If I'm transferring €10k to someone I don't want it to be anonymous. I want to know who got my money so I can go after them if it turns out to be fraudulent.
It's free in most EU countries. I've never paid for a bank transfer. The third party doing the transaction gives me some protection that I wouldn't otherwise have.
Can't argue against the anonymous part of it but when the transaction is between me, the seller and the bank, I'm not sure why it would need to be anonymous.
unless you print the money at home, it always gonna involve three parties.
I believe that by anonymous you meant secret.
It's not anonymous, the person who sold the item already learned a lot of things about you and you about the buyer, including your faces and what was the transaction about, which is often more than enough to identify people.
What difference does it makes if the bank knows about the transaction?
And why you wanna hide it from the bank?
There's probably a good reason, but it raises more questions than it's worth, so the reason must be veeeeeery good.
Do you not think that straight up robbing somebody requires a different level of commitment than fraud?
The guy using a fake app to pretend that they didn't receive a wire transfer isn't going to end up in a fight, the guy robbing someone of their cash might.
Not only that, bank transfers do not protect you from robbery. You can be forced to make a wire transfer, just as you can be forced to hand over cash.
I don't know what kind of prehistoric banking system exists in the US, but that just won't happen. The buyer has a bank transfer id and both parts can check the status with their bank.
There are also instant transfers that cost around 1€ of fixed commissions. They complete in about ten seconds after which the other side can check their account and the money will be there.
And finally you can use a money order if you really don't want to do a bank transfer and prefer paper.
>I don't know what kind of prehistoric banking system exists in the US
I wouldn't know, given that I am European.
> The buyer has a bank transfer id and both parts can check the status with their bank.
Generally there is no quick and easy way to verify that the beneficiary has actually received their funds.
>There are also instant transfers that cost around 1€ of fixed commissions. They complete in about ten seconds after which the other side can check their account and the money will be there.
So what? There are lots of banks which do not support instant transfers, sometimes instant transfer money just doesn't show up instantly and there's very little visibility that end-users would have into that.
How could that work? There's no way to tell if the sender or recipient is being dishonest.
Another common scam involves the buyer using a fake bank app to pay for goods, seller sees the money transferred right in front of them but never receives it.
I’d prefer to still have the option of a cash payment, even if it’s one I’d rarely if ever utilize.