I can understand that a simple confirmation number isn’t really proof of anything and is really only useful when following up with your own bank. But I find that there are actually more audit trails with e-transfers than with cheques. I recently paid a small-business service provider via Interac e-transfer. If they were to claim that they didn’t receive the funds, I have (1) an email from the bank stating the funds were sent and who they were sent to, (2) another email from the bank stating the funds were accepted and who accepted them, (3) an Interac log entry on my banking app indicating the time the transaction was initiated and the time it was completed, and (4) a debit entry in my bank account history.
More commonly when dealing with businesses, payment is not by Interac e-transfer but through the electronic bill payment system which requires the business to have a billing account number. Again, there are multiple lines of evidence that a payment was made. You get a confirmation screen with the name of the payee, the account being paid, the amount, and a confirmation number, which you can save for your records. There’s also of course the debit on the bank account record. The feature I find most useful is that the bill payment option lists all your payees and the date and amount of the last payment. This is great for me because I’m scatter-brained and absent-minded. I’ll sometimes get an overdue notice and think “the bastards lost the payment I just sent them”, and then I check the payment log on the banking app, and then what I think is more like “Holy shit! Really? Last payment was more than two months ago?”
No - but the circumstances matter. If I try to pay my garage landlord using that option it will take longer than if I just leave the check in the garage for him to pick up. I’ll pay anything I can online by automatic transfer but the "tell the bank to mail a check instead of writing it myself " generally isn’t worthwhile for me, since it would almost always involve either checks that are not being mailed (garage landlord, dentist) or checks going into a birthday/Christmas/wedding card.
I’m probably just being dense but - Interac knows the email went to the correct recipient because I correctly answered the security question. And then I’m told to log-in to my online banking and the money gets deposited . The step I’m missing is how Interac know which bank and account I logged into. Walk me through it - I get a notification that you sent me money. I open my Citibank app and log-in and Interac sends the money to the account I choose. How does Interac know I logged into Citibank and not Chase - or is there just one app that all banks use and I could have accounts at three different banks all using the same app/website ?
Thanks for that cite - this is the part I didn’t get , that you don’t just log in to your bank , you have to do that after clicking a link in the email or text.
"If you don’t have Autodeposit set up, click the link in the email or text message notification you receive and follow the instructions to deposit the money in your Canadian bank account with a participating financial institution.
We also pay our taxes through the bank, which (as an American) is weird but convenient. The Canadian equivalent of the IRS is the CRA. When I go to the CRA website, I log in through a “sign-in partner,” i.e. I use my bank’s login (doing it now, just to check, and it says this is Interac’s sign-in service). Then they text me a code, I type it in, and I can see helpful information: my 2022 return was assessed on 17 April 2023, and my balance owing is $0.00. I can look at all the past years.
I would love it if the IRS were this user-friendly…
By coincidence, I wrote a check this morning for a plumber - saved 3%. Right as I was writing it, the power went out (transformer blew in freezing rain.) I must have been momentarily flustered, and I wrote the damned check incorrectly. “One hundred and 79/100 dollars” instead of $179.00. So I had to call them up, ask that they void it, and wrote and will post a correct check.
That’s correct. What the US State Department says, specifically, is that if you live abroad you can use a credit card to pay for your passport. If you live in the US, you cannot. Why? I have no idea.
I also don’t like automatic payments because I like the freedom to pay on my timeline, not a rigid schedule. If there’s a reason I have to delay paying a bill for a week or so (while still being “on time”) I have the flexibility to do so. I do pay all my bills online. Monthly bills, income tax, property tax. The only checks I regularly write lately are to the company that does our chimney/dryer vent annual checks. But we never use our fireplace, and we got an electric ventless dryer last year, so we no longer have to be checked … in order to need to write a check.
My bank doesn’t, but I also bought registers from Amazon. Since almost all of our banking is direct payment to vendors our register entries are only 10% real checks.
I only do automatic payments if the vendor gives me a reason to, like a discount. It is easier to remember to write it in the check register and then to Quicken if I do the payment manually.
BTW, when my wife was selling some of her books after a reading, she set up Square. There is an inexpensive card reader, and it lets you accept credit cards. I set up PayPal for my writing group so we could do membership renewals online. The free Wordpress plug in is a bit more complicated than Square but not too bad. (To set up, not to use.)
I wonder if Square is what my hairdresser uses? I use PayPal a lot.
But I used to hate HATE HATE HATE doing all the monthly bills. Time consuming, tedious, lots of extraneous paper, and I still had to walk the payments to a mailbox. I’ve been doing online bill pay for over 25 years.
This, this, and more this. As soon as I could do direct draw for a monthly bill, I did so. Gas, electric, city, mortgage (until it was paid off), car payment (until it was paid off), and credit card. Which is a major reason that I hardly write checks anymore.
I haven’t had to write a check in over 4 years now.
Used to have to back when I lived at my old place since the landlord only took check, but now I can pay everything digitally, so I don’t need checks anymore.
I think I still have some around just in case, but I have no idea where I put them.
Oh, certainly. I’m referring to all those other payments that you already are paying by automatic transfers (or online bank checks). As I’ve written, my plumber wants his check on the spot, too.
Yes! This is the biggest thing I like about online bank payments. As each bill comes in, I enter the amount into the bank app on my phone and pick a payment date. Done! No more stacks of paperwork to shuffle through.
Unfortunately, since I don’t drive going to the local branch of my bank involves taking the bus, which wasn’t worth it just to pick up a check register. I was down to about a dozen or so checks, so I was going to have to order more checks later this year anyway.
I didn’t think about seeing if I could just order a register from Amazon. Which is annoying, because that’s my usual go-to when I need something.
Slightly OT, I couldn’t get refills for my razor from my grocery store or CVS. (CVS had cards for them, but no blades.) There was a space for my flossers but they never had any. In both cases I ordered from Amazon.
And retailers wonder why no one buys there any more.
33 to our cleaning lady.
11 to our cat sitter.
11 to various local contractors who either charge extra for credit card payment, or just let it be known that they’d strongly prefer checks.
The remaining 14 were just this and that. Four were for various tax payments, two were for vacation rentals, and after that it gets really miscellaneous.
I’m not sure how long it’s been since I stopped carrying a checkbook with me when I’m away from the house. Fifteen years, maybe twenty, would be my guess.
I didn’t think about seeing if I could just order a register from Amazon. Which is annoying, because that’s my usual go-to when I need something.