That was something that surprised me when I was living in Israel. I always assumed the U.S. was technologically superior in every way, but I noticed bill paying was much easier in Israel, since *everyone* that sent me a bill was willing to do automatic bank account debiting... in fact they pushed it on their customers, and that was 10 years ago, when the concept was virtually unheard of in the U.S. We never had a problem with forgetting to pay a bill in Israel. In the U.S., to this day I can't get my car payment to be automatically debited... my only option is to remember to mail them a check every month.
--------------------- Only in some part of the world. In other parts of the world, like in many countries of Europe, checks are a relic of the past. Noone overhere uses personal checks anymore (most banks no longer give their customers the option to use checks). The were never used to pay bills in the first place (companies just send you a special machine readable card, with most fields already filled out, all you need to do is sign, and send it to your *bank* which will transfer the money to the appropriate account), and in shops we just pay with our ATM cards. So, to which account do we Europeans wire money, if we cannot use a credit card (which aren't as common overhere as in the US)? Abigail
