London Banter - View Single Post

Roland Perry · December 21st 18, 04:08 PM posted to uk.transport.london

In message , at 16:43:41 on Fri, 21 Dec
2018, remarked:
At my previous house the window cleaner invoiced (about twelve pounds a
month, I'm not sure if that's regarded as expensive or not). I always
paid cash, if I was at home, because of the time it takes to do an
electronic transfer.

I had to do one this morning to a new tradesman (who I'll not be using
again, because it was that kind of a one-off job) and it took six
minutes to get the banking site logged into, a new payee's details
entered and authorised, and then the individual payment made and
authorised. It would have taken me thirty seconds to write a cheque
*and* I'd have had a hard copy audit trail automatically.

It does make me wonder if the people who evangelise online payments for
everything actually have vested interests. They have their place but they're
not always a convenient alternative to cheques or cash.

It's a collective failure to realise that "one size doesn't fit all".

While there are many transactions where payments can be made to
established suppliers with virtually no authentication, especially if
there's an intermediary [ecommerce platform or credit card issuer] who
has a reputational stake in resolving glitches.

Send a one-off faster-payment direct to a local tradesman, and it's like
throwing the money into a black hole.

FWIW, when I've dabbled in online selling professionally, I've always
used such an intermediary, and never asked people to simply wire money
to a sortcode/account.
--
Roland Perry