Comments on: Snail-mail vs. electronic payment

By: threadbndr

threadbndr — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 21:38:13 +0000

I’m really bad about this. I’ve set most things up on auto draft. I know it’s not the safest thing, but the convienence just totally outweights the risk. It may come back to bite me in the backside some day……

By: Bret

Bret — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 23:01:26 +0000

Bill Pay is the greatest thing since the ATM and it’s usually free.

Since I bank with Wells Fargo, I signed up for E-bills. This means I can look at my phone, gas and electric bills right in the WF website. I copy the total from the E-bills to Bill Pay and pull the trigger.

I pay Citibank through their own website and write down the date and transaction number. I believe CC companies hold onto snail mail to create late fees. (Some have gotten sued for that, so I’m not just making it up.)

No one takes money directly from my bank account, except for my automatic investments.

By: funnyaboutmoney1

funnyaboutmoney1 — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 13:19:11 +0000

Wow! I’ll bet they have human beings to deal with the public, too. Retrograde, eh?

By: SimplyForties

SimplyForties — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 03:29:18 +0000

This has nothing to do with trust, just small town life. Can’t even snail mail. I have to take my water & gas bills and physically drop them, with their checks, in their respective utility collection boxes in town! I’ll be that trumps everyone! LOL

By: kjaxx

kjaxx — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 23:39:32 +0000

Like lulu, I pay most of my bills using a credit card. However, I am completely against automatic bill pay month after month. Once a month I log on and enter payment information for that month’s bill. I can wait until the business day before the bill is due.

I worry that with automatic bill pay I wouldn’t be able to cancel a payment if I wanted. Plus, it’s harder to dispute discrepancies (and receive refunds when you are right) if the money has already been paid.

By: boston renter

boston renter — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 23:25:29 +0000

My solution to this is to do all my electronic bill pay through my bank. Companies send me a bill, and when I am satisfied that it is correct I log in to my bank’s website and tell them how much to pay. It is perhaps a little more trouble than automatic payments, but as you point out it saves a LOT of trouble when there is a bill dispute. No one gets their hands o my bank account!

By: funnyaboutmoney1

funnyaboutmoney1 — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 23:01:57 +0000

Phone company. Evil. Cox IS a switch. Soooo much better than Qworst!

By: lulugal11

lulugal11 — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 17:45:42 +0000

I am sorry you are having problems with your telephone company….could you switch?

I pay all of my bills via credit card (for the rewards) and pay those two cards via ING electronic payment.

I am lucky that my apartment complex allows you pay rent with no fee if you walk into the office with a credit card so I get 1% cash back on my rent.

I don’t even know what my check book looks like anymore since I use ING online banking for everything.