Comment by nfriedly | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nfriedly | Hacker News Reader

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Paying all of my bills. All of them. My bank (Fidelity) can connect to most bigger companies to have the bills automatically sent to them and then they automatically pay it (with an optional upper limit on each biller).

For other bills, I got all but one to put me on "budget billing" (same amount each month, so Fidelity just sends them a check for that amount without seeing the bill). For Windstream, which varies by a dollar or two each month, I just send them an amount on the upper end and then let a credit accrue. Both of these require an update maybe once a year or so.

Windstream is a bit funny - I don't know why they can't pick a number and stick to it. Also, they apparently raised my "guaranteed price for life" a couple of times and didn't notify me until ~8 months later when they were threatening to disconnect my service for being more than a month behind. (They had turned off paper billing on my account but didn't actually enable e-billing - service still worked so I didn't even think about it. We eventually got it straightened out, but Windstream is ... special.)

Beyond that, I made a bot that automatically withdrew Elance earnings to my bank account (that got me banned for a week or so when I posted it to their forum).

I made another bot that bought and sold bitcoins and litecoins and such. It was moderately profitable until my exchange (criptsy) got hacked and lost all of my float (worth ~$60 USD at the time.)

I connected an Arduino IR blaster to my TV to make it automatically turn on my sound bar (the TV would turn it off, but not on?!) - http://www.nfriedly.com/techblog/2015/01/samsung-tv-turn-on-...

Oh, and of course, code tests and deployment. Nearly every git commit I make gets a ton of tests, and for most projects, each tag gets an automated deployment to to npm or bluemix or wherever.

As an European, it seems amazing that you even need to automate half of this stuff/that it is a perk of a single bank.

Over here nearly everything recurring is done with direct debit, in which you authorize corporations to directly and automatically withdraw funds from your bank account, and it's a required feature if you want to connect to the European payment system. (don't worry, you can charge it back in case of errors or malice)

> in which you authorize corporations to directly and automatically withdraw funds from your bank account

The corporations over there must be more trustworthy than the ones we have over here. I'd never agree to such a thing.

They're probably as trustworthy over European end as over the US end (hell, quite often those are the same corporations) - it's more that in Europe, customer protection rights make it less likely companies will make a... "mistake".

If a company makes a withdrawel that you disagree with you can log into your bank website/app and get the money back until 57 days after withdrawel.

If its >57 days but <13 months you can call the bank and they do it for you.

In Dutch we have a verb for it: storneren. I think it's best translated as 'to write back'. But I don't know a direct translation.

Yea, here in the states we have a crappy insecure version of direct debit that I've seen abused more than once, so I don't trust it anymore. For one thing, you can't do charge backs. Once the money is gone, its gone.

> Paying all of my bills. All of them.

What kind of bills? Like grocery bills? or recurring bills?

Aren't you using direct debits/standing orders/credit cards for those?

Everything that's recurring: mortgage, electricity, insurance, internet, iphone payment plan, etc.

My wife handles our groceries and such. We actually have two separate accounts: "mine" gets the paycheck, pays the bills, and transfers money to "hers" twice a month.

We also have a third "giving" account that gets a bit of money set aside to give to or buy things for other people. This can be anything from a car repair to just buying someone lunch.

Direct debit is fine if you trust the other side not to screw up and charge too much, leak your credentials, etc, but I've seen exactly that happen several times. You're basically giving them to withdraw as much as they want from your bank account.

This confuses me a little -- the UK has the direct debit guarantee which is incredibly ironclad. If I think something is funny, I call the bank and the money is back in my account immediately -- without argument or any reason required.

The DD is then cancelled and the company can argue with me, sure, but I get my money back.

Yea, our banking system in the states is pretty behind.

I've had it happen to me once and a family member once where we each had to close a bank account to make someone stop taking out money. Both were a while ago, so it may have gotten better in recent years, but it burned my trust in the system.

> Direct debit is fine if you trust the other side not to ...leak your credentials

Woah - just for your information, there is no credential sharing required here.

FWIW, some services do in fact use your bank username and password to instantly verify your account rather than the usual "we made two small deposits, tell us the amount when they come through in a few days".

But, I was mainly referring to the account and routing number. Anyone with those two numbers and access to the ACH system can drain your account. I know one person who wrote a check to a bill collector, then the bill collector entered their numbers into the their ACH system and started taking regular withdrawals from the account without the owners permission. The owner had to close the account to make it stop.

That one was like 15 years ago - I think the laws around debt collections are better today, but the ACH system is still fundamentally the same system.

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