Dwolla is going to eliminate ACH

Re:Dwolla is going to eliminate ACH by manuelflara on Tuesday May 08, 2012 @03:23PM (#3945384)

I don't know how it works in the US, but in other countries I've seen also something that's pretty inconvenient: you have to manually pay your utilities every month (water, electricity, etc) instead of the charge being done into your account automatically every month. If there is a problem and you don't agree with the bill (99.99% of the times you don't), just complain to the company and if necessary, they'll reimburse you.

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Re:Dwolla is going to eliminate ACH by dusing on Tuesday May 08, 2012 @03:33PM (#3945427)

"just complain to the company and if necessary, they'll reimburse you."

This is exactly why I don't do auto payments. Would you rather fight to get your money back from a utility bill mess up, or refuse to pay it before it is fixed?

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Re:Dwolla is going to eliminate ACH by bensummers on Tuesday May 08, 2012 @04:36PM (#3945655)

If you don't get anywhere with the company, or just don't feel like talking them, you complain to your bank. I had to do this recently. It took all of 3 minutes to get my money back with no questions asked other than "did you authorise it?" and to get a block put on my account to stop that company ever taking money again.

This costs the company money and a lot of paperwork, so the threat of doing it is often enough to get them to sort themselves out.

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Re:Dwolla is going to eliminate ACH by dredmorbius on Tuesday May 08, 2012 @07:13PM (#3946278)

That's generally not how automatic debit payments work in the US.

Too: even when getting a direct deposit authorization for an account, you are almost always (US) also allowing withdrawals from your account, in the event the depositor claims they made a deposit in error.

Increasingly, banks seem less secure and more porous when it comes to holding my money.

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Re:Dwolla is going to eliminate ACH by njharman on Tuesday May 08, 2012 @05:47PM (#3945933)

I would (and do) vastly prefer to optimize for the common case. The chance that someday I might have to dispute a bill I already paid for is totally worth not dicking around with bills every month.

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Re:Dwolla is going to eliminate ACH by PeterisP on Wednesday May 09, 2012 @03:18AM (#3947432)

You don't have to fight. You just say "I don't like that particular debit" in the internetbank or by phone, and the bank is required (by law) to credit you back; and then the (angry) utility company can try to deal with you.

I don't pay any bills manually; all of them (utilities/heating/electricity, mobile, internet, kindergarten, insurance, creditcard invoice) happen automagically - I just review online how much was paid and how much I have left :)

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Re:Dwolla is going to eliminate ACH by s_henry_paulson on Wednesday May 09, 2012 @04:59AM (#3947659)

In my bank, your bills go to your bank, but you have to log in to click and pay them. You have the option of setting up auto-approval, but if you'd rather review all of your bills, this is the default.

I typically spend about 1 minute per month paying bills.

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