Re:Judge: Citibank isn't entitled to $500M it sent to variou...
by gambiting on Friday February 19, 2021 @02:59AM
(#26190708)
Right, but the desire to undo is incompatible with the desire to have fast transfers. Yet another solution to this problem would be to have transfers take 24 hours during which they can be "un" sent by the sender, but I imagine banks will have a very strong preference towards instant or very very fast transfers.
In this case it may be the best option you have, but the UX you should be aiming for is always undo.
Humans are always sure this is what they wanted to do right up until they understand the consequences. Then they experience regret. If possible design your software so that regret has a natural response in the interface in the form of an "Undo" option.
A confirmation step doesn't trigger that "understand the consequences" outcome, and so users will mostly be annoyed by the confirmation, and pick "Confirm" even when in fact they'll immediately regret that once they do it. They may even ask you to add another "Confirm" step. You want "Undo".
Notice the law here reflects this preference for Undo. If Citibank wired $500M to me the law says they get to Undo that, because they didn't owe me $500M and so that's just a mistake. They can't undo this because it looks exactly like a legitimate payment to a creditor, and if you could always undo those it opens a real Pandora's box. Normally you can "undo" paying a willing creditor because they'll just lend you the money again. But of course not everybody is a willing creditor, as in this case. Boo hoo for Citibank.