
Photo check deposits - aaronbrethorst
http://www.marco.org/2012/04/06/photo-check-deposits
======
yason
_Sometimes, new technology is not progress._

Well, the last contact with _checks_ was, IIRC, in the 80's when I saw my
mother occasionally using them and they were being phased out at the time
already. This was in Europe. So, I don't think any technology to have to do
with _checks_ can ever be considered progress.

~~~
pinaceae
THIS.

As someone from Europe that clunky check-based system of the US is simply
dumbfounding. What exactly is the purpose of it? Is there no e-banking
available? Over here people rarely even use _banks_ , as in physical entities,
anymore.

~~~
saurik
I had some friends in college that had a roommate on an exchange program from
Norway, and when they explained to him that we used the moral equivalent of
IOUs scribbled on sheets of paper to do a majority of our finance, he thought
they must have been making fun of him (as in, telling him things about the US
that are false so that he'll make a fool out of himself; to be clear: they did
not do that to him).

~~~
stephengillie
We draw our names in functionally illegible ways on legal documents as
authentication, even though we've known it's a broken system for hundreds of
years.

Part of the problem is that checks became "free" some years ago but all other
alternatives charge fees. Rent is one of the biggest demands for checks, as
most landlords don't want to pay Visa or Mastercard (or Paypal or Square or
Mint) a percentage of thousands of dollars a month.

~~~
saurik
I feel like this comment was missing the punchline; are you saying that in
other countries (where, at least in Norway, apparently even rent is not paid
with IOUs scribbled on sheets of paper) checks cost as much as bank transfers,
or that bank transfers are free?

(Also, FWIW, in many countries in Europe two-factor authentication is
incredibly common, if not expected or even legally required; it is my
understanding from some business deals I was a part of that Germany, in
particular, is quite the stickler on this front.)

~~~
DanBC
In the UK you'd tend to pay rent using Direct Debit, which is an automatic
payment from one bank account to another an a certain date each month.

Charges tend to happen if the payer doesn't have sufficient funds to make a
payment.

(<http://www.thesmartwaytopay.co.uk/Pages/Home.aspx>)

Or the payer could just do a BACS bank transfer, which again tends to be free.

([http://www.bacs.co.uk/Bacs/Corporate/BacsServices/Pages/Bacs...](http://www.bacs.co.uk/Bacs/Corporate/BacsServices/Pages/BacsServices.aspx))

Cheques are not secure. One well known scam is to order something (imagine for
£2000), then overpay by cheque (say £10000). You call the seller, and explain
the mistake. You say "Wait for the cheque to clear. When you have the funds
could you transfer the extra money (£8000) to our account / bank transfer /
etc?". The victim assumes that once the cheque has cleared the money is theirs
and it's legit, they don't realise that a bank can (and will) claw-back the
money from forged cheques.

The victim is down the product, and £8000.

The scammer has the product, and £8000. And because they used other means of
money tranfer there's no way of getting the money back.

~~~
saurik
This is now the second comment I have received on this thread that somehow
seems to feel the need to point out that checks are insecure, when in fact a)
that is obvious and b) I personally abhore checks (and thereby need no
convincing of their ineptitude), and refuse to use them for anything I have
control over (including paying contractors: if you require me to send you a
check you will not be hired). I am highly confused by this, as my contribution
to this thread was "funny anecdote that backs up someone else's comment about
how people outside the US realize checks are stupid".

~~~
DanBC
Sorry.

------
epikur
I like USAA's iPhone (or scanner) check deposit. You have to have a credit
card or a loan with them, but when you submit a check, you instantly get the
money. However, you also have to write a little note with your account number
on the back of each check, which could be a pain if you had a stack of checks.

~~~
gergles
You can't get a credit card, loan, or insurance product (and by extension,
remote deposit access) without a "military connection". I really wish the
breathless USAA cheerleaders that come out of the woodwork all over the
Internet every time there is a banking thread would remember to mention this.

~~~
rnemo
I'm having trouble getting a reference to USAAs current eligibility
information, because their website is a mess of badly named links and what
Google finds redirects me to their homepage, but as I understand it pretty
much everything under their banking umbrella is now available to everyone,
including the credit card and loan stuff, and with it, remote deposit access.
That said these breathless USAA cheerleaders should try having actual
contentions with them sometime, it's a pretty poor experience reminiscent of
news stories you hear about BoA and similar

~~~
mbrameld
I've been a USAA customer since 1999 and have always had great customer
service from them. The most recent instance was about a year ago or so I had
several charges I didn't recognize for a few hundred bucks each hit my
checking account one morning. They were all for perfume and shoe stores in the
UK (I was living in FL at the time). It took about 5 minutes on the phone to
get the charges removed and a new card on the way.

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mason55
On the other hand... I use an online-only bank (Ally) that hasn't enabled
phone deposits yet. I've found the Chase app to be pretty lenient about what
it accepts (except for the $2k/day limit). I tried to switch to USAA but found
out only vets can use the phone deposit.

The Chase phone deposit app is so convenient for me, even given that I live in
NYC where I pass 5 Chase ATMs per day, that I keep an account open with a
minimum in it to avoid fees, just so I can use the phone deposit app.

Yes, the ATM deposit might be more convenient, when there are no lines, and
the ATM isn't broken, and when I actually have a Chase ATM card, which I don't
because I don't use them as my regular bank. If you're trying to min/max your
banking experience then the Chase app is pretty nice to use as a funnel for
money to other accounts.

~~~
ap3
Agreed. I keep a Chase account just for the convenience of phone deposits. I
have an ATM right across the street and have never used it.

Phone deposit has only failed me a couple of times but these seemed like back
end type issues, tried again the next day and it worked fine.

What other banks allow for phone deposits ?

~~~
epikur
Paypal has an iPhone app that can do mobile deposit, but it takes up to six
days to process.

~~~
chris24
PayPal isn't a bank per-se.

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kogir
When you have the check, it's true, sometimes photo deposits are less
convenient. But if all you have is an image of the check, it's awesome.

Say I wanted to send money to my sister. Before this I had to actually mail a
check, or worse, pay for a wire transfer. Now I can just send an image of a
check via email, and she'll have access to the money before a mailed check
would have arrived.

No third party brokers the transaction, and nobody extorts any fees (be they
for postage, sending the wire, or receiving the wire).

The trick is to use this to enable things that just aren't possible at the
bank branch or ATM.

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BryanB55
I completely disagree. I absolutely love digital deposits. Unfortunately I
have Bank of America who is incredibly slow at implementing this but I use the
same feature on the PayPal app as a way to get around not having it with BOA.
I've seriously considered switching to Chase just for this feature. I hate
going to the bank. PayPal limits you to $1,000 a month which is pretty
annoying but is still way better than nothing. It's nice to have when you get
checks for a few hundred dollars and it's not worth going to the bank for.
I've never had one check rejected. I just really wish BOA would implement this
already.

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subhobroto
This experience sounds specific to the "PC Deposit" implementation by Chase
and if it's how they have educated their customer like the author, I am
worried:

1\. A check never "clears" the same day. The check may post the same day but
they take at-least 3 business days to clear. This is because all checks I am
aware of use the ACH in the U.S.

2\. You are _never_ supposed to "destroy the paper check". Most institutions
recommend you hold onto it for at-least 90 days.

3\. It's really a challenge to OCR a check photographed by a iPhone unless the
lighting conditions are absolutely perfect. Hence, it's better to ask the
customer to use a scanner if that's available, but if not, _only_ then suggest
using a phone camera.

I almost exclusively use Alliant and DCU for my check depositing needs and am
yet to have any issues. They do require me to use a scanner for best results,
but scanning a check takes me less than a minute and I am able to import it
into GNUCash as well.

Neither do I have to obsessively check if my deposits cleared, I get emails
automatically about the status.

I will never go back to an ATM, unless "I need money now" and there are no
places around that will take plastic.

Photo deposits is part of the future I want to be part of: I want to be part
of a future where regular banking is done online allowing me to focus my time
on things I like better.

------
amccloud
PayPal will have this same photo check deposits soon. Also fun fact, your
PayPal account is actually a Chase bank account. Read the back of your PayPal
card. I frequently go to Chase to withdraw money from PayPal with no fee and
no wait time.

------
guynamedloren
> _Sometimes, new technology is not progress_

You like ATM deposits? That's great. Other people prefer digital deposits. The
cool thing about technology is that we have a _choice_.

~~~
pyre

      > You like ATM deposits? That's great. Other people
      > prefer digital deposits.
    

I think that you're missing the point of the article. The point of the article
is that it's supposed to be 'the future,' but the experience is horrible
compared to the ATM. Just because it's 'on the iPhone' isn't enough to make it
a better experience.

~~~
joezydeco
No, _his_ experience was horrible. I've used the exact sane app for small
miscellaneous deposits and haven't had 1/10 the problems Marco had. The Chase
app isn't perfect, but it works in a pinch. If only we had his problem of not
being able to deposit more than 5k/day...

------
mrmekon
Seems like we all agree that USAA is awesome.

In regards to him having trouble scanning checks with Chase: that sounds like
a problem with Chase's implementation, not the technology as a whole.

I have been using USAA's online service as my _only_ form of check deposit for
5 years (started with flatbed scanner, now iphone). I have _never_ had a check
refused. Hundreds of them have gone through (have to re-take the photos
sometimes, but they always eventually work). It works, and it works really
well.

------
ecspike
Agree USAA is awesome.

FWIW, you should always endorse your checks.

------
X-Istence
I've used the Chase app for depositing a multitude of checks and after the
first two or three times I got down exactly how it wanted me to take the
picture and it was extremely easy and convenient. I haven't had a check that
wasn't accepted.

After that I've kept the checks in an envelope after writing (cashed) on the
back so that I know they were deposited.

The convenience and ease of use is fantastic. I really wish my other bank (ING
Direct) would support something similar.

------
wdewind
Alternative experience: I've deposited about 60 checks lifetime through the
app over the last year or so, and literally had it fail twice the first few
times I used it, then they updated it and it has only failed once since. So I
mean, ~57/60 successes on first try, and 100% overall success ain't bad. I
LOVE this app (and generally hate Chase otherwise...)

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switz
I think this is kind of a ridiculous claim. I have deposited checks twice with
PNC Bank's app and both times it took only a minute or two to complete and I
didn't even have to leave the house. Neither were rejected. Just because
Marco's bank's iPhone app sucks doesn't mean that the technology isn't there.
Marco better than anyone should know that it is.

> _Sometimes, new technology is not progress._

How about – _Sometimes, technology sucks._

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hippich
i have similar feature with smaller credit union. similar steps involved, but
their tool is just more thought through and somehow their app able to
recognize bad shot and ask to redo one. so far it was easiest way to deposit
for me.

tl;dr; this is bad implementation, not idea/technology.

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slardat01
E*Trade supports this now too. So far I've done a couple of checks and it
worked fine.

