> 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?
What kind of bills? Like grocery bills? or recurring bills?
Aren't you using direct debits/standing orders/credit cards for those?
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.
The DD is then cancelled and the company can argue with me, sure, but I get my money back.
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.
Woah - just for your information, there is no credential sharing required here.
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.