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Are electronic money transfers better than paper checks?

Results so far:

No		24%	48 votes	Total: 203 votes
Yes		76%	155 votes	Total: 203 votes

No

1 of 3

I think that electric money transfers are good in a lot of ways. But they are also bad in a lot of ways. When I pay a bill with a check or money order and there is a mix up in the company because John Doe entered the wrong account number or the wrong amount then it can be easily solved by showing them the cancel check or your receipt. There is none of that with electronic transfer. Our mortgage company is a good point to this. Every month since we have bought our home we deposit our payment on or before the payment is to be withdrawn from our account. So far we have been threatened with fore-closer one week then be ahead on our payments the next week. That tell us they received a payment for 1,000 dollars and the bank says it was never withdrawn. It will drive you mad! I just want to walk into an office give them a check, get a receipt and walk out!. This opens the door to ALL kinds of unlawful people that all they need is a small bit of information about you and they can clean your account out. I get 5 or 6 calls a day from people that tell me that my warranty has expired on my 1973 truck and they can extend it for me. Well I am pretty sure that the warranty on my truck has LONG expired. Or the best yet, My name has been approved for a credit card with a 5,000 credit limit. Now since I am unemployed, have no real bank account that ever has more than 1,000 in for a day or two and credit history is almost non-existent I don't see how that could be possible. Tell me that electronic money transfers are safe. Even the media tells us it's not. You hear it every day about some hard working retired man having someone take out 10,000 or more out of his account without his consent or knowledge. The elderly woman having her savings account cleared out by some scam artist because an employee at her doctor's office gave her information out or just flat stole it. No cash or a check handed to someone and given a receipt in exchange is the safer way of doing business in my opinion. It has worked for as long as the art of trade has been around and it is stronger, safer method than having two machines relying on what they are told to do to take care of our business.

I think that we have got way to reliable on the electronics. I mean it is way to simple to slide a card or punch a few keys on a computer and then trust that you or the company have made no mistakes and your hard earned money is safe. I mean accountants and data processers punch in money amounts for roughly 200 or more accounts a day. You have been at work! it is 30 minutes until quitting time and the boss says that that pile of work on your desk has to be completed before days end. It puts you under stress , your tired, and want to go home. I know I have before so way would I expect less for anybody. We are human and we make mistakes. I don't blame anyone. You can't hold electric money floating though wires and cyber-space. If you sell me a coke for a dollar and I hand you a dollar bill we both have got what we are there for. If you work 40 hours for 10.00 a hour then you expect to be paid for it. This now days is not between you and your boss but a person that does know you except by a employee number. He punchs keys to send your pay to an account in some other state sometimes and he hits the decimal point in the wrong place. Instead of 400.00 you now have 40.00 in your account. Now you give the light company your account number to pay for your 200.00 bill and now you are in trouble. You know you have 400.00 in your account because that is what your pay check was when it was electronically transfered to your account. So as you are sitting there with no lights and paying that 25.00 check fee to the bank for insufficient funds think about how safe electronic tranfers is the best way to do business.

Learn more about this author, Rodney Loftis.
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Yes

1 of 12

by Simon Wright

The use of checks/cheques has been diminishing to such an extent that some banking commentators have predicted that they may become extinct in the next decade. This rapid decline in usage of checks coincides with the rise in electronic forms of money transfer and payment. Let's look then at why consumers are increasingly favoring electronic money transfers over checks.

Speed:

There are times when you want or need the money to reach the destination account speedily. However, if you are forced to post a check, then it's likely to be two or three days before the check arrives with the other person. And then they have to lodge the check with their bank and go through the check clearing cycle.

In comparison, by logging into online banking, you can effect an online money transfer that should arrive in the destination account in near real time.

Convenience:

For occasions when I need to send a check, I have to write out the payment details and then have to trek to my nearest post box to send the check off. This may mean braving inclement conditions, which can be especially difficult for elderly people or people with mobility restrictions. Indeed, it may also prove inconvenient for parents who have young children who can't be left unsupervised in the house.

In contrast, an electronic transfer can be made from the comfort of your home, at any time of day. If you have made a payment to the same person previously, the chances are that their details will have been saved meaning that you don't have to re-key all the payment information. With the emergence of mobile banking functionality, it will also soon be commonplace to make money transfers by mobile phone, meaning that you don't even need to have access to a computer to send that payment off.

Confidence in payment reaching recipient:

Checks have the potential to go missing in the post or to be mislaid at the bank's check processing centre. In contrast, electronic payments have a much higher success rate and you should get near instant confirmation that the funds have left your account.

Surety of knowing when your money will leave your account:

A major frustration with checks is that you never know, with certainty, when the money will come out of your account. It will depend upon the speed of the postal service, how quickly the receiving party lodges the check, and how quickly the receiving bank processes it. That all adds up to quite a lot of uncertainty. Meanwhile money will be coming in and going out of your account and you have to be careful to have enough funds to cover the check when it does finally come out of your account. The risk of incurring unauthorized overdraft fees is therefore much higher than with an electronic money transfer.

More environmentally friendly:

People increasingly are becoming environmentally aware. We have switched off our paper bank statements in favor of electronic statements and store documents electronically rather than in paper format. This green motivation perhaps plays a secondary role in the inexorable transition from checks to electronic payments but nevertheless is a nice additional benefit.

Summary:

These factors of speed, convenience, and greater dependability explain why the world has seen a massive growth in the usage of electronic payments at the expense of checks. It has correlations with the switch that people have made from sending letters to sending e-mails. It is likely that checks will continue to be available for the foreseeable future, as banks and retailers won't want to exclude people who haven't yet taken up online banking or mobile banking services. However, the likelihood is that we are probably one of the last generations that will use checks.

Sources:

http://news.bbc.co.u k/1/hi/business/8119 346.stm

Learn more about this author, Simon Wright.
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