I have no love for most banks, and have experienced your senario on at least two seperate times... In fact, I tried to deposit a cashiers check from another bank to open a CD in one bank, and they had to "hold" the check for one week. I can imagine holding it so I don't start forging checks on a forged cashiers check, but on a 30 day CD? Ugh. unicorn@access.digex.net said:
Banks have gorged themselves on rocketing fees for the last five years. The result is that typical bank customer currently pays 150% of the amount of interest collected on accounts in a given year in the form of fees. My prediction, and my hope, is that e- cash will cut through the pretense upon which the rationalization of many of these fees is based, and even market itself on this point- Lower Fees.
My bank charges me a flat rate of $2/month +$1/month for producing an image copy of my checks. It took me a while to find it, but I did. Its called shopping. <snip> unicorn@access.digex.net said:
Telecheck will have Bob on the 10 most wanted list for $350.00 in bounced checks. Bob's check writing ability is about nil in D.C. for the month it will take him to clear it up.
Not to pick nits, but TeleCheck probably won't get involved until 1-2 months after the checks were bounced (UNLESS the checks are reported stolen, then we will attempt to shut you down), and usually only if the merchants were guarantee customers (we will pay the merchant for a bad check he/she accepts based on a TeleCheck approval). Furthermore, if you write a bad check on a customer of SCAN (TeleCheck's evil competitor), we won't think twice about you. Secondly, most banks will automatically resubmit checks several times to cover temporary short falls. unicorn@access.digex.net said:
I cannot believe that e-cash won't be able to solve some of these problems, and I hope it will limit its own fees to usage. To me this is a classic argument for small house e-cash shops. Citibank and Mastercard are going to fight for their fees.
Unfortunately, what most people term e-cash isn't e-cash. The problems associated with bringing up the electronic equivalent of cash are gigantic. I for one, have a new found respect for Chaum and the rest of the pioneers in the field. Citibank and MasterCard are developing an "internet" ways for you to use your credit cards, not e-cash. Microsoft is developing ways to pipe that information to them. These are not going to solve the problem, especially at 18.9% A.P.R...