
‘Stop using paper checks,’ says agency in charge of them - nols
http://fusion.net/story/309392/stop-using-paper-checks/
======
MichaelBurge
Business accounts are even worse - they're governed by the Uniform Commercial
Code rather than consumer law, and you only get 24 hours to report fraud. If
someone sucks $200k out of your account and you don't catch it in 24 hours,
there's a possibility you'll never see that money again.

What a lot of people do is set up an 'incoming payments' account, an 'outgoing
payments' account, and a 'storage' account. Have your bank block all external
withdrawals from the incoming account, block all external deposits to the
outgoing account, and automatically move money once-a-day from the incoming
account to storage and from storage to outgoing(keep say $10,000 in there at
all times). Never write checks against the storage account, or give the number
out in any way.

On one hand, ACH is technically insecure. On the other hand, if a scammer can
get away with the money a terrorist could get funded with the money, so money
laundering and anti-terrorism laws have the side effect of making it hard for
people to get away with it. And then you just throw the scammer in jail.

The article mentions handing a check to your landlord. Personally, as a
landlord I set up an incoming rent checking account, hand out the checking
account information to tenants, and let the tenant deposit the money
electronically or by driving to the bank. I've asked my bank to reject
withdrawals but accept deposits from that account, and use a debit card to pay
for maintenance and utilities. I'm considering using SaaS software to collect
this, mainly to ease accounting; I'm not worried about security here.

~~~
crzwdjk
As a fellow landlord, I agree that checks are a giant pain. I'm actually
working on making a mini-SaaS just for myself to use, using Stripe to handle
ACH payments.

------
AjithAntony
> The physical check itself – the piece of paper – has to be genuine,

This is wrong, right? There is no such thing as a genuine check outside of
conventions for repudiation(out of order check numbers, not on _my_ check
paper). Whether it came from the checkbook my bank sent, or out of my printer,
it is just as good. Legally, writing it on a napkin would probably work, but
draw lots of scrutiny becuase it looks suspicious and can't be processed
automatically.

~~~
dalerus
That's correct. I worked at a bank for years and once a month I would get a
check written from the same older gentleman on half a sheet of yellow legal
pad.

He apparently thought buy checks were a scam and he saw no reason to buy them
when he could just use a sheet of paper.

~~~
tamana
And he was exactly right!

How do you know who wrote the check? You should only see the recipient.

~~~
dalerus
The first couple of times I called and confirmed that he did write the check.
Also the banking systems keep copies of signatures so I checked the signatures
as well.

Once it became a regular thing, we made a note on his account.

------
chafir
Anyone coming to the US from most of the world is painfully aware of how
antiquated the whole system is. For a business accepting relatively few large
payments, a major issue is the cost of payment.

For all their absurdity, paper checks are the only universally accepted
almost-costless way to transfer money. ACH, wire transfer, card payments all
come with an added cost of up to 3%, and every single proposed replacement
system we've seen comes with new fees attached. For a payment of $10,000,
payment by check costs perhaps $1. Payment by a 1% fee wire transfer system
(most of them cost more) would be $100. Flat fee wire transfers range from $30
/ transfer up.

Given how big and archaic ACH is now, and how expensive replacing it would be,
I can't see a way out of this unless banks are required by regulation to
provide an aggressively low-cost transfer mechanism.

~~~
BlackFly
Banking regulations in Europe require electronic transfers within Europe* to
be processed for free within one business day. I've ordered computer hardware,
international flights, and paid lawyer fees this way.

*Specifically, I believe any country within SEPA.

~~~
Symbiote
I don't think that's quite right.

I think they require SEPA transfers (roughly, transfers to other euro
countries) to cost no more than domestic transfers.

Banks charge around 5-75 cents to business customers for electronic transfers,
depending on the customer.

------
Matt3o12_
I believe such a system is Safer to use for the average customer because the
law is on his side. A routing number is (as far as I know) not considered a
secret and very judge will rule that it's the banks fault for authorizing the
transaction, not the user's. If the user were to use any kind of
authentication (such as typing a pin in a card reader), the bank can claim
that it's the user's fault because he used his code carelessly and they are
often right, people write the code on cards directly or use their birthdates
but even if the pins are random, they can still be easily "cracked" (some
people are super skilled in reading them from a distance while others have
implemented key loggers in those readers). So you can't really use a
password/pin for authentication either (because it is not that secure after
all). In my country, debit cards are quite common and debit cards never use a
signature – they use a 4 digit pin instead. If your debit card was stolen, and
somebody went shopping with it, you have to pay the bills because you did not
protect your pin enough and it's not the bank's fault — they had enough proof
for authentication. (I know quite a few people who had bills from $300-2000
after their debit cards were stolen and I can tell you for sure that some
protected their PIN properly).

If you have to authenticate a withdraw in any way, the bank will have a better
chance to win a fraud case because they had enough reason to believe the
transaction was authentic and it is your fault not for protecting your pin or
password enough. The bank might voluntarily rebook the transaction but why
even bother if they had to do that anyways (even without a pin). The consumer
is not the victim here, the bank who has to get the money back is. So why
would you want to fix a system that works in your favor.

~~~
gambler
This is an interesting point. The article complains about checks being zero-
factor authentication. Well, in practice, traditional chip-less credit cards
are also zero-factor authenticated. The notion that our card numbers are
supposed to be "secret" is plain stupid, since we give it to every single
vendor we interact with.

PIN-based cards _are_ authenticated, but the practical security around those
PINs is laughable.

So would you rather have obviously insecure but resilient system, or
unobviously insecure and fragile system?

...

Making checks secure is relatively "easy". Simply have a mechanism for the
person to review and authorize every credit/withdrawal via SMS or email. The
problem, however, becomes keeping _that_ mechanism secure, especially in the
age of easily stealable and hackable mobile phones.

~~~
Matt3o12_
I want to have a system which protects me from money loss (through my own
fault, a malicious third party, or my bank's fault). I don't care how as long
as I'm protected. With Chip-and-PIn cards, I'm not protected because I have to
proof that it was not my fault (which can be incredible difficult to do). So,
I personal prefer cards that require a signature.

It doesn't matter to me if it has a chip or not (the chip has nothing to do
with the pin, there are also chip-and-signature cards and cards that support
both. The chip makes it hard to physically clone the card).

If you are interested in the downsides of the new pin card, checkout this
video: [https://youtu.be/Ks0SOn8hjG8](https://youtu.be/Ks0SOn8hjG8)

So, if zero authentication means that I am not liable for financial damages,
I'm happy with it but I wouldn't bother to use a pin if I had the same
liability. Unfortunately, the pin adds _laughable_ authentication which makes
me liable for many types of fraud (see the video).

------
cperciva
I use paper checks a lot these days. It costs me about $1 to clear a check,
and $25 to send a wire transfer.

I'd much prefer to do everything electronically, but I'm not going to pay an
extra $24 to do it...

~~~
gruez
>I use paper checks a lot these days. It costs me about $1 to clear a check,
and $25 to send a wire transfer.

Is ACH not an option?

~~~
cperciva
Not within Canada, and it's nontrivial (both in terms of paperwork and cost)
for moving money from the USA to Canada.

I inquired at my bank about electronic funds transfer (think ACH, but in
Canada) and it would have cost around $100/month to sign up for that.

~~~
tempestn
Ya, I sometimes feel like Canada is the only developed country with a more
insane banking system than the US. But in reality I think we're both about
equally insane, in different ways.

~~~
cperciva
Canada is about 15 years behind the US in terms of banking. (But about 3 years
ahead in terms of credit cards, interestingly enough.)

We avoided the mortgage securitization nightmare literally _because Canadian
banks hadn 't gotten around to it yet_. If the market crash had taken a year
longer before happening, Canadian banks would have been along for the ride.

~~~
MichaelGG
Although Canadian banks, at least 2 years ago, were unable to issue a VISA
debit card linked to my business account. They wanted me to get credit, and
appeared to be totally confused as to what a VISA debit card was. When I asked
how I could go about registering, say, domain names, or purchasing stuff
overseas, they said "Interac". It's almost adorable.

~~~
cperciva
I really don't blame them for being confused about VISA debit cards. They
hardly exist in Canada; they were originally a scheme to allow credit card
transaction processing fees on debit transactions, and Canada quite reasonably
didn't buy in.

The problem is really that Canada's interac system -- which was very advanced
for its time -- never reached outside of the country or online, and market
share means that you really want your payments to go through the major
international card networks. But that's a matter of getting unlucky in backing
the wrong horse more than anything else.

~~~
BlackFly
In many other countries with domestic card schemes, EMV cards are often co-
branded with other domestic schemes to allow the same card to be used
internationally. Domestically, low fees are maintained, but internationally
the card would still function. This was more or less forbidden in Canada (see
item 6):

[http://www.fcac-
acfc.gc.ca/Eng/forIndustry/publications/laws...](http://www.fcac-
acfc.gc.ca/Eng/forIndustry/publications/lawsReg/Pages/CodeofCo-Codedeco.aspx)

According to some of my colleagues, these regulations were explicitly made to
protect Interac against Visa debit and Maestro which were characterized as
domestic schemes from the Visa and MasterCard network.

Because there are no co-branded cards, it also means that Maestro is not
really accepted at many POS devices in Canada.

------
seanmccann
At my first startup, checks were the industry standard and we naively thought
that we could change behavior by introducing modern payment tools to our
customers.

It turned out that our customers used checks because it helped with their cash
flow. They could tell us they "cut a check" on Friday, mail it on Monday, we'd
receive it on Wednesday, and the money would be in our bank account Thursday.
They basically were able to hold onto that cash for an extra 5 days, compared
to a wire transfer.

~~~
DINKDINK
It would seem this is only helpful if you have more outflow of payments than
inflow. If other customers/suppliers are using the same tactic, all it does is
slow down delivering products and services.

~~~
zhte415
Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable:

Generally, for services provided, Accounts Payable aim for 60 days after
service provided, and Accounts Receivable aim for 30 days since service
provided.

I dislike it, and have a far nicer relationship with companies that pay on-
the-spot. Indeed, I bend over backwards for such clients.

~~~
kyllo
I've seen companies in B2B contracts ask for 90 day or even 120 day payment
terms. It's just part of the negotiation.

------
rodgerd
Why is the US so incredibly backward with day-to-day use of money? As a Kiwi
it's like jumping back thirty or forty years in time when I visit.

~~~
zb
It's a scale thing, I think. In NZ if you are a bank wanting to introduce new
technology for payments then you have exactly 5 other banks that you need to
get on board. In the US there's many thousands.

e.g. The NZ banks jointly own the company that processes EFTPOS payments. A
system like that could never emerge in the US. Instead, people have debit
cards, which are manageable because they go through the credit card companies
and there are only a handful of those.

But yeah, it's all incredibly primitive and fraud-prone compared to NZ or
Europe (I've lived in all three).

~~~
ido
Scale might explain NZ but not the EU?

~~~
palunon
Well, the EU isn't a country.

Scale might explain it for individual countries situation

~~~
icebraining
_Well, the EU isn 't a country._

But it still has introduced SEPA over its whole area. If anything, a country
should have less of a problem than a still somewhat disjoint union of 28
countries.

------
tehabe
Always when it is about payments in the US I understand more and more why
fintech startups are so successful in the US. In Germany I don't really see
the point. Wire transfers and deposit entries are cheap, reliable and they
work with every bank.

So fintech startups here have a much harder time to explain, what is different
about them.

BTW. The case what is describe in the article sounds for me like some kind of
deposit entry fraud. Something I feared for a while in Germany, because
deposit entries are very common for e.g. phone bills. But they seem to be one
difference, in Germany you can simply cancel it and get your money back,
usually 6 weeks but courts already ruled that this is just the minimum time.

------
zaroth
A computer generated check is absolutely as valid as a paper check from your
checkbook. I routinely generate images of checks which I then snap a picture
of right off the monitor in order to remote deposit. Of course this is always
done with the written and signed consent of the account holder.

Since you can't ACH outside of the US (I think) and any bank in the US has
pretty strict "Know Your Customer" requirements, you will know for sure at
least the first hop of where the money went.

I've heard of "work from home" schemes to include people acting as a middle-
man for funds like this. They receive the ACH funds, and then they wire them
overseas or send them via Western Union. These people, whether they were
honestly duped or not, have committed a felony.

So when people worry about checks containing all the data you need for someone
to empty your account, the first thing to consider is deterrence is very
strong in this area because the penalty is massive, and tracking where the
money was sent via ACH is easy.

That said, it would be nice if they could phase in a new standard which used
one-time codes and provided real-time validation for this sort of thing. ACH
transfer fees are extremely low compared to credit cards after all.

~~~
sievebrain
Relying entirely on KYC to identify abusers is very fragile. Not only does the
USA not have a modern banking system but it also lacks robust ID verification
procedures.

~~~
driverdan
As far as I know bank tellers / officers receive no ID document training.
Bouncers are better at detecting fraudulent documents.

------
mariodiana
Donald Knuth was saying this how many years ago? It's got to be something like
10 years now. This is why he stopped sending out checks for people finding
bugs in his books.

[http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/news08.html](http://www-cs-
faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/news08.html)

~~~
stephengillie
Most of Retail stopped accepting checks about 15-20 years ago, iirc. It was
about the time laser printers and copiers came about that everyone realized
how insecure they were. Now, banks are one of the few places that accept that
form of currency.

Edit: Judging from the replies, my personal memories are incorrect.

~~~
vidarh
The security of checks have never depended on difficulty of duplication. Most
places checks at least used to be valid if you simply wrote the right
information down on an arbitrary piece of paper.

------
imgabe
The percentage based fees for electronic transactions are absurd. We're
talking about moving a number from one database to another. The effort doesn't
scale with the size of the number. It's not like we have to move a truckload
of gold. There's absolutely no reason it should be based on a percentage of
the money being moved.

------
spc476
I remember reading about Patrick Combs [1] depositing a "sample check" from
some junk mail and it ended up clearing, despite it saying "not negotiable" on
it. I wish his original story was still on the web because it included a _ton_
of detail about what happened, but alas ...

Previous mentions of Patrick Combs on Hacker News:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4344720](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4344720)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2020631](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2020631)

[1] The best link I could find today:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/37b74g/til_t...](https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/37b74g/til_that_a_man_called_patrick_combs_deposited_a/crlgqcn)

EDIT: added additional Ycombinator links.

~~~
weirdkid
I remembered reading this on bored.com back in the 90's when, well, I was
bored. Here the original story from the Archive:

[http://web.archive.org/web/19971210082324/http://www.dnai.co...](http://web.archive.org/web/19971210082324/http://www.dnai.com/~pcombs/$$tablecontents.html)

------
zippergz
> By using a debit card, you’re moving money over the relatively secure Visa
> or Mastercard rails, rather than over the ACH rails.

Well... Someone who has your Debit card number and expiration date can remove
money directly from your checking account just as someone who has your routing
number and account number can. I never use ANYTHING connected directly to my
checking account to pay, unless it's the only option. There are a few things I
need to pay with a check, but I see literally zero reason to use my debit
card. My credit cards are accepted in all the same places and they provide me
with more protection (in the sense that there's a buffer between them and my
cash - even if I get reimbursed for fraudulent debit usage, the money is gone
from my account for some period of time, allowing checks to bounce and other
bad things to happen).

~~~
BlackFly
This is more an issue with your bank being too lazy to do 2-factor
authentication properly than the network itself, which supports authentication
mode for almost all channels. My company provides tools for testing payment
terminals/networks and I always make sure I use my actual debit card when I
demonstrate our tools. My bank will not authorize transactions without proper
authentication, so it really doesn't matter if people see my PAN/expiry date.
Even using my credit card online requires proper authentication when the site
supports 3D Secure.

------
syphilis2
I would love to move away from checks, but (ironically) they're the cheapest,
quickest, most robust way for me to transfer money digitally between family
and friends. Write a check, endorse the back, take a photo with a banking app,
and money is moved from one account to another without any additional fees.

~~~
sundvor
Wow, what a massively convoluted process. So you don't have the concept of
bank account numbers in the US?

Speaking as a Scandinavian expat, in Norway, a bank account number is _all_
that's required for an IB transaction - whether to a private individual or an
institution for paying bills etc (which will also require a reference,
typically). The account number incorporates all required processing
information.

In Australia it's slightly more complex by the availability of options; the
routing info is split out into a BSB (bank branch identifier) so you need that
as well as account number - and account name - for a payment to an individual.

For bills you have BPay through your Internet Banking (very similar to a
BSB+Account No payment yet a different method, and it doesn't require you to
enter a name as the BPay number will resolve to a named organisation). There
are typically no transaction fees.

Outside of Internet Banking there is also a similar Australia Post system, as
well as credit card payment methods.

Anyway I thought the Australian system was a bit hard or confusing at first,
but the concept of creating digital images of cheques sounds outdated and
painful.

~~~
dahart
> So you don't have the concept of bank account numbers in the US?

Was that really called for? Checks have account numbers on them. And checks
aren't the only way to pay for things.

The signature is a security measure. Not a very good one, but in terms of the
process is the same as your password or whatever authentication you use. You
do authenticate, right? You do need more than a single bank account number to
complete your transaction, no?

By comparing the security procedure of US checks to the information needed
without security elsewhere, you're exaggerating the difference. It _is_ easier
like you say, and checks should die as fast a death as possible, but the
process you replied to takes 30 seconds to perform, not massively longer or
more difficult than authenticating with your bank and doing it online.

~~~
sundvor
Sorry by "account numbers" I meant a standardised system of these, serving as
foundation for electronic banking.

In Norway: That single account number is all that's required to send someone
money, with amount mandatory and an optional reference. From what I know,
they've tightened security down a fair bit and require TFA devices etc, so it
may not be as easy as in Australia.

In Australia: On my Android device I use biometric authentication
(fingerprint) as a shortcut to the username password that is required on first
time login; the username is different to my account number.

When transferring to a new recipient, an SMS confirmation code must be
entered. I already explained what destination information was required, but
omitted that for BPAY, we require our customer number reference.

Once entered it is saved, which means a manual bill payment is easy as: Log
in, select payments, select recipient, dollar amount, submit then confirm =>
done. (Including login I can pay say my ISP bill in less than 30 seconds). Of
course these can be made recurring.

I would say this electronic, biometric model sounds significantly easier, but
then I've never lived in a place where banking is so paper based so that's
just my world view.

(I received a bank cheque some time ago and honestly had no clue on how to
cash it, so rare is this. I learned that our ATMs now feature scanners for
depositing, but it took nearly a week to clear).

------
trengrj
Does anyone here still use paper checks? I'm 29, living in Australia, and have
received maybe 3 paper checks in my entire life.

~~~
technion
If you rent an apartment, you'll probably be asked to supply your bond in the
form of a paper cheque.

~~~
skissane
Yes, although they usually demand a bank cheque (which I think is what is
called a "cashier's check" in the US), not a personal cheque. You go to the
bank teller, you pay them the amount plus a fee (usually out of your bank
account), and the teller issues a cheque in the bank's name not yours.

I also occasionally get bank cheques in the mail from companies. If you have a
utility account, and you close it, and it is in credit, they'll mail you a
bank cheque for the credit amount.

Actual personal cheques - my grandparents used to give me those for my
birthday. That's probably the last time I can ever remember encountering one.

------
AjithAntony
No actual news, just ACH as it has been for many years. The author was annoyed
that credit card companies allow users to pay by "eCheck" without prenote or
deposit confirmations.

> The good news is that online ACH fraud is relatively uncommon, just because
> it’s rare to find an online vendor who will allow you to pay using ACH rails
> instead of your debit card. The case of paying off a credit-card bill is a
> unique one, because you can’t use a credit card to pay off a credit card.

------
mattmcknight
I don't understand why people set up automatic payments on the payee's site.
If you initiate the payment from the bank, you have more control over when it
goes it out, can review the bill before authorizing the withdrawal, can see
all of your pending payments and their effect on your balance, etc. I don't
like giving anyone access to one of my accounts. Credit cards are a decent
buffer against this, as you get time to review the bill before paying.

~~~
Merad
I used to work for the largest provider of bank bill pay in the US (contracted
with ~80% of banks, IIRC). I would say that 95% of customers using the service
had no clue how it actually works.

In fact, the _default_ payment method of bank bill pay is to mail a paper
check. Sometimes they cut a check with your account information, sometimes
they will go ahead and pull the money from your account, but send a check
drawn from their corporate account. Sometimes they mail the check 2-3 days
before your payment date, so that (in theory) it has time to get there,
sometimes not. The only time they send electronic payments is of the payee has
set up electronic payments with them, and even then they may decide to switch
your payment to a check at any time for any reason.

What makes it even worse is that they try very hard to make sure customers
have no way to tell how their payments will be processed, and there's never
any kind of warning that something has gone wrong until you get a call about a
late bill. For example, even your payment should be sent electronically,
something as simple as a typo in the account number so it doesn't match the
expected length or format might result in them sending a check to your payee
(with the wrong account number), meaning that your payment sort of vanishes...

Personally I _always_ set up payments through the payee's site, using a credit
card whenever possible. If they screw up the payment then it's their problem
to fix.

~~~
mattmcknight
Yes, this is what I mean. I know it's often a paper check. Much like some of
the other comments, sending a paper check gives me several advantages.

I've had really bad luck with using a credit card and automatic payments. In
particular, it led to my insurance being cancelled. I seem to have my card
number marked bad by the bank at least once per year, and either get a new
number, new expiration date, or just have all transactions blocked.

Having a scan of a cancelled check in my online banking account has worked a
lot better in proving those sort of payment disputes than anything else.

------
i22
I'm not sure ACH is so much less secure than debit. You hand your card out to
far more people than you ever send a check to and it has the info they need to
use it online unless avs restrictions are enforced by the merchant, which is
less secure than a merchant enforcing ACH micro-deposits imho. With both of
these authentication methods it is up to the merchant to enforce and they are
liable in the end for the most part when they don't. American express doesn't
feel the need to enforce micro-deposits because they've already lent you the
money so if a payment fails they're not at more risk than they were before the
payment was made. In the end, it's easy to obtain the information for both and
both have systems for reversing.

------
Unkechaug
Checks can be forged, but passwords can be cracked, and data can be stolen. At
the end of the day, it's the responsibility of the company to ensure sensitive
information is safeguarded and to minimize fraud. Customers still need to
understand and practice good habits, but ultimately this ends up in the hands
of one or multiple companies that need to be responsible.

~~~
rm999
I used to work in bank fraud detection/prevention. In general, adding a small
barrier is often enough to cut crime rate drastically. This is why people lock
their doors even though a robber can break a window, or why people hide their
phones in their shoes at the beach even though a thief can just check under
everyone's shoes. These small barriers are actually very effective because
they increase effort and the risk of being caught. Checks are by far the most
frauded financial instrument and at the highest dollar amounts. It's basically
the financial equivalent of keeping your door unlocked or your phone laying
around unattended.
[http://www.stopcheckfraud.com/statistics.html](http://www.stopcheckfraud.com/statistics.html)

No one should use checks, and no one should accept them.

------
ryanackley
I work in a business that provides ACH services. This article over dramatizes
the risk of fraud.

First, for a business to even use ACH, they need a bank account to receive
payments. This involves an underwriting process and a cash reserve for any
returns.

Second, businesses have daily limits they can process. This is usually well
below their cash reserve.

Finally, any hint of fraud will cause the bank to drop them like a hot potato
and seize their reserves for a period of time to ensure sufficient funds to
process any returns. One example of fraud indication is a high return rate

------
makeset
The only time I write paper checks anymore is for larger charitable
contributions, where I assume the organization would prefer the handling
burden over processing fees.

------
ChuckMcM
I like how both the use of ACH by Stripe and Plaid and this story are on the
front page at the same time. ACH transactions are interesting but as the
article points out reversable as well. All financial organizations agree to
reverse them on demand AFAICT. That is why scammers really want you to send
them cash via western union or something.

That said, its truly annoying to deal with.

------
wilde
For those interested in a more technical dive into the system, see this blog:
[http://engineering.gusto.com/how-ach-works-a-developer-
persp...](http://engineering.gusto.com/how-ach-works-a-developer-perspective-
part-1/)

------
gizi
We already have good alternatives to these things. My financial life runs
entirely in bitcoin, except for the shrinking list of payees who are still
allowed to request payment in fiat money. Of course, I had to move out, live
elsewhere, and continue trading from there, to make it happen. But then again,
everything is so much cheaper here ...

~~~
colejohnson66
> who are still allowed to request payment in fiat money

Is Bitcoin not a form fiat money itself? It has nothing physical backing its
value...

------
kevincox
The banking system is a disaster.

