Banks are claiming that online transactions are safer than cheques, when in fact it is the other way around - cheques are exponentially safer than online payments.
A major bank has made a press release saying, “digital payments are safer, faster and convenient way to bank.”:
If banks have no hesitation in proclaiming such distortions of the truth, then anything they say is suspect.
It is true to some extent that digital banking is convenient (that is not to say that cheques are inconvenient), but as far as major payments are concerned any extra convenience is trivial - one presents a card, or writes card details on a form or online, rather than writing a cheque (and possibly mailing it).
Electronic transactions are faster than cheques, but for the purposes that cheques are generally used for, such as payment of bills in retrospect, donations, or the purchase of high value items or property that does not need to be taken possession of immediately, speed is not important.
Furthermore, particularly for large payments, it is valid to ask oneself, “Is the minor convenience and often unnecessary speed offered by electronic payments really worth the risk?”.
As far as digital banking being safer, this is a pure lie. Internet banking and online transactions are exponentially LESS safe than traditional methods (cheques and physical cash), with Australians losing billions of dollars a year to online scams, card fraud, and electronic theft.
The bank’s press release goes on to say, “If you make a payment via cash or cheque, you also run the risk of it being stolen or lost in the mail.”.
This is stating the obvious - that there is no banking or payment system that is absolutely 100% safe. One might as well say that one can lose one’s wallet or have it stolen – with either cash & cheques OR cards in it. But unlike electronic systems, we have a high degree of control over the physical items we carry on our person, and with commonsense precautions the risk of losing one’s wallet or having it stolen is easily minimised.
And as far as the postal service is concerned, no sensible person sends large amounts of physical cash through the mail, and in the rare event that a cheque is lost in the mail, then one does a stop-payment on the cheque and sends another cheque. And regarding a mailed cheque being stolen, the thief would need to have reason to suspect that the letter contained a cheque, have the opportunity to steal the letter, and then have the skill to fraudulently alter the cheque without this being obvious – not an easy task for most people.
This contrasts markedly with the stories of massive theft of funds experienced by electronic payment users, that appear regularly in the news (as well as there being a myriad of smaller losses).
Furthermore, a letter containing card details for a payment could also be lost or stolen – and such card details would probably be easier to use fraudulently than a cheque.
So, supposed concerns about cheques being lost or stolen in the mail is really a “red herring”.
Some banks are also trying to artificially reduce cheque usage and force people to use electronic payments, and denying the public of choice, by refusing to issue cheque books to account holders.
The major banks also claim to be doing everything they can to protect account holders from scams, fraud, and theft, but their primary concern is that people might be scared off from using the banks’ electronic systems if fraud levels become too high or people become too aware of the insecurity of electronic banking.
The truth is that the major banks are not really interested in the security of peoples’ money, but want to get rid of cheques because they cannot surcharge cheques the way they can surcharge electronic transactions, and they also want to drive processing costs as low as possible. This is despite the huge profits the major banks are making.
The major banks are also reluctant to compensate fraud victims adequately, and instead they try to shift as much of the blame as possible back onto the victim.
The irony is that cheques and physical cash are safe, private, simple, transparent, reliable, robust, immune to online scams and cyber-attacks, still work during disasters, extreme weather events, system outages and power failures, and are economical (surcharge free).
If cheques are allowed to be abolished, then in the future it will be the same old story of “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.”.
Please share the petition with others who may be interested in retaining cheque payments in Australia:
https://www.change.org/save-cheques
Thankyou.
David Miller.