The same banks that caused 2008 and got bailed out can unanimously control transactions. The same banks that cause endless global conflict, that fix elections, that manipulate politicians, that rig the fabric of capitalism and democracy all around the world, that enable socialism for the rich and rugged individualism for the poor…those same banks are the ones you trust to “reverse transactions without permission”.

This is the problem crypto fixes. It removes the banks power. It has reversibility; it just needs to be integrated with the/a identity mechanism and legal system. The main purpose is to cut out the bankers.

It works the same way. You can introduce voluntary trusted market intermediaries and utilize things like escrow. Big enough markets can provide liquidity such that all transactions appear realtime, but sellers can provide a deposit to the market to cover problems.

That is one method among a gazillion.

We do not need banks. All bank functions need to be mathematically automated with no trusted parties.

This is what happens with fiat money anyways, it is just so intimately mixed by now (credit cards, ACH, etc.) that you figure it's the only kind of transaction that exist or should exist.

Crypto is providing an alternative to this point of view, if you don't think you need it, don't use it, pretty straightforward... and if you want to stop it because you want people to think like you, try to stop it, let's have fun.

also perhaps consider taking a less passive aggressive tone. throwaway accounts are not an excuse to be rude

If stating the factual matter of what you can do with or against crypto is "rude" to you, feel free to not answer next time, as your whining/concern trolling won't change much to these facts... especially when they don't relate to what was debated: reversability of transactions.

We have passwords and two factor to prevent this stuff for lots of situations but in this ACH case we seem to have nothing. What's special about ACH vs all other situations? Why do I need a password and two factor on other accounts but not ACH? It's just as illegal to break into those other accounts is it not?

You have to be a bank or otherwise registered with the clearing house.

So you can ask your bank to pull money from my account, and if I object my bank will claw back the money from your bank and they will know who you are.

And if it wasn't all a misunderstanding or a typo, then they know where to find you.

Off the top of my head, the only ones I can think of are utilities, other banks (so you can make loan payments), and consumer payment processors like PayPal. In the first two, they'll have your ID. In the latter, they do the "make two deposits" thing to verify you own (or at least have access to) the account.

I can't go to Wal-mart and pay via ACH. Do they even take personal checks anymore?

Pretty much anyone with a Stripe account can accept payments via ACH.

https://stripe.com/docs/payments/ach-debit

I worked at an ISP and we definitely appreciated it when our customers paid via ACH instead of credit card. (Less fees.) We were tiny, too; you don't have to be a giant company to get this going.

And it certainly used to be common for e-commerce sites to accept "electronic checks" by having you type in the routing and account numbers, with no additional verification. These days, there usually is additional verification.

It is still commonly accepted with no verification for payment for things like utility bills. This appears to be on the assumption that if there is check fraud they probably know the guilty party, because who else would be trying to pay your power bill?

But then you have to get the money out of that account, and into cash in your hands without leaving a trail that leads to you. It's possible, but complicated. And if you could do it, there was probably already significant money in the account you hacked into in the first place. No need to pad it with ACH debits that might set off alarm bells.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1343

ACH fraud is wire fraud

https://www.justia.com/criminal/offenses/white-collar-crimes...

The people involved in money transfer scams are never, ever going to jail, ever.

How do you explain the widespread availability of "drop" accounts in the US? Cybercrime forums are full of people offering services to "cash out" illicit bank transfers into cryptocurrency.

Integrating over all of the possible outcomes of wire-fraud, being put in prison is more likely than making millions of dollars and using them as you please.

Or, at least, enough people believe this, and also prefer not to be in prison, that they do not commit wire fraud. It might also be because it's difficult. (I don't personally know how I'd take up wire fraud, if I wanted to start.)

"Being put in prison" is a likely outcome because of complex and overlapping human constructs that have lead to power structures where other people can force you into a prison. This is why it's relevant that it's "illegal". Briefly, "we live in a society".

The kind of "shape" wire-fraud has (in terms of the likelihood of its outcomes, i.e. very high risk, low chance of reward) is found in many things. A lot of illegal things have this shape.

The above commenter probably assumed all this to be 'background'. With that "because you go to jail if you do that," is a succinct and basically correct statement, even if it is not prefaced with every possible exception.

Every Eastern European craigslist scammer has access to US business bank accounts to accept payments for their nonexistent cars and boats.

The answer is, it is illegal, and easy to catch, so people don't abuse it as much as they would if it wasn't illegal.

Why is it easy to catch? The OPs premise that you have to provide identification to open bank accounts is obviously false.

If you don't believe that deterrence is a real thing, there is a lot more human behavior that needs explanation than just the relative lack of ACH fraud.

https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/russian-man-pleads-guilty-...

They do this, at giant scale. When you're earning tens of thousands of dollars per account, it's worth it to train people to go open bank accounts using fake passports.