Why were you trying to use a wire transfer for that? Maybe the bank incorrectly steered you towards that? If you consider a check an option for a transaction, a wire transfer doesn’t make sense.
In addition to speed, wire transfers are not reversible. Which is a feature, but you described it as a bug. People associate wire transfers with large amounts of money because typically the largest transaction they deal with is buying a house. And in buying a house, a wire transfer is used because no one wants an ACH reversal coming through clawing back the funds after selling their house.
Having run a business, 6 figure amounts are routinely moved via ACH. Some banks make it hard for consumers to send money to a random person’s account via ACH, but within the US, it is always possible and is literally how most companies pay their employees.
$40 on $10000 is 0.4% and it goes down from there. My national chain bank charges $25 and the typically destination fee is $15. Put the risk on the banks and get money within 2 hours? Ok
When you perform an ACH, you are actually sending money to the central bank, waiting for the funds to clear the overnight process, then the funds are sent to the destination bank. This process takes 2-3 days but ensures the sending bank has enough liquidity to cover these debt transfers. If the sending bank fails, you are SOL until the central bank steps in with FDIC/SIPC (usually immediate, but we saw 2008)
With a wire transfer, the sending bank earmarks funds and moves it to a special account. Once the central bank confirms, the destination bank takes money out of their account (this is where the delay occurs, as sometimes the bank must setup a repo with the central bank) and sends it to the recipient. If the sending bank where to fail, the recipient still has their money. Now its up to the sending, central, and destination banks to duke it out for the money.
I think Americans call that an ACH transfer, the type that's used day-to-day to pay salaries and bills.
A "wire transfer" is the thing you pay $40 for, and is immediate and irreversible. Individuals probably only ever use it when buying a house. (Within the UK, this is called a CHAPS payment.)
