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Comment by tbrownaw | Hacker News Reader

Once a month for the water bill, because the city charges extra to pay online with a card. I think there are rules that say they have to?

A year or two ago when we had a tree service come out to trim some things. Before that, when we had a fence redone. Both of those were smaller local companies.

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Here's a question, where you are, does "Direct Debit" exist?

In the UK and here in Australia, when I set up a utility account I get a message saying "why not set up a direct debit?", which means that a transfer goes straight from my account to theirs at the alotted time each month, for the amount of the bill.

You get your usual bill usually a week or two before the debit goes out so you can make sure it's OK well before the transfer, and the debit process is guaranteed to return the money to you in case of a dispute. You can go into your online banking app and cancel any/all direct debit authorisations whenever you like.

Yeah. In the US some companies are able to do direct debits via the ACH system. That's how Venmo works under the hood for checking accounts.

We have it, but I don’t trust companies not to fuck it up. I don’t want to allow the 5 or 10 companies I pay monthly fees to to each have the keys to withdraw money from my account. I mean we’ve seen what happens with tech companies like PayPal and how they screw you over. I’m not letting the local electric company have that kind of access to my account! One billing error, hack, or hidden surprise fee, and I could be wiped out.

It's wild this is a concern for you, when this is extremely normal for billions of people.

There are only ~350 million in the US. The others are elsewhere and don’t suffer the same weird banking issues we do. That said, I still pay electronically, I just do it manually. I go to my banking site and enter the amount on my bill, which I’ve checked to make sure it’s accurate.

One billing error, hack or surprise fee and you’re one phone call from having it reversed under the terms of the direct debit guarantee. In the countries I’ve lived in.

I’m in the US for what that’s worth. What you’ve posited assumes you can get someone on the phone which is no small task these days. Also, keep in mind that something like 60% of Americans are a single surprise $500 expense away from going into debt[0]. (Luckily I’m not one of them.) But generally, it takes weeks to months to get your money back if something like this happens, and that assumes everything goes well, which it rarely does.

[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2016/01/06/63-of-...

Yeah that does sound like a nightmare.

The UK direct-debit guarantee includes the provision that you must get a full and immediate refund on error, to prevent this sort of thing, and while I'm sure it doesn't always work as smoothly as you'd want, they are very commonly used and not a great source of complaints.

https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/businesses/complaints...

That said, fuckups do still happen! https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/dec/07/kent-family...

In Sweden we have direct debit (autogiro), but we also have e-invoice (e-faktura), which I prefer and think it's the best of both worlds: the invoice and the charge are sent electronically to your bank (usually ~3 weeks in advance), and you approve with one click -- scheduling a transfer of that amount on the due date. That gives you the chance to verify if everything is correct before you pay, and does not give the company any permission to withdraw funds from your account.

This is what I usually do: (1) check my bank 1 week before the end of each month, (2) eyeball the amounts for all e-invoices, (3) approve everything with a single click.

It exists (USA here, and a smaller local bank), but afaik doesn't have that sort of consumer protections or review/management features.

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