I just cannot understand the bank debit order system.

All someone needs to take money out of your account is your account number. They do not need your authorisation, they do not need your signature (they should have these things, but they do not need them), they most probably do not even need you bank account holder name. All they do is send off your bank account number on a debit order run. The funds are then withdrawn from your account.

If you never authorised this withdrawal, then:

- you still have to pay the R20 bank charges for the transaction.
- you then need to pay R23 to get the information as to whom took your money and to stop the transaction.
- you then need to spend time contacting the recipient and ask them to reverse the transaction from their side - the last time I did this it involved 2 call centres (3 if you count the bank).

There is no may of stopping this happening again if they change anything in the debit order reference.

So essentially the bank will allow almost anyone access to your funds and they will do nothing to protect you from something similar happening again, and best of all they will charge you for allowing this and for not preventing it in the first place.

Can someone pleeeezzz explain to me the logic behind this system?

PS: Some street wise ideas on how to prevent this will be useful too. But keeping your account number secret is not practical for a business.