In reply to Roger Mutimer.

Did someone mention “CurrentC”?

CurrentC is a “dog”; the MCX consortium should cut its losses on this clearly ectopic pregnancy and arrange a D&C ASAP, before it is too late to lawfully do so; for, surely, the result of this union will undoubtedly be a most ugly, seriously handicapped child, which will be an enduring embarrassment for all those that ever spent any time in the MCX bed working on this unnatural conception. All MCX finally needs to finish the job is to hire eBay’s Johnny Ho: he has proven extremely capable of disposing of even perfectly good body parts.

The fact is, buyers receive none of the statutory “credit card” protections if they give the payment processor (eg, PayPal, CurrentC, whoever) an authority to make direct debits on their bank debit account. Consumers get the protections that merchants pay for when they pay via a credit card; it’s a cost of doing business for the merchant—for the buyer, no credit card, no statutory protection.

Merchants are also at risk; such Automated Clearing House (ACH) direct debit transactions are not interactive; they are aggregated for overnight settlement; the ACH mechanism was never intended for, nor is it therefore suitable for, payments for goods that are going to immediately walk out the door because, if there is an insufficiency of funds/credit in the payer's bank account, then the bank will reverse the transaction the following day.