Is there a bank account that allows ACH deposits but not ACH withdrawals?
"Yes, kinda.   Talk to local banks about a business account, and tell them you want to enable certain employees to make deposits but not withdrawals.  They don't need to know you're all the same person.   For instance I have a PayPal account for business.  These allow you to create ""sub accounts"" for your employees with a variety of access privileges.  Of course I control the master account, but I also set up a ""sub account"" for myself.  That is the account I use every day." Nowadays, all checks you write will not be send to your bank anymore, but instead the bank where they get deposited does an ACH from your bank. That implies that not allowing this to happen, your bank would not be able to honor any checks you wrote (without enforcing paper check delivery in the mail, but the Check21 bill does not allow such enforcing anymore). Basically, your bank would not be able to do business with anyone. The obvious conclusion is that no such bank exists.
Any institution that issues checks and is connected to the ACH system can be the passive side. Any institution that clears checks and is connected to the ACH system can be the originating side. Not any institution that can be - in fact is. Your credit union doesn't provide this service because they don't want to. It costs them money to implement and support it, but they don't see the required benefit to justify it. They can. My credit union does that. "Generally, ACH transfers are not considered direct deposits. However, you can pay for this service to various providers, and they will do the transfer so that it would be marked as a direct deposit. For example, Wells Fargo allows doing it using their ""DirectPay"" system. I happen to have a WF business account (free with conditions) where this service is available, but there are plenty of providers. It does cost money (for WF - $10 monthly fee + $0.50 for a transfer to non-WF account), but it may be worth it for you if the benefit is large enough." Yes, I've done this. Just added the borderless account into Paypal as a new bank account and the money has now showed up in my borderless account. I used the ACH Routing Number for my USD account. Many banks will allow you to open multiple accounts.  Create a secondary checking account that has no automatic withdrawals and doesn't allow overdraft.  This is the account you'll use for you discretionary spending.  Get an account with a debit card and always use it as a debit card (never as a credit card, even if it allows that). Your employer may allow you to split your direct deposit so that a certain amount of money goes into this account each month.  When it gets to $0, you have to stop spending.  It will automatically refill when you get your paycheck. "There is no ""reason why this cannot be done"", but you can tell your friend that these actions are officially shady in the eyes of the US government. Any bank transactions with a value of $10,000 or more are automatically reported to the government as a way to prevent money laundering, tax evasion, and other criminal shenanigans. ""Structuring"" bank deposits to avoid this monetary limit is a crime in and of itself.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_transaction_report" Yes. it is possible, I have seen many times banks permitting overdrawing and later charging a high courtesy fees. Of course in many countries this is not permitted. In one of my account, I am running negative balance as the bank has charged its commission which is not due. The RDFI (Receiving Depository Institution) is the place where you keep your money and where the Debit is going to be made. Unfortunately the Debit did not go through for some kind of regulatory reason that I don't understand. You could ask them why people are not allowed to make ACH Debits there or you can try to pay through a different bank. You can open an account at Scotiabank and use a Bank of America atm (and vice versa). No ATM or bank imposed foreign transaction fee (outside the 1% network imposed fee) There is no bank that I know of offering such a feature and I'm not sure what the point of it would be (other than to annoy their customers). If you've been subjected to a fraudulent check your best bet is to either choose to write checks only to trusted parties and/or use your banks BillPay service (they usually issue checks on another account while transferring the money from your account). The drawbacks of your current plan, bounced legitimate checks and high maintenance nature, outweigh the potential benefits of catching a fraudulent check since you're not legally obligated to pay checks you haven't written. I'd say it's a limitation of your bank. Every bank I've ever used had instant transfers between accounts at the same bank. Schwab Bank High Yield Investor Checking Account does not charge for incoming wires (both domestic and international), and has $0 monthly fee and minimum balance (plus they offer ATM fee rebates and no international surcharge). Schwab bank does not allow International wire transfers.  Accepts domestic only. Yes it should be a ACH or other electronic transfer. However, it not unusual to have checks sent for large amounts in corporate banking. Large companies don't give large checks to tellers, they have it sent to a lockbox. However, lockboxes are suited for payment of invoices and I never heard of a billion dollar invoice.  edit: Also, I believe that some of the bailouts were done in checks, but honestly I'm not 100% on that. "Some banks allow mint.com read-only access via a separate ""access code"" that a customer can create.  This would still allow an attacker to find out how much money you have and transaction details, and may have knowledge of some other information (your account number perhaps, your address, etc). The problem with even this read-only access is that many banks also allow users at other banks to set up a direct debit authorization which allows withdrawals.  And to set the direct debit link up, the main hurdle is to be able to correctly identify the dates and amounts of two small test deposit transactions, which could be done with just read-only access. Most banks only support a single full access password per account, and there you have a bigger potential risk of actual fraudulent activity. But if you discover such activity and report it in a timely manner, you should be refunded. Make sure to check your account frequently. Also make sure to change your passwords once in a while." 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. Agree with the comment, 760 is a good score. The average score is less than 700 and average score for your age group is even lower.  (Source: https://www.creditkarma.com/trends/age)   Just keep paying your credit card bills on time. You could also ask for increases in your credit limits on your existing credit cards, which may increase your score, but could decrease it in the short term depending on how your credit card company looks at your credit history in the process.  (Source: http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/my-money/2014/06/27/3-ways-to-increase-your-credit-card-spending-limit)