Most people blindly trust the bill-pay service of their CU/bank, which is not really a service of the bank but rather outsourced to some centralized service.
The centralized services are GRATIS. So, yikes, what are they doing with the data to support their business? I don’t really need an answer… not gonna trust it.
I want another option. The normal alternative is make out a check by hand and mail it. That’s decent. I don’t mind paying for a stamp. But it’s not a maintainable option for someone who travels and needs to work remotely.
In principle, a service that prints what I need an mails it for me /for a fee/ seems ideal. That is, they need not exploit data for profit. There already exists services that will print and mail any PDF you send. But if you need a check printed, that’s a problem because checks require a special magnetic MICR ink or toner.
Or am I wrong about the need for magnetic ink? This service and this service seem to imply anyone can print a check with no mention of special ink or toner. It makes me wonder if it would be possible to simply use a service that prints PDFs and mails them.
(update) The checkeeper service uses Cloudflare. Yikes. And yet they can still claim to be HIPAA compliant. That’s sad. Otherwise it actually looks like what I am after. At first I thought it was just an check design app but in fact they will also print and mail checks for people. However, $15/month is a show-stopper… only makes sense for high-volume use.