Sending & Receiving Money + Chase QuickPay

Unfortunately, as awesome as the group is, most of them are slightly lackingin their understanding of the latest and greatest technology. One still has a flip-phone circa 2001, one refuses to get on Facebook even though that means she misses countless pictures of her adorable grandchildren and even UTTER the words Twitter or Google+ and a collective explosion of brain cells occurs right before your eyes. That being said, I did find a way to introduce a small bit of new technology to them that helped make one aspect of their vacation a tiny bit easier – settling up expenses at the end of the trip. 

Surely most of you have been on a trip with a group of friends where you’ve either rented a house or a car together, shared food expenses or paid for something along the way that you intended to get reimbursed for. Therefore, most of us also know how ridiculously annoying it is to split expenses and pay people back as you go your separate ways at the end of the trip. Most people don’t carry much cash and I always seem to forget to bring a check to pay my share. Which means I have to wait until I get home to mail someone a check. Which means I have to find their address, an envelope AND a stamp. Which means they are unlikely to see that money until a good 30 days after the trip has ended.

Luckily, some banks have finally gotten with the times and begun to embrace the idea of mobile banking on a variety of levels. One such service is called Chase QuickPay, and it’s an easy way to send money to a friend or family member without having to dig up your checkbook or ever step foot in an actual bank. If you don’t bank with Chase, don’t stop reading – this service doesn’t require both parties to have Chase so there are still some options that might work for you.


How I Use It

Since there aren’t many restaurants in the North Woods, a lot of cooking tends to happen on this trip, and with that comes the issue of splitting up grocery costs. Traditionally my parents estimate the food/adult beverage costs for the week and have their friends give them a check upfront. If there is any money leftover at the end of the week, my Dad then reimburses each couple.

This is a terrible process. It involves a) each couple writing a check to my Dad b) my Dad cashing each check c) my Dad then writing each couple ANOTHER check if there is any money leftover d) each couple then depositing THAT check. Lots of unnecessary steps. Lots of trees killed. So here’s where Chase QuickPay comes in.

My Dad uses Chase and also had the Chase Mobile app downloaded to his phone already, so I had him set up QuickPay within the mobile app. It also involved one verification step on his desktop computer but then he was good to go. As long as one person involved in the transaction is a Chase customer, the other person does not have to be.

Steps to set up Chase QuickPay are as follows:

• My Dad set up each person as a contact by entering their email addresses into the Chase app on his phone.

• Each of his friends then received an email asking them to set-up Chase QuickPay on their end:
  • Chase customer: Simply sign into your Chase Online Account and enroll in QuickPay
  • Non-Chase customer: Create a log-in using your email address (must match the one that the money was sent to). Then, similar to what PayPal does, you enter your bank information and verify that as well. The instructions are clear, and the whole process is not extremely time-consuming. This only needs to be done once.

• Once each party sets up their account and verifies all of their information, they will be able to accept or send payments. In this instance, my Dad could then receive money from each couple, or reimburse them any money that was leftover at the end of the week.