Bitcoin Forum

Assumptions:

Bank cheques are not reversible;

A picture of a cheque can be validated within an hour of being sent;

Cheque fraud can be easily mitigated in high-risk situations;

If the above assumptions are met, would it not be viable to have a smartphone/web application take pictures of client's bank cheques, validate and deposit the respective money into an account, then in turn send Bitcoins to the paying client?

Unfortunately I think pretty much any transaction that a bank does is reversible.

In regards to cheques are you referring to personal/company or "bank cheques" (as certainly in Australia they are treated very differently)?


Cheers,

Ian.

He's talking about personal checks backed by private account funds and disputable, not the ones that are backed by bank funds that are the same as money orders.

Not actually clear about what type of cheques now (was assuming the OP's quote of my post unchanged meant my question was wrong therefore he was talking about "bank cheques").

Personal/company cheques take days to clear so obviously they are of no use.

Even with bank cheques I'm pretty sure that (at least in Australia) it would require physical inspection (not a scanned picture).

Interesting article:

http://www.bankrate.com/finance/checking/bank-not-responsible-in-check-dispute.aspx

It seems cheques aren't disputable without proper law enforcement.

Walmart can clear checks instantly, along with some banks. The technology exists -- at least in the US.

Interesting (pretty sure that don't happen down under) - I was reading an Australian article discussing about cash being used less and less and that cheques are most likely to become scrapped in a matter of years.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-13/australians-shunning-cash-for-cards/3885930

tl;dr "We know for instance that cheques are on a decline, there's about eight years left in the cheque system... and then we probably won't use cheques, we'll have to find other forms of payment," he said.

Chase Bank is on the leading edge of these types of solutions and yes, here in the US you can take a picture and e-mail/text it to Chase bank and they will deposit it.  I believe what is happening (not an expert) is that the transaction is being converted into an EFT (electronic funds transfer) or ACH (automatic clearing house?) so as long as you have an account number and routing number you can request info and send it.

I think this could be a cool service for a bitcoin bank (plug in Flexcoin ;) ) to offer.  The question really becomes how do we get the USD (or other currency) into bitcoins?  Are there fees?  Do we need to go to mtgox.com to convert? 

If Flexcoin offers an exchange service for customers as well, then the fees associated with this could be mitigated. 

If it is ACH then as I understand it would most definitely be reversible (that was the whole Dwolla problem wasn't it?).

Certainly in Australia even an EFT can be reversed (although not so simple if between different banks as I found out the hard way with WBX and ANZ).

At this point, I've had it with the current banking system.

Let's just pay everybody in Bitcoins and get this over with.

Now that sounds more like it.  ;D

You could have your checks reversed up to 2 billing cycles later I believe.
All it takes is for someone to say "my checkbook was stolen" or a few other things.

With cashier's checks and money orders you can still get slammed:
1) someone fakes a cashier's check or money order
2) you take it to your bank, they look at, accept it as legit and deposit the funds in your account
3) you send the BTC
4) a few days later your bank realizes it's fake
5) your bank debits your account equal to the check or money order
6) you eat the loss and curse the current financial system

There are services that accept checks and cash you out after a few days / a week or what.
They charge a fee and if they realize you're getting slammed with fraud will either charge more or cut you off most likely.


Yep and trade cash for Bitcoins in person. That would do it.


-Jered

I believe that Chase requires both sides of the check to be scanned, so the payee has to endorse it.  This means the payee would have to have physical possession of the check (through mail or meetup) before Chase can deposit it.

- https://www.chase.com/ccpmweb/shared/document/QuickDepositScannerInstallGuide.pdf (https://www.chase.com/ccpmweb/shared/document/QuickDepositScannerInstallGuide.pdf)

Right?!? Who knew it'd take so much work to replace the global financial system :)