I'd be hesitant to give a gas station app ACH access to my checking account. I guess you could open a second account and just transfer enough there to cover your purchases but that's a bit of a nuisance.
To be fair to Mercury, they are quite open about this fact.
As an example: fintech builds front end that takes deposits from user, but not much more. The deposit passes to an intermediary that pools deposits and puts them in FBO accounts at a real (FDIC) bank. Intermediary collapses. Now neither the bank nor the fintech know who had what.
This is exactly what happened when Synapse collapsed (which impacted Mercury at the time too)[0]
[0] https://www.yalejournal.org/publications/the-synapse-collaps...
https://www.retailbankerinternational.com/news/occ-grants-co...
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mercuryhq_big-news-not-a-bank...
Are ACH returns really that difficult to initiate in the US? I've fortunately never had to do one, but in SEPA land, it's usually a single click in online banking, or at worst a simple message to customer support.
No, ACH authorisation is an entirely different matter. I could agree to show you the check I wrote to my landlord, but I'm not willing to give you my check book with my signature — and no other data — on all the blank checks.
ACH authorisation is an analog of the latter, not the former.
You can then easily dispute them, but I'd still call that "access to your account".
Fraudulent ACH transactions would be a federal crime if you found a pathway to do them, and you'd probably be tracked down pretty quickly because unlike crypto, ACH transactions are fully trackable and auditable between accounts that have identified owners.
To be clear, this fraud happens similarly to credit card fraud: Fraudster F gets accountholder A's account and routing number, opens an account with merchant M and racks up a bill; M charges A, A reports an unauthorized payment to their bank. Usually M ends up eating the loss.
For example the "Earnify" app for all BP, all Amoco, and many ampm stations (it should eventually be all ampm but the rollout is still underway) will let you enter payment information, but you can also tell it to just use Apple Pay. (They don't have an equivalent option on Android).
The Earnify savings are $0.05/gal. You can link an Amazon Prime account and that adds another $0.05/gal and on Fridays another $0.10/gal on top of that for a total of $0.20/gal off. (It also has sometimes given $0.50-$1.00/gal off during Prime Days).
Since (1) ampm is usually the least expensive Top Tier certified gas in an area or the second least expensive (after Costco) and (2) any extra additives and cleaners beyond those required for Top Tier certification do not have enough benefits over the life of the car to justify paying more (according to independent tests) I'm baffled that so many people who complain vociferously about the price of gas are not going to ampm (or Costco) even when there is one near where they do get gas and it is often $0.50+/gal cheaper even without any app discounts.
I don't even use my debit card for anything, it all goes on a credit card because it's a lot easier to fight a fraudulent charge.
The only difference is that you're potentially out your own money, but with credit cards you're also out of credit until the dispute is resolved, and you can have multiple debit cards and checking accounts just like you can have multiple credit cards as a backup.
I'd rather not be in the situation where I have to realise my "legal right" to ACH chargeback — which will involve hurdles, wasted time, and probably also legal fees — by not giving anyone the authorisation to perform ACH pulls in the first place. Cash works best for this — you're never out of more than what you hand over — but Apple Pay gives me similar protections.
The legal right to have unauthorized payments returned is ultimately backstopped by law. This is the case for both credit and debit cards. That (and scheme rules) is the reason you don't have to shop for the "most chargeback friendly card" or similar.
> Apple Pay gives me similar protections.
How does Apple Pay factor in here? It's just a different way of using your existing credit and debit cards, with exactly the same dispute protections.
In theory; in practice, one reliably and repeatably works, and the other I'm not sure (and not willing to find out.) I've had some experience with stolen checks; while the money has been ultimately returned to me, it was a major hassle, and cost me several sleepless nights.
> How does Apple Pay factor in here?
Apple Pay gives the merchant a generated CC number (per-card, per-device) with a generated one-time security code (for every single purchase.) If the merchant is breached, all the hackers are getting is a generated CC number and a (expired after single use) security code, so they can't charge my Apple Pay card at all — and of course not my real card (which has never been exposed to the merchant to begin with.) The easiest and fastest chargeback is when there is no charge!
But that's exactly my point! People perceive credit cards as safer and don't try anything else, so the perception remains prominent.
It's just a regular trust bootstrapping problem that could only be solved by powerful market players breaking the cycle, and it seems like there isn't really appetite for that in the US.
> Apple Pay gives the merchant a generated CC number (per-card, per-device)[...]
Ah, yes, it does generally protect you from merchant data breaches. But your original point, "you're never out of more than what you hand over", is not quite true – the original merchant can post some subsequent charges on Apple Pay as well without you having to accept anything on your phone.
Onus of proof is on you that it needs to be solved, as the alternative exists and is working well. Think of it this way: I have my trust in US dollar (because everybody else has it too); maybe I could give the same trust in Swiss franc, or Emirati dirham, or South African rand — but why would I? US dollar already gives me everything I need.
> it does generally protect you from merchant data breaches
And from rogue merchants, too.
> the original merchant can post some subsequent charges
This has never happened to me; however my original point is that Apple Pay gives me better protections than regular CC, and it was given as a response to your point of "exactly the same dispute protections". Apple Pay is better since using it leads to fewer disputes in the first place; once the dispute is happening, the protections might be the same.
That doesn't sound like a huge PITA to you that could just be avoided by not giving them that access in the first place?
What's the difference between that and somebody's only credit card getting maxed out by fraudsters? They also can't use it until they receive a provisional credit by their bank.
If your point is that a credit card separates rent from other payments, nothing is stopping you from having multiple checking accounts either.
The takeaway for me would be "don't bank with a customer-hostile bank", though, not "hope that the credit card department of your bank is better than the average of the bank".