Subj : eTransfer loophole To : Ward Dossche From : August Abolins Date : Sun Mar 19 2023 11:25:00 Hello Ward! WD> We can't even go to the bank anymore just like that. Need WD> to make an appointment, everything's on-line ... by that I WD> literally mean anything not requiring a signature. "by appointment only" was introduce during the lockdowns in Canada. As a retailer, that pissed me off - especially when I simply needed coinage or make a cash deposit to facilitate paying the bills for which I had no significant income to pay them with! WD> You can't even get cash anymore at banks here ... they WD> don't have it ... and if I come back from overseas travel WD> and want to exchange back to local currency, I must make WD> an appointment but only on Tuesday afternoon. Then you WD> will be led into kind of fortified bunker where they WD> handle real money. It sounds like your country (Belgium) is conditioning its people to make cash inconvenient as possible, and thus steering its people to rely on cashless systems. In Canada, I don't think 100% cashless would ever work. When there is an electical outtage, many POS (point-of-sale) devices for credit card and debit card simply go dark. I operate my equipment on UPSes (DSL runs along the plain old copper line which has it's own power supply), but it's really only a temporary measure to allow latent shoppers to finish a purchase. WD> Need cash? There's an ATM outside ... I haven't said that's an WD> improvement. But sometimes it's handy ... And when there is an electrical outtage, the ATM is not likely to give you anything. I receive sufficient fiat cash for my personal use. Everything else (bills, online purchases) are paid by debit transactions or cheque. The only problem for me is when I need to deposit additional physical cash into the bank so that I have the funds to pay the forthcoming bills! AA>> But eTransfer AA>> here has a maximum daily limit as well as a maximum monthly AA>> limit which would many times be insufficient for all my AA>> payments. WD> Weird ... at least from my POV. I can log-in to my account WD> and change those limits ... And I understand why those WD> limits are there... Adjustable limits. Wow. What are the limit ranges? I do see that RBC offers scalable limits, but there are maximums for sending; that is what I was referring to. Typically, those maximums are $3000 per 24hr period, $10K in 7 days, and $20K in 30 days - for individuals. And.. I just read there are maximums in receiving! For businesses the send/receive limits are extended, but those can be restrictive when the client base is large. Hence, no wonder cheques are still in play! It is far more easier to write a stack of cheques totaling $10K than it is to manage the daily/weekly/monthly eTransfer limits. AA>> Ok.. but in Canada there is no 6-month renewal process. AA>> Credit cards simply expire on the date that is printed on AA>> the card -and often that is many years into the future. WD> Maybe I put you on the wrong foot ... I meant a 6-month WD> renewal is necessary when traveling outside the Euro- WD> currency zone and only to the USA. WD> So, one day I was in a restaurant and the 6-month renewal WD> came up that day. Card declined. Ah.. that still sounds like an imposition by YOUR bank's system, not the USA's. In Canada, the credit card companies simply require a heads-up that you are travelling outside the country and all would be good. AA>> [...] But what's stopping a thief to go to the ATM AA>> instead of you? If they succeed at the ATM, the card AA>> will be "verified". It doesn't prove it was you. WD> That is correct but the thief then also needs to know how WD> to validate the card ... That is now also changing via 2- WD> way validation via a smartphone and a specific site. Let WD> me put it this way ... I would consider it highly unlikely WD> ... It is harder for a thief to validate a card. However, some installations have fake readers inserted in the slots of machines. I would suspect that airport ATMs and independent machines are prime targets. WD> For some reason, I do trust the procedures here ... maybe WD> that makes me weird... The procedures/systems for electronic payments seem fairly robust. It's just the options such as being able to cancel a "direct deposit" eTransfer (which was the crux of this thread) should not have be allowed. The problem there was the interface design made available to the public. I hope those programmers/designers lost their jobs. -- ../|ug --- OpenXP 5.0.57 * Origin: Stare into this point intently ->.<- (1:153/757.21) .