ACH debit blocks/filters on consumer account
The technical feature exists to (1)block all ACH activity, (2)block all ACH credits, or (3)block all ACH debits attempting to post to the deposit account.  The large financial institutions will not deviate from their company policies and won't offer something like this for a personal account.  The smaller institutions and credit unions are much more willing to discuss options.  Especially if you maintain a large deposit balance or have many products with the institution, you might convince them this feature is very important and insist they block all ACH activity on your account. This feature is used frequently on controlled asset accounts where the balance must be frozen for a variety of reasons.
I think you're off base here.  The bureaus only remove information if the creditor cannot verify any dispute within 30 days, or if the information's super old.  If the creditor can provide corrected information, then the credit bureau is required to apply it to its own database.  A dispute can be about the entire account, or it can be about payment status within a given span (or spans) of time. Of course, it's the consumer who has to initiate the dispute. A large biller is registered and can initiate an ACH Debit to your account based on the Account Number and the Routing number. He assumes responsibility and completes the due diligence of obtaining a written mandate / permission / authorization from you. There are other legal process where by you get a Power of Attorney that would allow you to transact on behalf of someone. The key point you seem to be missing is that one can ONLY transact from ones account either by walking into the Bank / ATM, or by writing a check. There are other options as well to transact. Call Wells Fargo or go to a branch.  Tell them what you're trying to accomplish, not the vehicle you think you should use to get there.  Don't tell them you want to ACH DEBIT from YOUR ACCOUNT of YOUR MONEY.  Tell them you apparently need a paperless transaction sent to this and that account at this and that bank.  See if they offer a solution. Actually BofA never charged for their debit card usage. It was all heresy from the media because Wells Fargo and Chase Bank were actually charging their customers. As to your credit card, you know that you can close that at anytime and pay off whatever owing balance you have left with it still closed. Because more than a few utility companies have overcharged me in the past, and with online banking they can automatically deduct from my account. With a check I can control how much I pay them. It's much easier to fight a charge when they don't already have your money. My bank will let me download credit card transactions directly into a personal finance program, and by assigning categories to stores I can get at least a rough overview of that sidd of things, and then adjust categories/splits when needed. Ditto checks. Most of my spending is covered by those. Doesn't help with cash transactions, though; if I want to capture those accurately I need to save receipts. There are ocr products which claim to help capture those; haven't tried them. Currently, since my spending is fairly stable, I'm mostly leaving those as unknown; that wouldn't work for you. "Generally not.  Since authorized user cards are the same account and the difference between the two (the original and the AU card) are minimal. Note, there's nothing technically stopping banks from offering this as a feature, two cards do have identifiers that indicate they're separate cards, but the banks concern for your needs stops at how much they can bleed from you, and ""helping you control your spending"" is not part of that." &gt;Why would any customer (we aren't customers, credit providers are), use Equifax moving forwards  This incident doesn't seem to have had any impact on Equifax' ability to provide the service for which credit providers pay. I could have missed it, but I also haven't read/heard anywhere that customer (i.e., credit providers) data was compromised or that there's any push to limit Equifax' ability to gather data needed to provide their service. Surprisingly accurate. Are you in the industry? I usually see wildly incorrect info about processing online. (I work in processing.)  Only part not quite correct:   &gt;At the end of the day, week, whatever, the processor collects money from the issuing financial institution and is responsible for giving the right amount -- less fees -- to the merchant.  The acquiring bank/processor actually fronts money to the merchant (typically within 1-2 days.) The issuing bank later reimburses the acquiring bank/processor, less interchange fees. The processor then deducts the interchange fee amount and their markup from the merchant's account, making themselves whole from the original money fronting and getting their profit.  That's why there's risk to processors when it comes to chargebacks. If a transaction is fraudulent, the issuing bank isn't going to give them money for it, but they've already given money to the merchant. So they need to be able to recoup it from the merchant or they'll be out that money.  But yeah, definitely a service, and it's odd that people often argue that it isn't. Automated Clearing House transactions are used in the US for direct deposit of pay checks and direct debit of many payments for accounts such as mortgages, credit cards, car loans, insurance premiums, etc. The reason they take one or more business days to clear is that the transactions are accumulated by each processor in the network during the day and processed as a batch at the end of each business day.  The ACH network processes 20+ billion transactions per year worth $40 trillion, (estimates based on 2012 figures). I would presume this goes entirely through the credit card network rather than the banking network. I am guessing that it's essentially the same operation as if you had returned something purchased on a card to the store for credit, but I'm not sure whether it really looks like a vendor credit to the network or if it is marked as a different type of transaction. "Banks have a financial, and regulational duty called ""Know your customer"", established to avoid a number of historical problems occurring again, such as money laundering, terrorism financing, fraud, etc. Thanks to the scale, and scope of the problem (millions of customers, billions of transactions a day), the way they're handling this usually involves fuzzy logics matching, looking for irregular patterns, problem escalation, and other warning signs. When exceeding some pre-set limit, these signal clues are then filtered, and passed on for human inspection. Needless to say, these algorithms are not perfect, although, thanks to financial pressure, they are improving. In order to understand why your trading account has been suspended, it's useful to look at the incentives: false positives -suspending your trade, and assuming you guilty until proven otherwise- could cost them merely your LTV (lifetime value of customer -how much your business brings in as profit); while false negatives -not catching you while engaging in activities listed above- might cost them multi-month investigations, penalties, and court.  Ultimately, this isn't against you. I've been with the bank for 15 years and the money in the accounts has been very slowly accumulated via direct-deposit paychecks over that time. From this I gather the most likely explanation, is that you've hit somekind of account threshold, that the average credit-happy customers usually do not exceed, which triggered a routine checkup. How do you deal with it? Practice puppetry! There is only one way to survive angry customers emotionally: you have to realize that they’re not angry at you; they’re angry at your business, and you just happen to be a convenient representative of that business. And since they’re treating you like a puppet, an iconic stand-in for the real business, you need to treat yourself as a puppet, too. Pretend you’re a puppeteer. The customer is yelling at the puppet. They’re not yelling at you. They’re angry with the puppet. Your job is to figure out, “gosh, what can I make the puppet say that will make this person a happy customer?”  In an investigation case, go with boredom: The puppet doesn't care, have no feelings, and is eternally patient. Figure out what are the most likely words that will have the matter ""mentally resolved"" from the investigator's point of view, tell them what they have to hear, and you'll have case closed in no time. Hope this helps." I had exactly the same need and I ended up using BillGuard and I like it.  At the end of the day, it sends an alert where I need to review all the transactions - takes hardly 5seconds and I am on top of all transactions.  From the last 1yr I have found 1 fraudulent and 2 duplicate charge using billguard. Didn't really save a ton of money but its useful to understand how you use your credit card. Don't work for or promoting the app, its just useful. It may seem very simple on its face but you don't know the merchant's agreement.  You don't know who is providing the processing equipment.  You don't know a lot of things.  You know that Visa, Mastercard, Discover, Amex and others have network requirements and agreements.  You know that laws have been changed to allow merchant surcharges (previously it was contracts that prohibited surcharges, not laws).   That gas station, or that pizza parlor, or any other merchant doesn't have a direct relationship with Visa or Mastercard; it has an agreement with a bank or other processing entity.  The issue here, is whom do you even call?  And what would you gain?  Find out what bank is contracted for that particular equipment and file a complaint that the merchant charged you $0.35?  Maybe the merchant agreement allows surcharges up to state and local maximums?  You don't know the terms of their agreement.  Calling around to figure out what parties are involved to understand the terms of their agreement is a waste of time, like you said you can just go across the street if it's so offensive to you.  Or just carry a little cash.   If that's not the answer you're looking for, here's one for you: There is no practical recourse. Consumerist posted a list of how long to keep bills.