Wouter van Ooijen wrote:
> Same problem remains: Your the system works the wrong way. In my country
> (and AFAIK all of continental Europe) cheques are a thing of the past
> (and were not very popular anyway). A transaction is initiated by me
> ordering my bank to transfer money to account 1234567 of mr A. BCDE. If
> this is within my own country I don't even have to know which bank holds
> that account, if it is within the EC euro zone I have to add some
> details (account IBAN and BIC codes). Cost is almost zero (think 0.05).
> At the moment I order the transaction I can check if I have enough
> credit, or maybe I must simultaneously transfer from my savings account
> to my main account. That gets done only the next day, but I can schedule
>  the other transaction after that if I want to. No way I will be
> surprised by an overdraw. (OK, I can be a bit surprised if I forgot how
> much I ordered by Credit Card, or from companies that are allowed (by
> me) to withdraw from my account, but in those cases I could have
> remembered).

Wouter, you're a hypocrite. When I made a negative comment about the way the 
European economy is being managed, you threw a hissy fit and called me a 
troll. And here you are, dissing the US banking system. :-)

However, I agree that the US banking system sucks compared to what you guys 
have on the other side of the pond (based on what you and other Europeans I 
know have said). Making an international wire transfer is a ridiculously 
time-consuming, expensive, and unreliable process. Sadly, it may take 
another 9/11 for the banks to finally convert from the antiquated 
paper-based systems.

Vitaliy 

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