I think the point here is that the various bills I have to pay don't give me their bank account number, but they ask for me to give them our account information so they can automatically subtract whatever amount. If they would give me their account numbers, I would gladly send them funds. Instead, I use my bank's online bill pay to generate a check for them.
I am not so much worried about the fraud aspect, as I am explicitly giving them permission to take amounts of their determination from my account without my explicit agreement to the amount of each transaction and on their schedule.
