Bank Check Aviation

"J=FCrgen Exner" wrote:

Colin W Kingsbury wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...

The check operations that I'm familiar with used to haul checks
around towns within a state. These generally used smaller piston
powered GA aircraft.


There you have it. With a half dozen banks slowly taking the whole
industry over you're going from a point-to-point operation to a
hub-and-spoke one. Paper checks- just one more piece of the old world=

that our grandkids will find impossible to believe ever existed.

Let's say, the rest of the world finds it impossible to believe, that p=
aper
checks are still being used today in an industrialized country.

Standard personal checks have been replaced by Euro-Checks some 25 or 3=
0
years ago in Europe. However nobody would even think about paying his p=
hone,
dentist, mortgage, power, or whatever bill with a check. It's all elect=
ronic
transfer via direct deposit or automated withdrawel, even between priva=
te
people.
During maybe 15 years I probably used less than 10 checks total, mostly=
for
one-time larger purchases.

I was outright flabbergasted when 8 years ago I came to the motherland =
of
capitalism, working for one of the worlds largest high-tech(!) companie=
s,
and I would get a piece of paper printed with funny numbers instead of =
money
in my bank account.
The small company where my father worked back in Germany introduced dir=
ect
deposit for all their employees somewhere in the mid 60th of the last
century. And believe me, that company was anything but progressive.

And two(?) years ago even the paper Euro check for ad-hoc purchases was=

buried and now you only have something similar to direct debit, just wi=
th
the same guarantees and security as the former paper Euro check.

This paleozoic banking system of the US of A is nothing but a job guara=
ntee
for the postal service and a permanent annoyance for anyone who has to =
pay a
bill.

I'm afraid you don't know what you're talking about. First, anyone who h=
as to
pay a bill in the USA has the option of all kinds of bill payment service=
s,
offered by banks, third parties and also many payees themselves. Or they=
can
choose to pay by check. It is a personal choice.

I spend a great deal of the year in Europe, and I can assure anybody that=
paper
checks are *very* much alive there and are used all of the time. I know =
because
I always have to reorder the damn things. In stores, merchants will take=
care
to ensure there are sufficient funds for at least large amounts.

Euro check? I haven't dealt with those in a number of years now.

Finally, I worked for a small employer in the US in the early 90's and au=
tomatic
direct deposit was all but required (i.e. highly encouraged) for everyone=
=2E

On the other hand, payments by credit cards and debit cards serve as a ma=
ssive
income guarantee of merchant fees to banks and networks, which get passed=
on to
the consumer o course.

ET wrote:
PayPal used to have a service where you had an applet on you Palm,
then you could "beam" money to someone else with the applet on your
Palm.
I thought it was a really cleaver idea, but it didn't take off. Of
course the other person had to "have" a palm, and a paypal account.
(although you could "beam" them the applet as well)

The problem with paypal for just a transaction every now and then, is
it's kind of a pita to get your money back into your checking account.

And now imagine being able to do that with your normal banking account and
without the need for a Palm (you can do it via online banking or at any ATM
or at the bank). Wouldn't that be great?

Amazing that such a system is just the standard way of paying bills for some
30+ years already.

jue

Colin W Kingsbury wrote:
wrote in message
ups.com...

with credit cards and checks. If someone gets your debit card info
and pin by nefarious means (which can be easily done), they can
clean out your bank accounts.

How do they get your pin number? Then how do they get your card to
use it?

Many different ways.

L0ow-tech approach: pick-pockets for the card and some powder on the touch
pad (once you know _which_ four digits have been pressed there are only 24
different combinations possible!)

High-tech approach: mounting fraudulent card readers at access doors to ATMs
over the weekend. The readers would look legitimate, ask you for your card
and PIN three times, and then just show the message
"PIN not valid. Card retained for security reasons. Please contact our
office Monday to Friday 8:00 to 16:00. Good bye."

And then the thieves would just transmit the data on the magnetic stripe to
many places across the continent, create their own cards with the same data.
And you gave them the PIN already, too.
Takes less then a few hours to empty any bank account, even if the
individual withdrawel is limited to just a few hundred dollars.

jue

Robert wrote:
I'm afraid you don't know what you're talking about. First, anyone
who has to pay a bill in the USA has the option of all kinds of bill
payment services, offered by banks, third parties and also many
payees themselves.

True. Just like this grandious online bill paying system at e.g. Bank of
America or First Tech or pick any other bank. For really large payees they
do have electronic transfer finally. For smaller payees you will notice
"Method of payment: Check". In other works the bank is simply printing the
check on your behalf and sending it by snail mail.

I spend a great deal of the year in Europe, and I can assure anybody
that paper checks are *very* much alive there and are used all of the
time.

I know because I always have to reorder the damn things. In
stores, merchants will take care to ensure there are sufficient funds
for at least large amounts.

Euro check? I haven't dealt with those in a number of years now.

I have lived in Europe (Germany to be precise) for 34 years. Believe me, I
do know what I am talking about.

Finally, I worked for a small employer in the US in the early 90's
and automatic direct deposit was all but required (i.e. highly
encouraged) for everyone.

On the other hand, payments by credit cards and debit cards serve as
a massive income guarantee of merchant fees to banks and networks,
which get passed on to the consumer o course.

"J=FCrgen Exner" wrote:

Robert wrote:
I'm afraid you don't know what you're talking about. First, anyone
who has to pay a bill in the USA has the option of all kinds of bill
payment services, offered by banks, third parties and also many
payees themselves.

True. Just like this grandious online bill paying system at e.g. Bank o=
f
America or First Tech or pick any other bank. For really large payees t=
hey
do have electronic transfer finally. For smaller payees you will notice=

"Method of payment: Check". In other works the bank is simply printing =
the
check on your behalf and sending it by snail mail.

Actually it has nothing to do with the size of the payee. It has everythi=
ng to
do with whether the payee chooses to accept electronic payments. (And th=
ere
is some economic incentive to do so as a cost saving measure).

I spend a great deal of the year in Europe, and I can assure anybody
that paper checks are *very* much alive there and are used all of the=

time.

I know because I always have to reorder the damn things. In
stores, merchants will take care to ensure there are sufficient funds=

for at least large amounts.

Euro check? I haven't dealt with those in a number of years now.

I have lived in Europe (Germany to be precise) for 34 years. Believe me=
, I
do know what I am talking about.

Then you might be surprised to learn that all of Europe does not operate =
as
Germany does. But life is a series of compromises. Next we might disc=
uss
the very efficient and widely used modern General Aviation system in Germ=
any
too

Finally, I worked for a small employer in the US in the early 90's
and automatic direct deposit was all but required (i.e. highly
encouraged) for everyone.

On the other hand, payments by credit cards and debit cards serve as
a massive income guarantee of merchant fees to banks and networks,
which get passed on to the consumer o course.

The problem with paypal for just a transaction every now and then, is
it's kind of a pita to get your money back into your checking account.

Huh? You log on to Pay Pal and download to your checking account.
Takes less than a minute.

Robert wrote:
Euro check? I haven't dealt with those in a number of years now.

As I mentioned before there's a good reason for that:
http://www.tagesschau.de/aktuell/mel...307396,00.html

I have lived in Europe (Germany to be precise) for 34 years. Believe
me, I do know what I am talking about.

Then you might be surprised to learn that all of Europe does not
operate as Germany does. But life is a series of compromises.
Next we might discuss the very efficient and widely used modern
General Aviation system in Germany too

No way! That would be on topic and we can't do that, can we? ;-)

jue

"Jürgen Exner" wrote in message
news:srGFd.7291$C.1087@trnddc05...
Colin W Kingsbury wrote:
wrote in message
ups.com...

with credit cards and checks. If someone gets your debit card info
and pin by nefarious means (which can be easily done), they can
clean out your bank accounts.

How do they get your pin number? Then how do they get your card to
use it?

Many different ways.

L0ow-tech approach: pick-pockets for the card and some powder on the touch
pad (once you know _which_ four digits have been pressed there are only 24
different combinations possible!)

High-tech approach: mounting fraudulent card readers at access doors to
ATMs over the weekend. The readers would look legitimate, ask you for
your card and PIN three times, and then just show the message
"PIN not valid. Card retained for security reasons. Please contact our
office Monday to Friday 8:00 to 16:00. Good bye."

And then the thieves would just transmit the data on the magnetic stripe
to many places across the continent, create their own cards with the same
data. And you gave them the PIN already, too.
Takes less then a few hours to empty any bank account, even if the
individual withdrawel is limited to just a few hundred dollars.

jue

Except for the fact that from an ATM those few hundred dollars can only be
withdrawn every 24 hours.

I know my bank will contact me if there is a preset limit exceeded either by
ATM or by purchases.

Jay Beckman
PP-ASEL
Chandler, AZ

Jay Beckman wrote:
"Jürgen Exner" wrote in message
[...]
Takes less then a few hours to empty any bank account, even if the
individual withdrawel is limited to just a few hundred dollars.

Except for the fact that from an ATM those few hundred dollars can
only be withdrawn every 24 hours.

I know my bank will contact me if there is a preset limit exceeded
either by ATM or by purchases.

Yes, those additional security measures were put in place after that scheme
with creating new cards from blanks became popular.

Not too long ago there was a time when ATMs weren't networked. A bit more
recently they weren't networked between cities or between different banks.
And even today I am not sure if they are networked in real-time between
countries and/or continents.

I don't think that an ATM somewhere in let's say Botswana would connect to
your home bank in the US in real time before handing you the cash as long as
it's below the daily limit.
Now, if the gang has enough people they can use the same trick in several
dozen countries simultaneous before your home bank would ever know that
someone is withdrawing money from your account. By the time your bank
receives the first slip from Botswana the gangsters are long gone with the
money.

I do not know if there are actually any global syndicats working like this
today.
However I do remember that some 10 or 15 years ago there were organized
syndicats in Europe, which worked exactly like that. By the time you noticed
that your EuroCard was missing the gang would have withdrawn the maximum
daily amount of cash (typically somewhere around 200$US) in 20 or 30
European cities simultaneously already.

jue

Still checks are useful for paying private people. I'd rather pay for a
used car off my neighbour with a check than show up with a suitcase full
of cash or have to arrange a bank transfer.

About 1975 I sold my seven-year-old Volkswagen camper to a student
with all the hippie attributes who planned to join a commune in New
Mexico. I pointed out to her that it would have to be a cash sale,
meaning she couldn't pay me in installments.

On the big day she turned up, having hitchhiked half way across the
state of New Hampshire with $900 in her pocket. (Just to put this in
perspective, I'd paid $3,500 for the replacement automobile. That $900
is about equivalent to $5,000 today.) When I expressed my
astonishment, she said: "Well, you said it was a cash sale."



-- all the best, Dan Ford

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