
may also be confused because their own bank doesn't return checks.
|I'm not debating the merits of Check 21; I'm personally not thrilled
|about it myself.
IMHO, Check21 is infinitely better than ACH/ARC conversion. It maintains
the item as a negotiable instrument and adds a few new guarantees of amount
and non-duplication to the existing body of (again, publically available)
legislation governing the transaction. The worst thing about Check21 is
that banks deliberately conflate it with ACH transactions, picking the best
properties of each for themselves.
ACH debits as originally advertised would have been ok (at least they would
have been ok if the bank provided reasonable documentation). The bank sends
your money to anyone on the ACH network who asks (with no proof that you
authorized the transaction) but you have 60 days to reverse the transaction
by stating that it was unauthorized. Unfortunately, the definition of
"authorized" has become very broad, and somehow the responsibility has
fallen on the consumer to prove the transaction unauthorized rather than
on the payee to prove it authorized.
The worst example so far appears to be the TEL debit type where all the payee
has to do is send the consumer a letter of "confirmation" (copy kept on file)
on or before the date of debit. Naturally, they are supposed to have
authorization in the first place, but they don't have to prove it. Also,
intuitively, you would think that on receipt of the letter the consumer would
be able to contact the payee to abort the debit if it was not authorized, but
in my (limited) experience this does not work. In fact, a rep hung up on me
after loudly refusing to cancel such a debit even after I explained that the
authorizing conversation mentioned in the letter of "confirmation" never took
place.
|The banks, however, are all for it. Consider a large
|bank like Bank of America. Can you imagine how much money used to be
|spent just hauling cancelled checks back and forth? The trucks, the
|gas, the security, the extra postage for the check drafter's
|statement... all for little slips of paper that most people throw out
|when they arrive in the mail.
|
|By scanning the checks as soon as possible when they hit the banking
|system and converting them to data, all that expense of moving physical
|paper around vanishes. In this day and age, money *is* data.
Yes, banks like to make more profit which they certainly won't share
with me. Check21 good; ACH better. For the banks. Why would I want
to participate in ACH debits if I don't have to?
|Even
|before Check 21, the movement of the paper check through the ACH system
|didn't control where your funds were at any given time -- it was the
|movement of bits through ACH systems that moved the money from one
|account to another.
I don't understand. Are you now using the term "ACH" to refer generally
to the check clearing house system?
|Several banks have even been working with ATM vendors on creating ATMs
|that will accept checks through a slot-feed mechanism, without an
|envelope. The ATM would scan the check as it was inserted and convert
|it to an ACH draft, and shred the check within the ATM after the
|customer verifies the scanned information.
Conversion of a check to an ACH/ARC type debit requires prior approval
of the check maker. (At least it did per the last version of the ACHA
rules that floated around.) That approval can be easily given, e.g.,
by merely failing to object to prior notice in a bill or by handing a
check to a clerk in a store with a clearly posted policy. But generally
the entity making the conversion has to be trusted in the sense of being
a NACHA member of client thereof. What obligation would the user of
such an ATM have to provide proof that the maker of the check authorized
its conversion to an ACH debit?
Dan Lanciani
ddl@danlan.*com
Robert Bonomi
Rob Levandowski <ro...@macwhiz.com> wrote:
>In article <2008051821...@ss10.danlan.com>,
> Dan Lanciani <d...@danlan.com> wrote:
>
>> Have you asked all the companies that you pay by check to stop making
>> the conversion to ACH debit? According to the last version of the NACHA
>> rules that leaked out, members are required to allow you to opt out of
>> this process. (Based on the discussion in the paper that showed up on
>> the web for a while NACHA was very reluctant to make this rule, but
>> apparently there was some threat that it might become a legal requirement
>> if they didn't do it voluntarily.) Now of course companies can make it
>> very difficult for you to talk to the right person to opt out, and it can
>> be tricky to discuss the NACHA rules since those rules are not available
>> to non-members (even though they operate more-or-less as legal regulations
>> governing our transactions).
>
>I work for a major international bank, albeit not in the checking part
>of the house.
>
>Opting out of ACH conversion is, frankly, silly. Trust me, the moment
>that paper check hits the depositor's bank or the clearing-house, it's
>going to be scanned and shredded.
Tell me, *WHAT* happens when the _original_ is needed for forensic analysis
to establish/rebut a "quality" forgery or other 'alteration' of the original?
_WHO_ bears the liability for having honored the forged/altered instrument?
_HOW_ do you prosecute a criminal forgery case without the actual evidence?
Or, maybe the issue is moot, because nobody forges checks any more?
<*guffaw*>
John Levine
>food, pizza, convenience stores) is that all of us are paying higher
>prices to cover the cost of the credit card discounts and handling.
Maybe, maybe not. Handling cash isn't free--they need to count it,
take it down to the bank, and it's a lot easier to miscount or steal
than bits from the credit card. If the place negotiates a good rate
with the bank, which the giant fast food chains have certainly done,
it may well be a wash.
I always pay for my pizzas with plastic, but then my master card gives
me 12 months interest free and about 1.4% in rebate points. My bank
seems to have severely overestimated how much business they'll be
getting.
R's,
John
PS: What does this have to do with telecom?
***** Moderator's Note *****
The credit card machines are connected to the clearing houses by phone
lines. ;-)
Bill Horne
Geoffrey Welsh
> Merchants get one benefit from credit cards--since people are not
> pulling real cash out of their wallet, they tend to spend more
> freely. I find myself doing that at times in the convenience, buying
> a magazine that I'd otherwise skip.
They also have less cash in the till and in their deposit bags, making them a
less attractive robbery target. Also, one does not have to make change with
electronic transactions.
-----
Geoffrey Welsh <Geoffrey [dot] Welsh [at] bigfoot [dot] com>
.
danny burstein
>It was a dark and stormy night when hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
>>Good question. But don't merchants need the transaction verification
>>machine? Does that required a dedicated phone line? That's an
>>additional expense.
>Not necessarily. In a small shop with few transactions (e.g. a single
>shopkeeper), a single phone line might be adequate for everything. It's
>just that you can only use the line for one thing at a time.
Traditionally you'd use the phone line that's also
used for the fax machine. That has the advantage of
also being a "real" one, as opposed to something
whacky that requires a proprietary PBX type phone set.
--
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dan...@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]
Rob Levandowski
<CbadnRHsW9eO46jV...@posted.nuvoxcommunications>,
bon...@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) wrote:
> Tell me, *WHAT* happens when the _original_ is needed for forensic analysis
> to establish/rebut a "quality" forgery or other 'alteration' of the original?
Under Check 21, the scanned image *is* the original instrument for all
legal purposes. If the forensic information you desire isn't captured
by the scan, you're out of luck.
If you say "I never wrote that check," and the bank presents you with a
fax-quality monochrome printout of the check, under the law they have
presented you with as much proof as if they had presented the original
check.
I don't like this part myself, but it's the law now in the U.S., and
good luck fighting the banking lobbyists to get it changed....
You may have an easier time of it using electronic banking or payment by
credit/debit card. The chargeback rules for those procedures are
usually more liberal than those for paper checks.
--
Rob Levandowski ro...@macwhiz.com
Matt Simpson
> Several banks have even been working with ATM vendors on creating ATMs
> that will accept checks through a slot-feed mechanism, without an
> envelope. The ATM would scan the check as it was inserted and convert
> it to an ACH draft, and shred the check within the ATM after the
> customer verifies the scanned information.
My credit union has ATMs that work this way, although I'm not sure the
check is actually shredded within the ATM. The check is accepted via
slot-feed and scanned. The scanned image is displayed on the ATM's
screen, and also printed on the customer's receipt.
The first time I used this feature, I had an interesting problem due to
the bizarre way the ATM handles PIN verification.
When the card is entered, it is read and spit back out. Then it asks
for the PIN. So there is no longer an opportunity for the ATM to eat
the card if the customer enters the wrong PIN too many times.
And apparently the PIN is not verified immediately when entered. It
waits until the first transaction.
So I fed in my card, it spit it back out and asked for my PIN. I
entered 4 digits. Then it asked what I wanted to do. I said I wanted
to deposit a check. So it activated the slot feeder, I fed in the
check, and it scanned it.
Then it told me my PIN was wrong.
Since I wasn't sure whether I had remembered the wrong number, or
fat-fingered the correct one, I screwed up 2 more times.
Then it told me I had exhausted my PIN retries and it was cancelling the
transaction.
But it didn't give back my check, which was somewhere deep within the
bowels of the machine, maybe shredded or maybe not. So there I was with
no check and no funds deposited to my account.
When I called the next day, they were able to get it straightened out.
Sam Spade
>
> PS: What does this have to do with telecom?
>
>
> ***** Moderator's Note *****
>
> The credit card machines are connected to the clearing houses by phone
> lines. ;-)
Only the ma and pa stores use dial up for credit card validation. Most
are done either by dedicated circiut or satellite service.
***** Moderator's Note *****
It was a joke. Look at the smiley that follow the remark while you
repeat after me: J-O-K-E.
The digest's policy on "relevancy" has always been "whatever the
moderator wants". I am continuing that tradition.
John Levine
>are done either by dedicated circiut or satellite service.
A surprising number validate over the net. That's what my merchant
account does. Nova gave me an application that has its own local web
interface or that I could integrate into a computer controlled cash
register, uh, point of sale terminal.
R's,
John
Dale Farmer
network service yanked out from under the credit card terminals. So we
are having to go back to POTS line service until we can scrape up enough
money to buy new terminals, or find an adapter that allows us to get a
POTS line out of one of our members cellular phones.
Anyone have any suggestions?
--Dale
Geoffrey Welsh
> A surprising number validate over the net. That's what my merchant
> account does. Nova gave me an application that has its own local web
> interface or that I could integrate into a computer controlled cash
> register, uh, point of sale terminal.
Cable and DSL penetration is pretty good in most Canadian cities, and at
least one company I know of provides third-party (PPPoE provided through the
regional ILECs) ADSL connections from retail point of sale locations through
their network to multiple payment processing companies. I don't know what
that company charges for this service but Bell Canada offers 'basic' business
ADSL service (download speeds of up to 1 Mbps and upload speed of up to 640
Kbps) for an existing phone line for about the same price as an additional
business phone line. Processing is faster this way - no dialing and
connecting time, no contention for access to the phone line between multiple
POS terminals, FAX machine, voice use, etc. - so it is probably an
economically attractive service.
GlowingBlueMist
news:Vo8_j.1309$QW.1217@trndny04...
Rob Warnock
+---------------
| Rob Levandowski <ro...@macwhiz.com> wrote:
| > Several banks have even been working with ATM vendors on creating ATMs
| > that will accept checks through a slot-feed mechanism, without an
| > envelope. The ATM would scan the check as it was inserted and convert
| > it to an ACH draft, and shred the check within the ATM after the
| > customer verifies the scanned information.
|
| My credit union has ATMs that work this way, although I'm not sure the
| check is actually shredded within the ATM. The check is accepted via
| slot-feed and scanned. The scanned image is displayed on the ATM's
| screen, and also printed on the customer's receipt.
Bank of America has been rolling those out in the SF Bay Area
for some months now. Most (though not yet all) of the BofA ATMs
I go to now use this no-deposit-slip/no-envelope/scan-checks method.
-Rob
-----
Rob Warnock <rp...@rpw3.org>
627 26th Avenue <URL:http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403 (650)572-2607
Scott Dorsey
>>
> A non-profit group I'm associated with is having it's wireless
>network service yanked out from under the credit card terminals. So we
>are having to go back to POTS line service until we can scrape up enough
>money to buy new terminals, or find an adapter that allows us to get a
>POTS line out of one of our members cellular phones.
> Anyone have any suggestions?
I worked for an annual festival that used to use cellular wireless
connections for credit card transactions at the gate. They had a couple
analogue bag phones connected to credit card terminals, connected to a small
yagi on the top of the registration tent to allow them to hit a cell tower
some distance away.
THEN... the TDMA infrastructure went away... and they are out in the middle
of a fairly rural area with no digital cell service to speak of. So what
they did last year was just to record all of the transactions, then batch
them up and transmit them over a landline phone at the end of the day.
Two of the transactions were rejected over the weekend, for a total loss
of about $50. This is a considerably smaller amount of money than was
previously spent for cell service and equipment. Overall it was better
just to take the loss than spend the money for onsite verification.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."