Can a bank refuse ACH payments?

February 16, 2019 12:21 PM

Someone has claimed that their business bank account does not allow ACH transactions for "fraud prevention." I am not familiar with any banking institution in the U.S. that prevents usage of this basic feature. Am I missing something?
posted by ticktickatick to Work & Money (4 answers total)

Response by poster: ACH debit block appears to be a voluntary add-on one can sign up for, not something that banks implement without choice—is that correct?
posted by ticktickatick at 12:32 PM on February 16, 2019

It can depend on the type of bank account.

But yes, this is a thing.
posted by punchtothehead at 12:53 PM on February 16, 2019

"My account [not 'my bank'] doesn't allow ACH transfers," sounds like a logically valid, though sneaky, way to say, "I've put an ACH debit block on my account," without explicitly saying, "I've chosen to not allow ACH debits."
posted by WasabiFlux at 2:54 PM on February 16, 2019 [5 favorites]

I can't speak to the ACH debit block specifically, but my employer's business checking account doesn't allow external transfers from the bank's website. Oddly, if a service provider accepts ACH payments, I can submit ACH payments through their site, but attempting them within our bank account website throws up a message that the feature's not possible or available or something. Since we can issue ACH payments through vendor sites, I've always assumed we just never paid an activation fee to enable this from within our account.
posted by Fish, fish, are you doing your duty? at 10:05 PM on February 16, 2019