Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by loeber 2493 days ago
That's not actually correct. By giving an external person a check, you give them the ABILITY to PULL funds from you. It looks like a push, but it's actually not.

https://www.bankrate.com/financing/banking/writing-checks-in...

3 comments

Knuth had to quit giving out real checks (which nobody actually ever cashed, anyway) for exactly this reason.
They probably meant a fire-and-forget method to pay untrusted parties without giving them the ability to charge more than agreed.

Chargebacks are a thing, but they require constant vigilance and the occasional bureaucratic task.

Checks have substantially less security there. Not more - and even if/when it gets fixed the money comes out immediately.
More importantly you're giving them the authorization.

Everyone already has the basic ability to pull funds from arbitrary checking accounts. heh.